Considerations on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ - 02

I. Adam sinned and rebelled against God, and, being the first man, and the progenitor of all men, he fell into a state of perdition, together with the whole human race. The injury was done to God; so that neither Adam nor all the rest of mankind, by all the sacrifices they could have offered, even of their own lives, could furnish a worthy satisfaction to the Divine majesty which was offended. There was need that a Divine person should satisfy Divine justice. Behold, then, the Son of God, moved to deep compassion for men, and excited by the bowels of His mercy, offered Himself to take human flesh and to die for men, that He might thus give to God a complete satisfaction for all the sins of men and obtain for them the Divine grace they had lost.

Our loving Redeemer thus came into this life, and became Man, in order that He might find a remedy for all the miseries which sin had brought upon men. At the same time, He chose to lead men to an observance of the Divine precepts, and thus to the acquisition of eternal life, not only by His instructions, but also by the example of His own holy life. For this end Jesus Christ renounced all honours, delights, and riches, which He might have enjoyed upon this earth, and which belonged to Him as Lord of the world; and He chose for Himself a life of humility, poverty, and tribulation, until He died in anguish upon a Cross.

The Jews were possessed with a delusion that the Messias would come upon earth to triumph over all His enemies by force of arms, and that, having conquered them, and acquired the rule of all the earth, He would make His followers rich and glorious. But if the Messias had been what the Jews imagined, a Prince triumphant and honoured by all men as the Sovereign of all the earth, He would not have been the Redeemer promised by God and predicted by the Prophets. This He Himself declared, when He replied to Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world (Jo. xviii. 36). On this St. Fulgentius writes: "Why, Herod, art thou thus troubled? This King Who is born is not come to conquer kings in battle, but wonderfully to subdue them by His death."

II. The Jews had two false ideas regarding the Redeemer Whom they expected. The first was the idea that the spiritual and eternal blessings with which the Prophets foretold that the Messias would enrich His people, were earthly and temporal blessings: There shall be faith in thy days; the riches of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is thy treasure (Is. xxxiii. 6). These were the glorious blessings promised by the Redeemer: faith, the knowledge of virtue, and holy fear. These were the riches of salvation which He had promised. Besides this, He promised He would bring healing for the penitent, pardon for sinners, and liberty to the captives of Satan: He hath sent me to bring tidings to those who are meek, that I should heal those who are contrite of heart, and preach pardon to the captives, and liberty to those who are in bondage (Isaias, lxi. 1). The other delusion of the Jews was that what was predicted by the Prophets respecting the second coming of the Saviour when He should come to judge the world at the end of ages, was to be understood of His first coming. David wrote of the future Messias, that He would conquer the princes of the earth, and beat down the pride of many, and with the force of His sword would subdue the whole earth: The Lord, upon thy right hand, shall beat down kings in the day of his wrath; he shall judge among the nations; he shall shatter the heads of many upon the earth (Ps. cix. 5, 6). And the Prophet Jeremias wrote: The sword of the Lord shall devour from the one end of the earth to the other (Jer xii. 12). But all this is to be understood of the second advent, when He shall come as Judge to condemn the wicked.