Reflections and affections on the passion of Jesus Christ - 15

I. Bellarmine says that to noble spirits affronts cause greater pain than sufferings of the body: "Noble spirits think more of ignominy than of pains of body." Because as the former afflict the flesh, the latter afflict the soul, which, in proportion as it is more noble than the body, so much the more does it feel pain. But who could ever have imagined that the most noble Personage in Heaven and earth, the Son of God, by coming into the world to make Himself Man for love of men, would have had to be treated by them with such reproaches and injuries, as if He had been the lowest and most vile of all men? We have seen him despised and the most abject of men. (Is. liii. 2). St. Anselm asserts that Jesus Christ was willing to suffer such and so great dishonours that it could not be possible for Him to be more humbled than He was in His Passion: "He humbled Himself so much that He could not go beyond it."

O Lord of the world, Thou art the greatest of all kings; but Thou hast willed to be despised more than all men in order to teach me the love of contempt. Because, then, Thou hast sacrificed Thine honour for love of me, I am willing to suffer for love of Thee every affront which shall be offered to me.

II. And what kind of affronts did not the Redeemer suffer in His Passion? He saw Himself affronted by His own disciples. One of them betrays Him and sells Him for thirty pieces. Another denies Him many times, protesting publicly that he knows Him not; and thus attesting that he was ashamed to have known Him in the past. The other disciples, when they see Him taken and bound, all fly and abandon Him: Then his disciples leaving him, all fled away. (Mark xiv. 50).

O my Jesus, thus abandoned, who will ever undertake Thy defence, if, when Thou art first taken, those most dear to Thee depart from and forsake Thee? But, my God, to think that this dishonour did not end with Thy Passion! How many souls, after having offered themselves to follow Thee, and after having been favoured by Thee with many graces and special signs of love, being then driven by some passion of vile interest, or human respect, or sordid pleasure, have ungratefully forsaken Thee! Which of these ungrateful ones is found to turn and lament, saying, Ah, my dear Jesus, pardon me; for I will not leave Thee again. I will rather lose my life a thousand times than lose Thy grace, O my God, my Love, my All.