Bishop Challoner's Meditations - March 24th

FRIDAY, FOURTH WEEK IN LENT

ON OUR SAVIOUR'S TREATMENT IN THE HOUSE OF CAIAPHAS

Consider first, how this sentence of condemnation was no sooner pronounced against our Lord than the whole multitude of them began to fall upon him, and to treat him with all kind of outrages and unheard of barbarity. 'They spit in his face, and buffet him,' Matt. xxvi. 67. 'They blindfold him, and smite his face, and ask him saying: Prophesy who is it that struck thee,' Luke xxii. 64. They pluck his hair and beard, whilst he with his hands tied behind him, makes no resistance, but as he tells us, Isaias l. 6, 'Gives up his body to them that strike him, and his cheeks to them that pluck them, and turns not away his face from them that rebuke him and spit upon him.' Not to speak of many other shameful abuses and injuries, so that here he is treated indeed 'as a worm and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people,' Ps. xxi. 7. Here, as the prophet foretold, Lament. iii. 30, 'he is filled with reproaches.' See, my soul, what the Son of God has willingly submitted to to save thee from sin and hell. O embrace that infinite charity of his which has made him stoop so low that he might take thee up from the dunghill and place thee with him on his throne; but O! detest thy sins which have so often buffeted him and spit in his face.

Consider 2ndly, what kind of a night our Saviour passed in the hands of the rabble after the council was broken up, and the priests and ancients had retired to rest. These brutish men, instigated by the example of their masters, and by those wicked spirits that possessed them, would not suffer our Lord to take any rest during that last night of his mortal life, but continued acting over and over again the same tragedy, by mocking, beating, and abusing the Lord of Glory, and discharging their filthy phlegm on his sacred face, whilst he has no hand at liberty nor friend to ward off any of their blows, nor any one to wipe their filthy spittle from off his face, all bruised and quite disfigured with their buffets. Ah! who shall be able to recount one half what our Saviour suffered that night from these wretches - besides all the reproaches, slanders, curses, and blasphemies with which they loaded him, more intolerable than their blows; 'Many other things (says St. Luke xxii. 65,) they said against him blaspheming:' while he all the while replied not a word: 'When he was reviled he did not revile; when he suffered he threatened not,' 1 Pet. ii. 23, 'but delivered himself, not only to him that judged him unjustly,' but also to these vile wretches that so shamefully abused him at their pleasure. Be astonished, O ye heavens, to see your Lord and Maker treated in this outrageous manner by the vilest of men! But alas! my soul, they were thy sins that were the chief actors in all this tragedy. O! repent and amend.

Consider 3rdly, and set before thy eyes the image of thy Saviour in the hands of these miscreants; take a view of his face all bruised, his eyes black and blue, his whole countenance disfigured so that not one of his heavenly features can now be distinguished; his forehead and cheeks defiled with their spittle; his beard plucked, his hair all rent and torn, and his whole person strangely metamorphosed. Then reflect who this is that suffers all this, and for whom; how freely he suffers all by his own choice, and what lessons he gives thee in his sufferings; and thou wilt find abundant matter for thy meditation. But carry the eyes of thy soul still further and look in to his interior, and see the peace and tranquillity that reign there in the midst of all these sufferings, from his perfect conformity to the will of his Father; see how he prays for his enemies; see the joy with which he suffers in consideration of the greater glory of his Father, and of our salvation which he is to purchase by all these his sufferings.

Conclude with admiration and love of the infinite charity of thy Redeemer, and a resolution of imitating his patience, his meekness, his humility, and his conformity in all things to his Father’s will.