It must be evident from the contents of the preceding chapters that, so
far as concerns many details of the exercise of the Way of the Cross the
historical foundation of our present system of Stations is quite of the
slenderest. We have no sufficient warrant for the episode of Veronica,
none for the meeting with our Blessed Lady, none for the three falls,
while the order adopted for these various incidents does not depend even
upon the medieval traditions current in Jerusalem, but upon a work of
the imagination belonging to relatively modern times which first saw the
light in Flanders. To some readers this uncertainty may seem to involve
the unwelcome conclusion that the whole practice is tainted with
superstition, and that amid such turbid waters all reference to the
Passion of CHRIST as a pure fountain of devotion becomes singularly out
of place. This, however, will not, I think, be the inference drawn by
any one who takes a large and generous view of the subject. On the
contrary, the curiously complicated development of the Stations of the
Cross seems to the present writer to illustrate, in a conspicuous way,
the working of a law akin to that of the survival of the fittest, a law
which meets us, more often than might be expected, in this and many
similar matters of popular piety. If one particular set of Stations has
prevailed in preference to another, this, I conceive, is ultimately to
be attributed to the fact that the one appeals more strongly than the
other to the pious imagination or to the devotional needs and feelings
of the faithful at large. While we may recognize, in the most emphatic
way, the desirability of more rigorous scrutiny into the authenticity of
relics, indulgences, legends, patristic apocrypha and other such matters
of pious credulity, we have after all to remember that these things are
the aids and means of devotion, but not its final cause. Historical
research concerns itself with such matters, and the verdict of science
most certainly should be respected. But historical research is not
possible for the rank and file of Christian believers, nor even _ex
professo_ for the pastors of the Church. Provided that the large element
of uncertainty which enters into such matters be admitted, no great harm
can arise from the prevalence of any particular legend which, though
historically doubtful, is not in itself extravagant or disedifying. As
the celebrated Dominican, Père Lagrange, has admirably said when
speaking of the authenticity of certain of the holy places, venerated by
the faithful and enriched with indulgences:
“If Origen, Eusebius, St Jerome, Sozomen, are all mistaken, not merely
as to the precise situation of the house of Cleophas, but about the
identity of Emmaus Nicopolis with the Emmaus of the Gospels, how can we
expect a pilgrim prostrate in the dust at a street corner to hold for
certain that at this identical spot our SAVIOUR fell for the second or
the third time? We are told the pilgrims come to make the Stations of
the Cross, and that if they have not a blind confidence in the _hic_
(here) of the lay-brother who is taking them round, they lose all
devotion. Surely this is a poor compliment to pay them. The faithful
know very well that when the Church proposes some special mystery of our
LORD’S life for their veneration, the word _hodie_ (to-day) which is
used in the liturgy has only an approximate value. The pilgrims are no
more the slaves of the _hic_ than they are of the _hodie_. They are
happy to follow the footsteps of CHRIST, to make protestation of their
gratitude to the GOD made Man; to kiss the stone in token of their
humility and adoration; but their devotion will only be the more free
and spontaneous if it is not necessarily taken for a stolid act of faith
in the assertion of a topographical fact. If it were otherwise, we
should have to remind them that our SAVIOUR has taught us to adore the
Father in spirit and in truth.”[146]
Once the symbolical character of so many of our aids to devotion is
understood and allowed for, we can use them without danger as stepping
stones to a higher knowledge and a deeper love of the Source of all
grace. We venerate them for what they symbolize and for that which they
help to bring nearer to us, but we are comparatively indifferent at such
moments to questions of history or fact. It is sufficient for us that
they possess a certain relative truth. Dives and Lazarus may or may not
have been actual living persons, but when we are meditating upon the
lessons of our LORD’S parable, it does not occur to us to press the
inquiry whether it was founded upon an incident that had actually
occurred.
It has just been said that we have probably arrived at our present
series of fourteen Stations by a sort of process of the survival of the
fittest. Without attempting any rigorous proof of such a proposition, it
is at least easy to see that some of the incidents which are from an
historical point of view most open to question, are also, devotionally
speaking, among the most helpful to piety. Take, for example, the sixth
station, the episode of St Veronica. Few of our LORD’S sufferings on His
toilsome journey to Calvary have suggested more beautiful thoughts to
those who have commented on the Stations than this parable of loving
charity. This is how the episode has moved the devout fancy of Cardinal
Newman. It will be remembered that the meeting with our Blessed Lady and
the call of Simon of Cyrene are the Stations which immediately precede.
Of Veronica Cardinal Newman writes thus:
“The relief which a Mother’s tenderness secured is not yet all she did.
Her prayers sent Veronica as well as Simon—Simon to do a man’s work,
Veronica to do the part of a woman. The devout servant of JESUS did what
she could. As Magdalen had poured the ointment at the feast, so Veronica
now offered Him this napkin in His passion. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘would I
could do more! Why have I not the strength of Simon, to take part in the
burden of the cross?’ But only men can serve the great High Priest, now
that he is celebrating the solemn act of sacrifice. O JESUS, let us one
and all minister to Thee according to our places and powers. And as Thou
didst accept from Thy followers refreshment in Thy hour of trial, so
give to us the support of Thy grace when we are hard pressed by our
foe.”[147]
To that great sufferer and lover of the poor, Henri Perreyve, the same
Station suggests a quite different train of thought, but one not less
beautiful. I take the following passage from a recently published
Anglican translation:
“I adore Thee, LORD, as I behold the holy Veronica wiping with a linen
cloth Thy sacred face bathed in sweat, in tears and in blood. She is not
deceived by Thy wan bruised face, Thy weary step, Thy soiled garments.
It does not astonish her that Thou now dost realize the vision of the
completed sorrow which afflicted the eyes of Isaiah, that Thou art the
man of sorrows acquainted with grief, wounded and bruised, whom the
prophet confessed that he did not recognize. The love of Veronica is not
mistaken in Thee, to her Thou art always JESUS. Nothing stops her,
neither the dense crowd through which she must break, nor the noise of
the people, nor the presence of the guard, nor the disdainful glances of
the Pharisees, nor the stately progress of the public procession, nor
the prancing of the horses, neither false shame nor the fear of death.
She does not hesitate, she runs and touches Thee, and tenderly wipes Thy
face, her hands trembling the while with holy fear; all was impossible,
but she has dared all, she has accomplished all.
[Illustration: _THE VIA DOLOROSA, NEAR VERONICA’S HOUSE, LOOKING
DOWNHILL._ _From a recent Photograph._]
“O Master, in this scene Thou art the perfect type of all humanity, poor
and suffering; and Veronica is the type of charity. While Thou art
dragging after Thee Thy cross, little resembling the perfect Man, but
rather, as the psalmist dares to say, ‘a worm and no man,’ Thou bearest
in Thy person all the poor; but on the other hand, the least of the poor
who suffer hunger and cold in our great cities bears Thy image, O JESUS,
and recalls the practical teaching of thy gospel. As there is in the
Holy Eucharist Thy real presence, so also there is another real presence
of Thee in the persons of the poor, and therefore Thou hast said plainly
that what is done to the meanest of them is done unto Thyself.
“More happy than Veronica, whose trembling hand touched Thee but once,
Christian charity is able, every day and every moment to dry Thy tears,
to wipe the sweat from Thy brow, the brow of Thy poor. Who will teach us
to love Thy poor sufficiently, who will teach us to regard their
sorrows, to worship them as the sacrament of Thy passion? Who will teach
us always to see beneath their features, disfigured though they may be
by physical and moral misery, the features of JESUS? Who will give us
the spirit of Veronica, her unquenchable hope, her irresistible courage,
her conviction that she will succeed, and the degree of love which we
need to accomplish all that we have undertaken? Thou only, O divine
Master, canst kindle in our souls those flames of love, which would fain
devour all the evils of the earth, and will not die down in Thy Church
while there yet remains one sorrow in the world.”[148]
Veronica as a personage—she must be distinguished from her napkin, often
also called by the name Veronica (in English _Vernicle_)—was not a very
familiar character in the devotional literature of the middle ages. Her
house was not shown in Jerusalem before the fourteenth century at
earliest,[149] and it is not generally spoken of by pilgrims before
1435. Hence, in the York mystery plays, though we find the incident of
the napkin and the miraculous portrait, it is not Veronica, but one of
the three Marys who presents the napkin to our LORD.
But the beautiful symbolism of the episode itself did not fail to
impress the imaginations of our pre-Reformation forefathers. The _Salve
sancta facies nostri Redemptoris_ was one of the most popular of
medieval hymns, and when Veronica does appear in medieval drama, we may
detect, if I mistake not, a very tender note in the few brief words
assigned to her. Thus in the Coventry mysteries dating from the early
fifteenth century, we read:
_Veronica._ “Ah! ye synful pepyl! Why fare thus?
For sweat and blod He may not see!
Alas! Holy prophete, CHRYST JHESUS!
Careful (i.e., full of care) is myn heart for Thee.”
And she wipeth His face with her kerchy.
JHESUS. “Veronica, thy wiping doth me ease;
My face is clene, that was black to see.
I shall them kepe from alle mysese
That lokyn on thy kerchy and remember me.”
Again there is undoubtedly something which makes a special appeal to
man’s weak and sin-laden heart, both in the conception of the fall of
JESUS under His cross and in the circumstance of its triple repetition.
“Who is it,” asks St Leonard of Port Maurice, “that has thus again
stricken down the LORD of heaven and earth? It is I, I who have heaped
sin upon sin, who have added torment to torment.” Or, if I may again
quote the beautiful language of Cardinal Newman:
“Yes, it is as I feared; JESUS, the strong and mighty LORD, has found
for the moment our sins stronger than Himself. He falls—yet He bore the
load for a while; He tottered, but He bore up and walked onwards. What,
then, made Him give way? I say, I repeat, it is an intimation and a
memory to thee, O my soul, of thy falling back into mortal sin. I
repented of the sins of my youth and went on well for a time, but at
length a new temptation came when I was off my guard, and I suddenly
fell away. Then all my good habits seemed to go at once; they were like
a garment which is stripped off, so quickly and utterly did grace depart
from me. And at that moment I looked at my LORD, and, lo! He had fallen
down, and I covered my face with my hands and remained in a state of
great confusion.”
It is difficult to quote translations after such perfect English as
this, but in turning again to the Stations of the saintly Henri Perreyve
I will venture this time to cite with modifications the text of an older
English version of Catholic origin:
_Jesus falls beneath the weight of the Cross._
“I adore Thee, LORD JESUS, falling beneath the weight of the cross. Thou
didst erewhile receive it with the steadfast courage of love for Thy
creature man. In that courage the sad procession set out. But as the
Victim advances the anguish of the sacrifice increases. That cross which
at first seemed supportable has become an overwhelming burden. O Master!
Thy strength hath failed Thee, Thou hast fallen prostrate by the
wayside.
“And so also is it with human sorrows in this world, when they follow
one upon the other, accumulating force with time. Such stricken souls
may often be seen strong and courageous at first, yet they are at last
crushed to earth by the ever-growing weight of their desolation. It is a
beloved child that has been taken, but two remained; death comes again
and takes a second, and then the other. It is too much, all strength
fails, the cross is too heavy; it is no longer that cross of yesterday,
which was still endurable. No, it seems a mountain, a very world of woe.
The soul gives up the struggle and itself sinks to earth amid the ruin
of all that it has loved. Poor tortured soul! when thou hast rallied
from that swoon of pain, there is nothing of which I would talk to thee
save of the fall of JESUS—JESUS sinking beneath His cross. Look upon
Him, I pray thee, look upon Him while I hold my peace. He alone can
speak life-giving words capable of raising thy soul from that worst of
all agonies, despair.
“O eternal Word! O Son of GOD! consubstantial with Him in the plenitude
of Thy eternal generation, inseparable from that divine nature, one with
the FATHER and the HOLY GHOST, distinct only in Person, I thank Thee
that, assuming our humanity, Thou wert willing also to fathom the
uttermost depths of our weakness. Thou couldst have saved the world
without that excess of humiliation, but Thou couldst not without it have
consoled us by Thy example in the hour of crushing agony and desolation.
For that we needed a SAVIOUR who had known like ourselves the weight of
a cross beyond His strength, who could teach us through his own
infirmity not to fall into utter contempt of ourselves in those moments
of supreme discouragement. My REDEEMER, Thy mysterious fall reconciles
me to my own weakness. That fall did not hinder Thy sacrifice; it did
not prevent Thee from reaching the summit of Calvary. Thou didst stagger
to Thy feet and continue to go forward.
“O JESUS, when my strength fails, when the cross becomes too heavy, when
I fall, do Thou raise me up, and with the support of Thy divine hand
enable me to follow Thee along that road of daily difficulties and
sorrow in which Christian virtue is put to its hardest test.”
The reader, I trust, will not be wearied by this series of quotations.
It seems to me that they illustrate well the rich vein of spontaneous
and devout reflection which the subjects of the Stations open up to
reverent minds. Neither need we suppose that it is only men of the
intellectual standing of Newman and Perreyve who can find food for
thought in such meditations. Here, for instance, is a little prayer
which appears originally in Pascha’s “Spiritual Pilgrimage,” and which
has been summarized by the seventeenth-century English translator “R.
H.” in the following form. It deals with the incident which Pascha
called the fifth station, but which is now the second of our
series—“JESUS is made to carry the cross:”
“O most noble KINGE and valiant Standard Bearer, who for the love of me
didst permit the heavier burthen of the crosse to be laid upon Thy
shoulders, which were full sore with stripes, and therewithal all the
sins of the world, offering the same by Thy death upon the aultar of the
crosse to Thy heavenly FATHER, I beseech Thee to help me to carrie my
crosse that I may willingly sustaine the same and to serve Thee
according to my vocation. Amen.”
“O noble King and valiant Standard Bearer” is surely a memorable phrase,
rich with subtle memories of the _Vexilla Regis_ and yet within the
comprehension of the simplest and the rudest. So is the same writer’s
description of our LORD “walking between two thieves as the Captain of
them” when He presents Himself to the view of His Blessed Mother, or
again the suggestion that His sacred Body was “stretched like a string
upon the cross, Thy veins and sinews being so broken therewithal that
Thy precious Blood issued forth like fountains of water.”
Of course the ideal attitude of the faithful soul when engaged upon the
exercise of the Way of the Cross is that of the actual pilgrim who has
journeyed over land and sea to pay homage to the scenes of our SAVIOUR’S
passion and bitter death. What deep feelings were aroused in the
pilgrims of old, upon their coming within the precincts of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre has already been illustrated incidentally by our
quotations from Fabri and other early writers. But there is no lack of
such testimonies. Neither can we have the least doubt that these
pilgrims were just as simple and sincere in the account which they gave
of their emotions of piety as they were in their frank comments about
matters which were more mundane. It is precisely this quality of
unmistakable candour in Fabri which makes his narrative so
extraordinarily attractive. Moreover, his diffuseness shows that he has
written entirely at his ease. He talks to us with exactly the same
freedom with which he would have gossiped with some old schoolfellow and
fellow religious in his convent at Ulm, thoroughly enjoying both his own
story and the perfect comprehension of his listeners. Perhaps nothing in
all Fabri’s wanderings tells us more of the ardent spirit of the old
pilgrims than the passage in which he describes himself as unable, when
nearing the coast of Palestine, to eat or rest or converse, but as
seated all day long in the bows of the vessel straining his eyes to
catch the first glimpse of that blessed shore. However, it will be more
to our purpose if I quote the account which he gives, first of all of
the rock of Calvary and then of the Holy Sepulchre. And before we come
to these longer extracts it will be well to preface his remarks by two
shorter passages, one descriptive of the feelings of another pilgrim, a
good Augustinian friar, who came to the Holy Sepulchre 150 years before
Fabri, the other taken from Fabri’s own account of the starting of the
procession within the sacred edifice. And, first, this is how Brother
James of Verona describes his sensations of awe when after many months
of weary pilgrimage he was at last permitted to cross the threshold of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:
“Upon Monday, August 7, in the year of our LORD, 1335, the Sepulchre of
our SAVIOUR was thrown open to me and my companion and to two strangers;
there were but four of us in all. It was the third hour, and the door
was immediately shut again. And as I entered, sinner though I be, the
LORD JESUS CHRIST wounded my heart, and the ardour of a most burning
love possessed me, so that while sober, as regards food and drink, I was
intoxicated with a certain heavenly sweetness. I fell prostrate upon the
earth, reminding myself that I was unworthy in the presence of so
priceless a sanctuary to look upon it with my eyes, to draw near with my
feet, to touch it with my hands, or to traverse it with my body.
Nevertheless, trusting in the divine Goodness, seeing that it was said
by the prophet David: _Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini_ (approach Him,
and be enlightened), I did draw near, I looked, I touched and I wrote
down what I had seen.”[150]
Fabri, when he visited the Holy Sepulchre, was one of a much larger
party. We have already learned the substance of the instructions
delivered to the pilgrims by the Father Guardian of Mount Sion. After
the summary which he gives of that discourse, Fabri proceeds as follows:
“Having thus received the rules by which we were to be guided while in
the holy temple, we each of us went to the merchants, and every one
bought candles of the whitest of wax, great or small, ornamented or
plain, as he pleased. There was no lack of vainglory even in this, for
some had candles curiously twisted and decorated with gilding and
painting, which they carried with ostentation, and looked with scorn
upon those who carried plain candles, blaming them for close-fistedness.
Some bought many candles, which they lighted in the Chapel of the Holy
Sepulchre and then extinguished, and afterwards took them home with them
to their own country, where they made their wives hold them lighted when
they were in childbed, that they might be delivered without danger, for
they say that these candles are useful for that purpose.
“Now, while we were busied about buying our candles, the brethren with
the Father Guardian were arraying themselves, putting on their sacred
vestments, which they had brought with them from Mount Sion, to make a
solemn procession round all the holy places in the same order, wherein
they had made that on Mount Sion, as has been told before.
“So when we were all standing in order with our lights burning, the
precentor at the head of the procession began in a loud and cheerful
voice to sing the _Salve Regina_, which we all took up, and chanting
this hymn we came in procession to the chapel of the glorious Virgin
Mary, to the altar in front of the chapel.”
The details of the passing of the pilgrims from shrine to shrine are a
great deal too diffusely narrated to be quoted here. Let us come,
however, to what our pilgrim tells us of their visit to what he calls:
“The most Holy Mount of Calvary, whereon the LORD JESUS hung upon the
cross.”
“After we had finished all that was to be done in the holy cave, we
presently came up again and re-entered the church through the door. As
we resumed our procession the precentor began in a loud voice to sing
the hymn, _Vexilla regis prodeunt_, etc. Singing this we came to the way
up to the most holy Mount of Calvary, up which we went by eighteen stone
steps from the church below it. Above we entered a light, beauteous
chapel, adorned with polished, variegated marble, and wherein there hung
many lighted lamps. In it stood three altars, adorned with paintings
done in mosaic work. This chapel is built of vaulted work, supported by
a marble column in the midst of the building. On the other side of the
vault are paintings of David and Solomon, David with the text, _Qui
edebat panes meos, magnificavit super me_,[151] etc., and Solomon with
the text, _Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum_,[152] and a picture of the
sacrifice of Isaac. This chapel is built above the Mount of Calvary.
When we were all come into it, and now before our eyes was displayed
that wondrous stone, that desirable rock, with its admirable
socket-hole, wherein the most holy cross bearing the crucified One was
inserted—when we beheld these things, scared and bewildered at their
exceeding great holiness, we fell down upon our faces on the earth, and
one heard no longer psalmody, but lamentation; no longer the singing of
hymns, but wailings and groans. No one was there who could withhold
himself from tears and cries; for who could have so hard a heart that it
would not be rent in that place, where he beheld before his eyes the
hardest rock to have been rent? Who would not even weep aloud in the
place where CHRIST our GOD cried with a loud voice as He hung upon the
cross; where likewise He prayed for those who had crucified Him,
promised paradise to the thief, commended His deeply sorrowing Mother to
the care of John, and drank the vinegar mingled with gall; where He said
that all was finished, yielded up His spirit into the hands of His
Father, and breathed His last; where the soldier pierced His side with
his lance, and there came forth blood and water? Lo, devout pilgrim, it
was here that Abel was slain by his brother,[153] and Isaac was bound
for sacrifice by his father, the brazen serpent was set up by Moses, the
paschal lamb was slain according to the law, GOD was slain by man, JESUS
was crucified in the flesh, thy King was hung upon the cross, thy LORD
was condemned to death, the meek and holy and innocent was drenched with
blood, offering Himself both as priest and as victim. These thoughts and
others of a like nature occurred to our minds at this most solemn place,
and we remained for a long time bowed to the earth in prayer. When we
had finished our prayer, we went one after another to the holy rock,
which projects above the floor, and each one as best he could, crawled
to the socket-hole of the cross, kissed the place with exceeding
devotion, and placed his face, eyes and mouth over the socket-hole, from
whence in very truth there breathes forth an exceeding sweet scent,
whereby men are visibly refreshed. We put our arms and our hands into
the hole down to the very bottom; and by these acts we gained plenary
indulgences.
“On the left hand side of the socket-hole is a great rent in the rock,
from the top to the bottom, which is believed to have been made at
CHRIST’S death. We went up to this rent one after another, and kissed
it, putting our heads into it and as much of our bodies as we could.
Moreover, on either side of the holy socket there are two other sockets,
in which the crosses of the two thieves, Dysmas and Gresmas, who were
crucified together with JESUS, were placed; but these sockets cannot be
seen, because upon them stand low pillars, upon whose heads there are
iron spikes, upon which wax candles and lights are stuck, so that these
pillars are, as it were, candlesticks. Howbeit, we kissed the pillar
which stood at the right hand of the cross.”
Fabri tells us that the whole body of pilgrims remained on Calvary
“giving themselves up to prayer and devotion,” for more than an hour.
Afterwards, following the course of the passion, they visited the stone
of unction and some other shrines. But the climax of this solemn
procession was the coming to the Holy Sepulchre. Obviously the joy of
that supreme moment was still vividly present to his mind when he wrote
his account: He heads this section: _How the pilgrims came into the most
Holy Sepulchre of the_ LORD JESUS.
“Rouse up yourselves now, my lords and brother pilgrims, arise and hurry
onward with a swifter pace, but come not save in a cheerful mood. Lay
aside all sorrow, wipe away the tears from your eyes, refrain from
lamentations, and all together sing that sweet Easter song, Alleluia;
for after the gloomy Jewish Sabbaths a genial light has shined forth
upon the world from the squalid and darksome sepulchre which we are
about to enter; for the world has received far brighter light from
thence than from the glimmering bodies in the firmament. Come then with
joy and praise, look upon the place where the LORD was laid, and behold
the end of your pilgrimage. So hereupon the precentor in a pleasant and
cheerful voice began the paschal hymn, _Ad cænam agni providi_, etc.,
and we walked on in procession chanting it, and came to the most
precious sepulchre of the LORD JESUS, before which we rang out our
Easter hymns with many an Alleluia, with as great, or it may be with
even greater joy than if we had reached happy Easter day after a sad and
toilsome Lent. For as on Mount Calvary we pitied our LORD CHRIST, and
shed tears, so here we rejoiced with our REDEEMER, and offered to Him
sweet tears of joy and lively songs, and rightly so; for JESUS, our
SAVIOUR, after His tears and sorrow, after His mockings and scourgings,
after His cups of vinegar and gall, after His torture and wounds upon
the cross, after His terrible death itself, after His piteous burial,
after He had descended into the everlasting shades of hell, after He had
broken the iron bars, after He had bound the prince of darkness, and set
free all the chosen patriarchs, rose glorious and triumphant from this
tomb we now behold. From this darksome cave there shone forth so bright
a light, there darted forth so brilliant a ray, there gleamed such snowy
whiteness, there appeared such blessed peace, there came forth such
happiness, there breathed forth such salvation as made the earth, sea
and sky to rejoice together. In this sepulchre, in this tiny hut did the
eagle renew its youth, the lion roused up its cub, the phœnix renewed
its life, Jonah came forth unharmed from the whale’s belly, the
candlestick was clad with gold, the tabernacle of David which had fallen
down was set up again, the sun shone forth after being behind a cloud,
the grain of wheat which had fallen into the earth and died had
quickened, the stag again put forth his horns, Samson bore away the
gates and broke through his guards, Joseph was brought forth from
prison, shaved, gaily dressed, and made Lord of Egypt. The sackcloth of
CHRIST JESUS was cut away; He was clothed with gladness, and besides all
this, our toilsome pilgrimage, our weary wanderings are here ended and
brought to rest. Here, then, I pray you, let us lay aside our pious
plaints of sorrow, our clouds of grief, and let us draw a quiet breath
in happiness: let us who have followed our REDEEMER to His tomb with
sorrow now take part in the joy of His glorious resurrection. Come,
then, gather yourselves together, knights and kindly pilgrims, enter the
most holy sepulchre and see with your eyes, feel with your hands, touch
with your mouth the place where the LORD lay. So we joyously went in,
one after another, into the most precious sepulchre of the LORD JESUS,
kissed the most holy bier, and received entire and most plenary
indulgences for all sins. We were indeed filled with an especial joy
here, greater than what we felt at the other holy places. Thus St
Bernard, in the second chapter of his sermon to the Knights Templars,
says that the sepulchre hath as it were the pre-eminence among the holy
and desirable places, and that something more of devotion is felt at the
place where He lay at rest than at those where He moved about in life.
Thus, too, the remembrance of His death excites our piety more than that
of His life: I suppose because His death was cruel, while His life was
pleasant by comparison, and because our human weakness is more attracted
by the repose of sleeping than the toil of living among men, more by the
safety of death than by righteousness of life. The life of CHRIST is to
me a rule by which to live, His death is my redemption from death. Here
we received spiritual refreshment and indulgences, and passed out with
joyous thanksgiving, and thus our procession came to an end one hour
before midnight.”
As a counterpart to this vivid description of an actual visit to the
Holy Sepulchre, I venture to turn to the meditation which Perreyve
suggests for those who, in making the Stations of the Cross, would
contemplate the Sepulchre in spirit. He takes up and develops an idea
which is already suggested by Fabri, that of the grain of wheat falling
to the ground. No one of Perreyve’s reflections on the Stations is more
beautiful than this.
[Illustration: _THE ENTOMBMENT._ _From the “Geystlich Strass,”
Nuremberg, 1521._ Even at this early date the Pieta and the Sepulchre
were included in the exercise of the Stations of the Cross. See p. 186.]
_The Sepulchre._
“I adore Thee, Lord Jesus, whilst faithful, loving hands bear away Thy
sacred body and lay it in the Sepulchre, of which they close the
entrance with a great stone. I adore Thee during the silence of that
stupendous night, in which the author of all life seemed bound in the
chains of death. The Pharisees, alarmed by the memory of Thy prophecies,
cause the stone-closed entrance of Thy tomb to be sealed; guards watch
before it; Thy disciples are dispersed; all around is wrapped in
silence. It seems as if death had gained the victory, and finally
asserted its empire.
“Yet speak, O Master, and tell me what lesson I ought to learn from that
last act of Thy Passion.”
JESUS CHRIST: “My child, you must not see in My tomb a mystery of death,
but a mystery of life. Let not My lips now so silent, My body so
motionless, My heart so chill and pulseless deceive you; it is not death
which triumphs, it is life which withdraws itself for a moment but which
will soon rise again to roll away the stone for ever.
“Remember, My child, the parable I one day spoke to My disciples:
‘Unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, itself
remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’[154]
Think of what a grain of wheat is in the hands of him who sows. The
grain at first is hard, shut up in itself, unproductive. Then if the
hand of the sower cast it into the furrow, it disappears into the earth,
and it remains hidden, covered as with a shroud. Next follows death. The
seed is dissolved by rain, by the ardent rays of the sun, by the very
action of its tomb; it dies, but immediately all-conquering life springs
from the confines of its utter annihilation. Nothing can resist it now,
neither stones, nor darkness, nor the winding-sheet that wraps it round,
nor the tomb within which it lies; it grows, it climbs, it pierces the
earth, and looking fearlessly out upon the sun, it pushes its way
upwards, bearing in its bosom an entire harvest. Now this triumphant
death of the grain of wheat is the symbol of My death, and of the
spiritual death of all My children. It faithfully portrays the
transformation of souls, who once for all learn to die with Me, and to
await in My sepulchre their hour of resurrection. Happy the soul which
realizes that it is only awaiting the moment of release. For you, My
child, to whom I have confided My secrets, surely you understand now
what it all means.
“‘My sepulchre,’ I have said. Shall I tell you what it is? It is all
that hides the Christian from the world and from himself. It is all that
humbles you, my child, all that opposes your wishes, defeats your best
efforts, checks every generous impulse, reduces your will to impotence,
seems to drag you down to nothingness, and to render you unheeded and
useless in this world. It may be bodily infirmity, that great
contradiction of nature, which twenty times a day breaks down your will;
it may be the unintelligent malice of men who do not understand your
generous projects, and take pleasure in putting a thousand obstacles in
the way of their fulfilment. It must be in any case the cumulative
effect of the weakness, the difficulties, the misunderstandings, the
misery in yourself and in others, which so often cast a dull and heavy
pall over your life and leave you without heart for the struggle. This
is your sepulchre. Enter it, My child, enter it as I entered the tomb,
in the spirit of obedience to the will of My Father, in the spirit of
faith, and, above all, of indomitable hope. Accept sickness,
contradiction—that obstacle which all that is worth anything is sure to
encounter—accept at My feet the full bitterness of that hour in which
everything seems to prove that life is over for you, that you will never
again achieve anything among men. Enter, then, as the grain of wheat,
into the bosom of the earth, enter into the depths of humiliation, of
abandonment, of self-renunciation. Enter fearlessly, for, again I say,
this is your sepulchre.
“But in what do you suppose that all these trappings of death are after
all to end? What was it that I was meditating in my tomb—the triumph of
death or its defeat? Was not that tomb the cradle of all life? Look well
into the depths of My sepulchre, My child, and faith will teach you to
see therein the germ of all that lives and endures. I tell you, in all
truth, that everything is there which was afterwards to come—My
resurrection, the inspiration of My Apostles, their courage, which from
that day never faltered; the fortitude of My martyrs, the purity of My
virgins, the daring of My apologists, the learning of My doctors, the
authority of My pontiffs, the strength of My confessors, the light of
all Christian ages, all the progress of humanity even to your own days.
All these things lie in germ beneath the shroud which covers Me. That
great river of life, of strength, of virtue, of immortality wells up
from that tiny spring. Do you not see, then, My child, that there is
nothing in all the world so full of living promise as My sepulchre?”
And here we may leave this fruitful theme of the devotional
suggestiveness of the Stations of the Cross. No exercise by which our
LORD’S Passion is honoured is likely to be more practically helpful than
this, precisely because of the wide range of thought which it admits and
of its contact upon so many sides with the needs and interests of our
daily life.
Footnote 146:
Père Lagrange, O.P., in the “Revue Biblique,” 1903, p. 461.
Footnote 147:
Newman, “Meditations and Devotions,” p. 198.
Footnote 148:
Perreyve, “Stations of the Cross,” translated by the Rev. E. Day.
Footnote 149:
The Proœmium to the pilgrimage of James of Verona (1335) contains a
mention of “locus ubi CHRISTUS dedit Veronicam, id est faciem.” The
Proœmium may be a later interpolation, but it is older than 1420. See
“Revue de l’Orient Latin,” III, p. 163.
Footnote 150:
James de Verona, “Liber Peregrinationis,” in the “Rev. de l’Orient
Latin,” III, p. 183.
Footnote 151:
Ps. xli, 9.
Footnote 152:
Prov. ix, 1.
Footnote 153:
It might seem that Fabri was speaking metaphorically, and that he only
meant that here was the accomplishment of all these types; but from
another passage it is clear that he believed that Abel was slain,
Isaac offered, etc., in this very spot.
Footnote 154:
John xii, 24.