Exercise XVIII: Jesus Christ's Humility of Abjection (the Passion)

Evening Preparation.—This meditation is to be a kind of picture of the humiliations of Jesus in His Passion. We will do our best to understand them, and so to enter into them that they will really impress us. As we peruse them we may feel sure that in spite of all our efforts we shall never do more than discern the outer confines of the abyss. The Passion comprehends depths of abasement such as the human mind cannot fathom; it sees what is obvious and is appalled by what it sees, but after a little meditation it begins to realise that it has seen nothing. How would it be if we had the soul of a S. Francis of Assisi, of a S. Catherine of Siena, of a S. Theresa, of a S. John of the Cross? We should find a Jesus humiliated in ways that we never even surmised. With them we should then be ready to trample underfoot all earthly pride, and to tear from our heart the last sensitive fibre of vain esteem.

O Jesus, I have not their sight, nor such a soul as theirs, to see and feel. Thy Holy Spirit alone can bestow them. Beseech Him, my Jesus, to dissipate my false ideas and to do His work in revealing Thee; I desire so deeply to know Thee! Thou needs must be so beautiful: so beautiful in Thy humiliations, for I realise that there is in Thee a moral beauty so exalted that I cannot grasp it, so enchanting that it casts over humiliation itself a lustre that makes it to be desired!

This meditation does not exactly demand a return upon ourselves; its aim is rather to set before us, before our mind and heart, a striking picture of Jesus humiliated. May it create sincerity in our reflections, and express itself in the fervency of our love. May our soul be filled with Jesus, and we shall have then done more towards developing our personal humility than if we had anxiously surveyed our own defects; we shall then love humility with the love that we have for Jesus.

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE.—Composition of place. Make a rapid survey of the scenes of the Passion: Gethsemane, that witnessed the Agony, the treason of Judas, and the flight of the Apostles; the houses of Anna and Caiaphas; Pilate's Pretorium; Herod's palace, where injustice and hatred flung themselves in fury upon Jesus; the hall of the flagellation; the way to Calvary; the death on the Cross between two thieves, full in the public eye. A raging torrent seems to bear away its victim into an ocean of humiliations.

SECOND PRELUDE.—To ask the grace of meek and sincere resignation in humiliations.

I. Exterior humiliations.—Let us present ourselves before Him Who was "the scorn of men and the outcast of the people." We see Him as a leper, cursed of God, degraded even to the dust.

Let us glance rapidly through all the various kinds of humiliations that would most distress and revolt us.

Jesus was humiliated:

1. In His dignity as a free man.—His enemies throw themselves brutally upon Him, bind Him, and drag Him to prison. We, so jealous of our independence if it is even threatened!

2. In the modest dignity of His Body.—Stripped of His garments, scourged, nailed naked to the Cross in the sight of the people! An honourable man would prefer a thousand deaths to this shame!

3. In His personal dignity.—Insulted, spat upon, struck! How do men act under such outrages?

4. In the dignity of His Mind.—He was looked upon as a fool; He was given a fool's dress; He was forced to pass slowly between two rows of gaping people. And we, how troubled we are if any of our qualities are called in question, or any of our opinions ridiculed!

5. In His prophetic dignity.—His eyes were bandaged, and He was struck on the back and head. "Prophesy! who struck Thee?"

6. In His royal dignity.—He is clothed again in an old fragment of purple, a reed is placed in His Hand, a Crown of Thorns on His Brow. The soldiers make mock genuflections before Him, laughing rudely while they strike Him with His sham sceptre.

7. In His dignity as God.—His enemies tear from Him everything that is in their power. "He is an impostor," they cry, "for He made Himself the Son of God." On this account the sentence of death is passed upon Him by recognised authority. At Calvary, the Pharisees sneeringly cry, "If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross." Ah! when we are wrongly condemned, when we are scoffed at, how we long for revenge! And if our anger is useless, how our impotent rage consumes us!

8. In His doctrine.—He has come to destroy the law! He deceives the people! He blasphemes! He is the enemy of God!

9. In His reputation.—He is condemned by all the tribunals, Jewish, Herodian, and Roman. He is delivered up to every possible physical torment. Like the greatest criminal, He is crucified publicly in full daylight, between two thieves, and at a time of the year when Jews and strangers crowd into Jerusalem from all parts.

10. In His disciples.—Betrayed by one, denied by their chief, and forsaken by all, Jesus sees even the small section of the community that had hitherto been His adherents lost to Him.

What is left to this humiliated One?

II. Interior humiliations.—Let us go farther. Upon the ruins of exterior honour pride can still stand erect and prolong resistance. Routed elsewhere, it will take refuge in its sense of personal worth, as in a citadel as yet unassailed. It is by his moral force that man is greatest. Under the brute strength that oppresses him, he remains unconquered.

Too often, alas! this greatness of soul is unstable because it is made up of pride.

Jesus is set before us in the shame of His apparent weakness. Even before His Passion He appears to be vanquished. Feelings of fear take hold of Him— Cœpit pavere, . . . and He breathes them forth as if He cannot suppress them—Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem! . . .

He is so overcome that a sweat of blood bursts from His trembling limbs. . . . He seems so little like Himself that He repulses the long-desired chalice. He is so cast down that He seeks help from His Apostles and accepts it from an angel!

O beautiful and profound humility—in aspect so human, and in intention so compassionate!

III. Spiritual humiliations.—There is another kind of pride, more rare but not less pernicious, and this is spiritual pride. Formidable in the midst of approbation, it is no less so in ignominy.

Despised, calumniated, persecuted, we still find, as did Jesus on Calvary, a few sympathetic friends. If our attitude is dignified, if our words bespeak lofty sentiments, and if we manifest a soul superior to misfortune, sympathy becomes admiration. And should God, by some sign of special protection, grant us the aureole of martyrs, admiration is transformed into enthusiasm!

Ah! what dangers beset the soul that is not very humble! What a pedestal for its pride!

Jesus chooses unmitigated humiliation. He wills it in all its spiritual nakedness. On the Cross no discourse, but a kind of stupor, broken by occasional words that are like sobs! No radiance of the soul; everything in Him is sombre as the night that enfolds Calvary! His Father is pitiless; Jesus cries out that He has forsaken Him!

Already abandoned by men, He is now abandoned by God. Nothing, nothing on earth or in heaven, but humiliation!

His abasement is consummated and He dies in it. Oh! this Crucifix that rears itself everywhere before our eyes, with its bent Head, its livid Face, its distressing lassitude, is the image of the humiliated Man. It is indeed the very image of humility, even more than that of sorrow. When sorrow ceases, that poor Body suspended to the gibbet remains in humiliation.

Oh! what an example for us, and what a help!

RESOLUTION.—To kneel to-day three times before a crucifix, asking Jesus to make me understand this humility.