Now the First Night Watch is closing (9 p.m.), and He is leaving Mount Sion and going down the way of captivity to Gethsemani. He has left His eight Apostles by the brook. He is entering the Garden, and bending His tottering steps towards the Grotto. An hour is well-nigh past (10 p.m.), when He comes to speak sad words and kind words to His three Apostles. Again another hour (11 p.m.), when after His long prayer He is with them The Second Night Watch is far spent (1145), when He visits them for the third and last time to waken them, and goes to meet Judas and the multitude. once more. It is now midnight. At midnight He became Incarnate, at midnight He was born, at midnight He is seized and bound. O Jesu, mi dulcissime, Te clamor mentis intimæ. Jesus, my Lord, my Son most dear, Hope of my soul that's yearning here, The first hour of the Third Watch is far spent (1245), and Thou hast climbed, my Son, the way of captivity, and Thy holy face is bruised by the servant. Another Night Watch is drawing to its close (245), and they condemn Thee to death as a blasphemer, and Thou art looking in pity on Thy Apostle. The Fourth Night Watch is nearly at an end (5:30), when they come to find Thee bent down in Thy dungeon. Nil canitur suavius, Nil cogitatur dulcius, Quam Jesus Dei Filius. No song so sweet to hear, STATION IV. MARIA DESOLATA. On the Sabbath-day they rested (v. 56). A. (3) We can help ourselves to understand a third train of thought that occupies the soul of the Blessed Mother during this holy night, by calling to mind the scene enacted before King David by the wise woman of Thecua (2 Kings xiv.). She came into the King's presence, wearing mourning robes, and not anointed with oil; in all respects, like a woman lamenting for the dead. And she fell down before the King and worshipped and said: Save me, O King. And the King said to her: What is the matter with thee? She answered: Alas! I am a widow woman; for my husband is dead. And thy handmaid had two sons, and they quarrelled with each other in the field, and there was none to part them, and the one struck the other and slew him. And behold, the whole kindred rising against thy handmaid saith: Deliver him that hath slain his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he slew, and that we may destroy the heir; and they seek to quench my spark which is left. And the King said to the woman: Go to thy house and I will give charge concerning thee. If any one shall say ought against thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more. And she said: Let the King remember the Lord his God that they may not kill my son. And he said: As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth. Here we see something of our Lady's position. The children of her second family have slain her First-born, the only-begotten Son of God. And now the cry of Eternal justice loudly demands that her second child, the poor sinner, the child of her pain, who crucified her Firstborn, his own elder Brother, shall be delivered up for chastisement. Alas! if this must be, the last state becomes worse than the first (St. Luke xi.), for the life and the death of my Son Jesus will be made void. And I shall also lose the child of my pain, for whom I was in travail on Calvary. Therefore her mother's heart is employed in pleading with irresistible groanings. She is weeping, as her Son bade her to do, for herself and her children, till a far better response comes than David's: Not one hair of thy (sinful) child shall fall to the earth. B. On the Sabbath-day they rested. Again, we may help ourselves with another comparison. When David was provoked to great wrath by Nabal's churlish insolence and was about to take severe vengeance, with what powerful pathos did Abigail, Nabal's wife, plead for her husband! Upon me, she said, as she lay at the feet of David, Upon me let this iniquity be, my lord; let thy handmaid speak, I beseech, in thy ears, and hear the words of thy servant. Let not my lord the King regard this naughty Nabal, for according to his name he is a fool, and folly is with him. Wherefore receive this blessing which thy handmaid hath brought thee, my lord, and forgive the iniquity of thy handmaid. (For then) this shall not be an occasion of grief to thee and a scruple of heart to my lord, that thou hast shed innocent blood or hast revenged thyself. And David said to Abigail: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, Who sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy speech. And blessed be thou who hast kept me this day from coming to blood and revenging me with my own hand. Go in peace into thy house; behold, I have heard thy voice and have honoured thy face (1 Kings xxv.). What are the pleadings of Abigail compared with the irresistible cry for mercy and forgiveness that comes from the heart of the Mother of Sorrows, when she pleads as if she were one of us? The Lord God knew well what a power would be vested in the suppliant omnipotence of His Immaculate Mother, full of grace, when He spoke that word to her Woman! behold thy child! From this hour, no word of mercy shall be impossible with God. "The hour of mercy may not be come, My Mother, or, because of sins multiplied, it may be past; but in whatever hour thou shall plead, Mother Mine, and Mother of My brethren, I cannot turn My face away." Memorare, O piissima Virgo. Remember this, most tender-hearted Our Lord, in the Psalms, prays as if He were the sinner. What can withstand Holy Mary's prayer when she makes herself one with her sinful children, and cries out: Upon me let this iniquity be. Forgive the iniquity of Thy handmaid. STATION V. MARIA DESOLATA. DAYBREAK. HOLY SATURDAY. That was a Great Sabbath-day (St. John xix. 31). A. The night watches have passed away. The day of the Great Sabbath is dawning. No greater has been; no greater shall be. The Lord Jesus is resting after His work of Redemption. We have been trying to gain some faint notion of our Lady's thoughts during the watches of the night. Let us humbly try to contemplate her on the Great Sabbath-day, the first Holy Saturday. B. That was a Great Sabbath-day. Some of the faithful, as we know, when they awake in the early morning, turn their hearts and their eyes towards the Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lady's heart, we may assume, is, when the dawn comes, at the Holy Sepulchre. Oh, with what intensity does her heart break out into her Matins and Lauds: O God, my God, to Thee am I watching at break of day. For Thee my soul hath thirsted, for Thee my flesh, O in Thy mercy is better than (many) lives. how many ways! Thee my lips shall praise. Thus will I bless Thee all my life long; and in Thy name I will lift up my hands (Psalm lxii.), SCENE XVII. THE GREAT SABBATH-DAY. EARLY MORNING. A RETROSPECT. STATION I. That was a Great Sabbath-day (St. John xix. 31). A. That was a Great Sabbath-day. The sun riseth and man shall go forth to his work (Psalm ciii.). Our Blessed Lady, some holy writers tell us, goes forth soon after daybreak, to resume her work of studying more and more carefully every spot hallowed by the footsteps of her Son, by the sweat of His brow, by His tears, by the drops of His Precious Blood, by His sorrows, by His love. Every word and work and thought of His is crying out to her: Set me as a seal upon thy heart. If she has always in times past looked well to the paths of her house, and not eaten her bread idle (Proverbs xxxi.), oh, how intensified in this hour is her keen desire to look well to the paths trodden by her crucified Son! If the fear of God neglects nothing, will the burning love that consumes her heart overpass any flower or blade of grass or any stone consecrated by His footprints, by a tear from His eye, by a drop of His Blood? B. A Great Sabbath-day. Our Blessed Lady is, moreover, the Seat of Wisdom. I am the Mother of knowledge (Ecclus. xxiv.). Through her a large part of the supereminent knowledge of Christ Jesus will reach the Evangelists and Holy Church. With great earnestness, then, she begs of John, who accompanies her in her pilgrimage, to fix well in his memory every jot and tittle: Let no particle of the good gift overpass thee. Her diligent search will doubtless be aided by much light and by many exceptional graces from above. But she will also gladly avail herself of human helps. Nico |