Category: 28.viii.22 XII post Pentecost

St. Luke writes that of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus Christ, one continued obstinate, the other was converted; who seeing his miserable companion blaspheming Jesus Christ: If thou art the Christ, save thyself and us, turned and reproved him, saying that they were deservedly punished, but that Jesus was innocent. Then he turned to Jesus Himself and said: Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom; by which words he recognised Jesus Christ as his true Lord and the King of Heaven. Jesus then promised him Paradise on that very day: Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise (Luke xxiii. 39-43). A learned author writes that, in conformity with this promise, the Lord, on that very day, immediately after His death, showed Himself openly, and rendered the repentant thief blessed, though He did not confer on him all the delight of Heaven before he entered there.

What sinner can be so hardened as not to go instantly and cast himself at the feet of his Saviour, when he knows the tender compassion with which Jesus Christ is prepared to embrace him, and carry him on His shoulders, as soon as he repents of his sins?

O my Jesus, Thou dost pardon penitent sinners, and Thou dost not refuse to give them in this world everything in Holy Communion, and in the next world everything in eternal glory. Where, then, is a heart to be found so amiable and so compassionate as Thine, O my dearest Saviour?

O loving tenderness of Jesus towards men! St. Augustine says that when the Saviour was injured by His enemies, He besought pardon for them; for He thought, not so much of the injuries He received from them, and the death they inflicted upon Him, as upon the love which brought Him to die for them.

She is like the merchant’s ship, she bringeth her bread from afar (Prov. xxxi. 14). Mary was this fortunate ship that brought us Jesus Christ from Heaven, Who is the Living Bread that comes down from Heaven to give us eternal life, as He Himself says: I am the living bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever (Jo. vi. 51, 52). And hence Richard of St. Laurence says that “in the sea of this world all will be lost who are not received into this ship; that is to say, all who are not protected by Mary”; and therefore he adds: “As often as we see ourselves in danger of perishing in the midst of the temptations and contending passions of this life, let us have recourse to Mary, and cry out quickly: O Lady, save us, we perish!

“As the splendour of the sun exceeds that of all the stars united,” says St. Basil of Seleucia, “so does Mary’s glory surpass that of all the Blessed in Heaven.” The greatest glory of the Blessed is, after the vision of God, the presence of Heaven’s most beautiful Queen.

The Jews, not satisfied with the injuries and blasphemies they had offered to Jesus Christ, reproached Him with the Name of His Father, saying: He trusted in God, let him now deliver him, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God (Matt. xxvii. 43). This sacrilegious expression of the Jews was already foretold by David, when he said in the Name of Christ: All they that saw me laughed me to scorn … saying: He trusted in God, let him deliver him, let him save him, seeing he delighted in him (Ps. xxi. 8, 9). These very men who thus spoke were called bulls, dogs, and lions by David in the same Psalm: Fat bulls have besieged me … Many dogs have encompassed me … Save me from the mouth of the lion (Ps. xxi.). Thus, when the Jews said: Let him now deliver him if he will have him (Matt. xxvii. 43), they truly showed that they were these bulls, dogs, and lions foretold by David.

St. Bernard say that “as a man and a woman co-operated in our ruin, so it was proper that another man and another woman should co-operate in our Redemption, and these two were Jesus and His Mother Mary.” “There is no doubt,” says the Saint, “that Jesus Christ alone was more than sufficient to redeem us; but it was more becoming that both sexes should co-operate in the reparation of an evil in causing which both had shared.”

Let us consider how exalted was the throne to which our Lady was raised in Heaven. “If the mind of man,” says St. Bernard, “can never comprehend the immense glory prepared by God in Heaven for those who love Him, as St. Paul assures us, who then can ever comprehend the glory God prepared for His beloved Mother!”

St. Matthew goes on to relate other insults which the Jews offered Jesus Christ: He saved others, himself he cannot save (Matt. xxvii. 42).

Thus they treated Him as an impostor, by referring to the miracles wrought by Him in the restoration of the dead to life, and by treating Him as one Who was unable to save His own life.

St. Leo replies that this was not the proper hour for Jesus to display His Divine power; and that He would not hinder the Redemption of man in order to confound their blasphemies.