• Passion Monday

  The Passion of Christ is a Remedy Against Sin

  We find in the Passion of Christ a remedy against all the evils that we incur through sin. Now these evils are five in number. (i) We ourselves become unclean. When a man commits any sin he soils his soul, for just as virtue is the beauty of the soul, so sin is a stain upon it. How happeneih it, O Israel, that thou art in thy enemies land? Thou art grown old in a strange country, thou art defiled with the dead (Baruch iii. 10, 11).

  The Passion of Christ takes away this stain. For Christ, by His Passion, made of His blood a bath wherein He might wash sinners. The soul is washed with the blood of Christ in Baptism, for it is from the blood of Christ that the sacrament draws its power of giving new life. When therefore one who is baptised soils himself again by sin, he insults Christ and sins more deeply than before.

  (ii) We offend God. As the man who is fleshly-minded loves what is beautiful to the flesh, so God loves spiritual beauty, the beauty of the soul. When the soul’s beauty is defiled by sin God is offended, and holds the offender in hatred. But the Passion of Christ takes away this hatred, for it does what man himself could not possibly do, namely it makes full satisfaction to God for the sin. The love and obedience of Christ was greater than the sin and rebellion of Adam.

  (iii) We ourselves are weakened. Man believes that, once he has committed the sin, he will be able to keep from sin for the future. Experience shows that what really happens is quite otherwise. The effect of the first sin is to weaken the sinner and make him still more inclined to sin. Sin dominates man more and more, and man left to himself, whatever his powers, places himself in such a state that he cannot rise from it. Like a man who has thrown himself into a well, there he must lie, unless he is drawn up by some divine power. After the sin of Adam, then, our human nature was weaker, it had lost its perfection and men were more prone to sinning.

  But Christ, although He did not utterly make an end of this weakness, nevertheless greatly lessened it. Man is so strengthened by the Passion of Christ and the effect of Adam’s sin is so weakened that he is no longer dominated by it. Helped by the grace of God, given him in the sacraments, which derive their power from the Passion of Christ, man is now able to make an effort and so rise up from his sins. Before the Passion of Christ there were few who lived without mortal sin, but since the Passion many have lived and do live without it.

  (iv) Liability to the punishment earned by sin. This the justice of God demanded, namely, that for each sin the sinner should be punished, the penalty to be measured according to the sin. Whence, since mortal sin is infinitely wicked, seeing that it is a sin against what is infinitely good, that is to say, God whose commands the sin despises, the punishment due to mortal sin is infinite too.

  But by His Passion Christ took away from us this penalty, for He endured it Himself. Who His own self bore our sins, that is the punishment due to us for our sins, in his body upon the tree (i Pet. ii. 24).

  So great was the power and value of the Passion of Christ that it was sufficient to expiate all the sins of all the world, reckoned by millions though they be. This is the reason why baptism frees the baptised from all their sins, and why the priest can forgive sin. This is why the man who more and more fashions his life in conformity with the Passion of Christ, and makes himself like to Christ in His Passion, attains an ever fuller pardon and ever greater graces.

  (v) Banishment from the kingdom. Subjects who offend the king are sent into exile. So, too, man was expelled from Paradise. Adam, having sinned, was straightway thrown out and the gates barred against him.

  But, by His Passion, Christ opened those gates, and called back the exiles from banishment. As the side of Christ opened to the soldier’s lance, the gates of heaven opened to man, and as Christ’s blood flowed, the stain was washed out, God was appeased, our weakness taken away, amends made for our sins, and the exiles were recalled. Thus it was that Our Lord said immediately to the repentant thief, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise (Luke xxiii. 43). Such a thing was never before said to any man, not to Adam nor to Abraham, nor even to David. But This day, the day on which the gate is opened, the thief does but ask and he finds. Having confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ (Heb. x. 19).

Saint for the Day

• March 23 – Sts. Victorian and Others, Martyrs
  

  Huneric, the Arian king of the Vandals in Africa, succeeded his father Genseric in 477.  He behaved himself at first with moderation towards the Catholics, but the 480 he began a grievous persecution of the clergy and holy virgins, which in 494 became general, and vast numbers of Catholics were put to death.  Victorian, one of the principal lords of the kingdom, had been made governor of Carthage, with the Roman title of Proconsul.  He was the wealthiest subject of the king, who placed great confidence in him, and he had ever behaved with an inviolable fidelity.  The king, after he had published his cruel edicts, sent a message to the proconsul, promising, if he would conform to his religion, to heap on him the greatest of wealth and the highest of honors which it was in the power of a prince to bestow.  The proconsul, who amidst the glittering pomp of the world perfectly understood its emptiness, made this generous answer: “Tell the king that I trust in Christ.  His Majesty may condemn me to any torments, but I shall never consent to renounce the Catholic Church in which I have been baptized.  Even if there were no life after this, I would never be ungrateful and perfidious to God, Who has granted me the happiness of knowing Him, and bestowed on me His most precious graces.”  The tyrant became furious at this answer, nor can the tortures be imagined which he caused the Saint to endure.  Victorian suffered them with joy, and amidst them finished his glorious martyrdom.

  The Roman Martyrology joins with him on this day four others who were crowned in the same persecution.  Two brothers, who were apprehended for the faith, had promised each other, if possible, to die together; and they begged of God, as a favor, that they might both suffer the same torments.  The persecutors hung them in the air with great weights at “ feet.  One of them, under the excess of pain, begged to be taken down for a little ease.  His brother, fearing that this might move him to deny his faith, cried out from the rack, “God forbid, dear brother, that you should ask such a thing.  Is this what we promised to Jesus Christ?” The other was so wonderfully encourage that he cried out, “No, no; I ask not to be released; increase my tortures, exert all your cruelties till they are exhausted upon me.”  They were then burned with red-hot plates of iron, and tormented so long that the executioners at last left them, saying, “Everybody follows their example; no one now embraces our religion.” This they said chiefly because, notwithstanding these brothers had been so long and so grievously tormented, there were no scars or bruises to be seen upon them.

  Two merchants of Carthage, who both bore the name of Frumentius, suffered martyrdom about the same time.  Among many glorious confessors at that time, one Liberatus, an eminent physician, was sent into banishment with his wife.  He only grieved to see his infant children torn from him.  His wife checked his tears by these words: “Think no more of them: Jesus Christ Himself will take care of them and protect their souls.”  Whilst in prison she was told that her husband had conformed.  Accordingly, when she me him at the bar before the judge, she upbraided him in open court for leaving basely abandoned God; but discovered by his answer that a cheat had been put upon her to deceive her into her ruin.

  Twelve young children, when dragged away by the persecutors, held their companions by the knees till they were torn away by violence.  They were most cruelly beaten and scourged every day for a long time; yet by God’s grace every one of them persevered to the end of the persecution firm in the faith.

       

                                                                 Taken from the “Pictorial Lives of the Saints: with Reflections for Everyday in the year

Sunday Sermon

• Passion Sunday ~ False Accusations

  

  Under the false accusations of the Jews how calm and self-possessed our Lord remains! He does not return passion for passion, anger for anger, accusations for accusations, violence for violence; but he meets calumny with the assertion of truth, and confounds his enemies by humility and meekness. They accuse him of sin; with the sublime simplicity of a pure conscience he dares them to convince him of sin. They call him names: “Thou art a Samaritan”; to so evident a falsehood he deigns no reply. Blinded by anger, they accuse him of being possessed: “Thou hast a devil”; a simple denial, “I have not a devil,” the leaving of his own glory to his Father, the assertion of his divine mission, is the answer to the blasphemous calumny. “Now we know thou hast a devil,” repeat they, waxing more passionate; but, unimpassioned, Jesus rises above their rage to the calm heights of the Godhead, and affirms his eternal generation. Finally, losing all control of themselves, they take up stones to cast at him; but he quietly goes out of the temple and hides himself, for his hour—the hour when he would bear in silence the accusations and indignities of man, and allow himself to be led to slaughter—had not yet come.

  In this our Saviour teaches us how we should behave when the passions of others fall upon us and we are made the butt of accusations, just or unjust. In such circumstances what is generally your conduct? By no means Christian, I am afraid, but very worldly; for the world counts it true valor and justice to give tit for tat, to take tooth for tooth and eye for eye. Do you not give back as good—and often worse—than you get? Prudence, let alone Christianity, should dictate to you quite another conduct. Your counter-accusations do but strengthen and confirm the calumny; they allow it to stand, “You’re another” and “you’re no better” are poor arguments to clear yourselves. It’s a flank movement that does not cover your position, a feint that does not save you from attack. The answering of a question by asking another question is a smart trick, but no answer. A calm denial, if you could make it, or dignified silence would do the work more surely and thoroughly. And so the fight of words goes on in true Billingsgate style; to and fro they fly thick and hot, hotter and hotter as passion rises on both sides. “One word brings on another,” until white heat is reached and all control of temper lost. Then, as the Jews ended with stones, so you perhaps come to more serious passion than mere words. The result is quarrels, deadly feuds, bodily injuries, and worse, may be—bloodshed and the jail. A cow kicked a lantern in a stable, and Chicago was on fire for days. Some frivolous accusation that you pick up, while you should let it fall, starts within you a fire of anger that makes a ruin of your whole spiritual life and throws disorder all around you; families are divided; wife and husband sulk, quarrel, live a “cat and dog” life; friends are separated, connections broken. Peace flies from your homes, your social surroundings, your own hearts; the very horrors of hell are around you. Christian charity has been wounded to death, and the slightest of blows, the lightest of shafts has done it. All for the want of a little patience and self-possession! How often we hear it said: “Oh! I have such a bad temper; I’m easily riz, God forgive me! I’ve a bad passion entirely.” Well, my dear brethren, learn from this Gospel how you should control yourselves, how you should possess your souls in patience. One-half the sins of the world would be done away with, if only the lesson of this Gospel were laid to heart and put into practice. What is the lesson?

  Firstly, never seek self-praise in self-justification. Jesus turns aside the calumny of the Jews, but leaves the glorifying of himself in the hands of his Father, “who seeketh and judgeth.” Secondly, pay no attention to accusations that are absurd, evidently untrue, and frivolous. When Jesus is called names and is made out to be what every one knows he was not—”a Samaritan”—he makes no answer. Thirdly, if serious calumny, calculated to injure your usefulness in your duties and state of life, assail you, it then becomes your right, and sometimes your duty, to repel the calumny, as Jesus did when he was accused of “having a devil.” But in this case your self-justification, like that of our Saviour, should ever be calm, dignified, and Christian. It should be a defence, never an attack. The true Christian parries, he does not give the thrust; he shields himself from the arrows of malice, he does not shoot them back. Superior to revenge, he pities enemies for the evil they do; he forgives them and prays for them, as our Lord has commanded. This is Christian charity, and Christian humility as well. But as it avails little to know what we should do, if we have not God’s grace to enable us to do it, let us often say, especially in temptations to impatience: “O Jesus, meek and humble of heart! make me like unto thee.”

  Five Minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year 
  Volume 1
  Imprimatur 1886