I know
indeed, dearly-beloved, that the Easter festival partakes of so sublime a
mystery as to surpass not only the slender perceptions of my humility, but even
the powers of great intellects. But I must not consider the greatness of the
Divine work in such a way as to distrust or to feel ashamed of the service
which I owe; for we may not hold our peace upon the mystery of man's salvation,
even if it cannot be explained. But, your prayers aiding us, we believe God's
Grace will be granted, to sprinkle the barrenness of our heart with the dew of
His inspiration: that by the pastor's mouth things may be proclaimed which are useful
to the ears of his holy flock. For when the Lord, the Giver of all good things,
says: open your mouth, and I will fill it , we dare likewise to reply in the
prophet's words: Lord, You shall open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth
Your praise. Therefore beginning, dearly-beloved, to handle once more the
Gospel-story of the Lord's Passion, we understand it was part of the Divine
plan that the profane chiefs of the Jews and the unholy priests, who had often
sought occasion of venting their rage on Christ, should receive the power of
exercising their fury at no other time than the Paschal festival. For the
things which had long been promised under mysterious figures had to be
fulfilled in all clearness; for instance, the True Sheep had to supersede the
sheep which was its antitype, and the One Sacrifice to bring to an end the
multitude of different sacrifices. For all those things which had been divinely
ordained through Moses about the sacrifice of the lamb had prophesied of Christ
and truly announced the slaying of Christ. In order, therefore, that the
shadows should yield to the substance and types cease in the presence of the
Reality, the ancient observance is removed by a new Sacrament, victim passes
into Victim, blood is wiped away by Blood, and the law-ordained Feast is
fulfilled by being changed.
The
leading Jews broke their own Law, as well as failed to apprehend the new
dispensation in destroying Christ
And
hence, when the chief priests gathered the scribes and elders of the people together
to their council, and the minds of all the priests were occupied with the
purpose of doing wrong to Jesus, the teachers of the law put themselves without
the law, and by their own voluntary failure in duty abolished their ancestral
ceremonies. For when the Paschal feast began, those who ought to have adorned
the temple, cleansed the vessels, provided the victims, and employed a holier
zeal in the purifications that the law enjoined, seized with the fury of
traitorous hate, give themselves up to one work, and with uniform cruelty
conspire for one crime, though they were doomed to gain nothing by the
punishment of innocence and the condemnation of righteousness, except the
failure to apprehend the new mysteries and the violation of the old. The
chiefs, therefore, in providing against a tumult arising on a holy day Matthew
26:5, showed zeal not for the festival, but for a heinous crime; and their
anxiety served not the cause of religion, but their own incrimination. For
these careful pontiffs and anxious priests feared the occurrence of seditious
riots on the principal feast-day, not lest the people should do wrong, but lest
Christ should escape.
Jesus instituting the Blessed Sacrament showed mercy to the traitor Judas to
the last
But
Jesus, sure of His purpose and undaunted in carrying out His Father's will,
fulfilled the New Testament and founded a new Passover. For while the disciples
were lying down with Him at the mystic Supper, and when discussion was
proceeding in the hall of Caiaphas how Christ might be put to death, He,
ordaining the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, was teaching them what kind of
Victim must be offered up to God, and not even from this mystery was the
betrayer kept away, in order to show that he was exasperated by no personal
wrong, but had determined beforehand of his own free-will upon his treachery.
For he was his own source of ruin and cause of perfidy, following the guidance
of the devil and refusing to have Christ as director. And so when the Lord said,
Verily I say to you that one of you is about to betray Me, He showed that His
betrayer's conscience was well known to Him, not confounding the traitor by
harsh or open rebukes, but meeting him with mild and silent warnings that he
who had never been sent astray by rejection, might the easier be set right by
repentance. Why, unhappy Judas, do you not make use of so great long-suffering?
Behold, the Lord spares your wicked attempts; Christ betrays you to none save
yourself. Neither your name nor your person is discovered, but only the secrets
of your heart are touched by the word of truth and mercy. The honour of the
apostolic rank is not denied you, nor yet a share in the Sacraments. Return to
your right mind; lay aside your madness and be wise. Mercy invites you,
Salvation knocks at the door, Life recalls you to life. Lo, your stainless and
guiltless fellow disciples shudder at the hint of your crime, and all tremble
for themselves till the author of the treachery is declared. For they are
saddened not by the accusations of conscience, but by the uncertainty of man's
changeableness; fearing lest what each knew against himself be less true than
what the Truth Himself foresaw. But you abuse the Lord's patience in this panic
of the saints, and believest that your bold front hides you. You add impudence
to guilt, and art not frightened by so clear a test. And when the others
refrain from the food in which the Lord had set His judgment, you do not
withdraw your hand from the dish, because your mind is not turned aside from
the crime.
Various incidents of the Passion further explained and the reality of Christ's
sufferings asserted
And thus
it followed, dearly-beloved, that as John the Evangelist has narrated, when the
Lord offered the bread which He had dipped to His betrayer, more clearly to
point him out, the devil entirely seized Judas, and now, by his veritable act
of wickedness, took possession of one whom he had already bound down by his
evil designs. For only in body was he lying there with those at meat: in mind
he was arming the hatred of the priests, the falseness of the witnesses, and
the fury of the ignorant mob. At last the Lord, seeing on what a gross crime
Judas was bent says, What you do, do quickly John 13:27 . This is the voice not
of command but of permission, and not of fear but of readiness: He, that has
power over all times, shows that He puts no hindrance in the way of the
traitor, and carries out the Father's will for the redemption of the world in
such a way as neither to promote nor to fear the crime which His persecutors
were preparing. When Judas, therefore, at the devil's persuasion, departed from
Christ, and cut himself off from the unity of the Apostolic body, the Lord,
without being disturbed by any fear, but anxious only for the salvation of
those He came to redeem, spent all the time that was free from His persecutors'
attack on mystic conversation and holy teaching, as is declared in St. John's
gospel: raising His eyes to heaven and beseeching the Father for the whole
Church that all whom the Father had and would give the Son might become one and
remain undivided to the Redeemer's glory, and adding lastly that prayer in
which He says, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me Matthew
26:39 . Wherein it is not to be thought that the Lord Jesus wished to escape
the Passion and the Death, the sacraments of which He had already committed to
His disciples' keeping, seeing that He Himself forbids Peter, when he was
burning with devoted faith and love, to use the sword, saying, The cup which
the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it John 18:11? and seeing that that
is certain which the Lord also says, according to John's Gospel, For God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes
in Him may not perish, but have eternal life ; as also what the Apostle Paul
says, Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, a victim to God for a
sweet-smelling savour Ephesians 5:2 . For the saving of all through the Cross
of Christ was the common will and the common plan of the Father and the Son;
nor could that by any means be disturbed which before eternal ages had been
mercifully determined and unchangeably fore-ordained. Therefore in assuming
true and entire manhood He took the true sensations of the body and the true
feelings of the mind. And it does not follow because everything in Him was full
of sacraments, full of miracles, that therefore He either shed false tears or
took food from pretended hunger or feigned slumber. It was in our humility that
He was despised, with our grief that He was saddened, with our pain that He was
racked on the cross. For His compassion underwent the sufferings of our
mortality with the purpose of healing them, and His power encountered them with
the purpose of conquering them. And this Isaiah has most plainly prophesied,
saying, He carries our sins and is pained for us, and we thought Him to be in pain
and in stripes and in vexation. But He was wounded for our sins, and was
stricken for our offenses, and with His bruises we are healed.
The
resignation of Christ is an undying lesson to the Church
And so,
dearly beloved, when the Son of God says, Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from Me , He uses the outcry of our nature, and pleads the cause of
human frailty and trembling: that our patience may be strengthened and our
fears driven away in the things which we have to bear. At length, ceasing even
to ask this now that He had in a measure palliated our weak fears, though it is
not expedient for us to retain them, He passes into another mood, and says,
Nevertheless, not as I will but as You; and again, If this cup can not pass
from Me, except I drink it, Your will be done. These words of the Head
are the salvation of the whole Body: these words have instructed all the
faithful, kindled the zeal of all the confessors, crowned all the martyrs. For
who could overcome the world's hatred, the blasts of temptations, the terrors
of persecutors, had not Christ, in the name of all and for all, said, to the
Father, Your will be done? Then let the words be learned by all the Church's
sons who have been purchased at so great a price, so freely justified: and when
the shock of some violent temptation has fallen on them, let them use the aid
of this potent prayer, that they may conquer their fear and trembling, and
learn to suffer patiently. From this point, dearly-beloved, our sermon must
pass to the consideration of the details of the Lord's Passion, and lest we
should burden you with prolixity, we will divide our common task, and put off
the rest till the fourth day of the week. God's grace will be vouchsafed to you
if you pray Him to give me the power of carrying out my duty: through our Lord
Jesus Christ, etc.
By Saint
Leo the Great
Photo taken from Wikimedia Commons
