The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Our Lord frequently made references to His passion and death. This shows that the passion and death of our Lord was constantly on His mind. This should encourage us frequently to meditate on the passion and death of Jesus. Meditation was from the beginning, the school in which the Saints learned Christian perfection. St. Paul so constantly meditated on the passion of Christ that he could say of himself that he knew nothing but Christ crucified. (I Corinthians 2) St. Philip Neri spent some time every day before the image of the crucified in meditation on the passion, and St. Philip's biographers said that he learned more from this than from any other book. Nothing is more profitable than meditation on the passion and death of Jesus. St. Bonaventure says, "If you wish to step from virtue to virtue from grace to grace from good to better meditate daily and with all possible devotion on the passion of Christ, for nothing produces in the soul so complete a sanctification as the contemplation thereof." Sanctify the 40 days fast by meditating daily or at the least on Sundays and holy days on the passion and death of Christ.

Jesus foretells His passion and death in plain words to strengthen the disciples in their belief in Him that they might not be led astray when they should see Him in His extreme humiliation. They could say: "what Jesus suffers does not occur accidentally nor without His will or knowledge. He foretold it. He is, notwithstanding His humiliation, the Son of God. The sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, far from weakening our belief in his divinity, only strengthen it." Jesus foretells His passion not in general and indefinite terms, but very precisely and circumstantially and especially His resurrection from the dead. All this is an incontrovertible proof of His omniscience and consequently of his Godhead.

Jesus speaks plainly of His passion, death and resurrection. Yet His apostles understand him not. They had not yet wholly divested themselves of the prejudices of their nation, and only with difficulty, could they be brought to think of the promised Messiah in lowliness and contumely in sufferings and death. They still cling to the notion of earthly power and majesty, believing Him to be really the promised Messiah. What He said of His passion and death was quite unintelligible to them. They persuaded themselves that it must refer to another person or be understood only figuratively. Moreover, the apostles were yet worldly minded. This was the chief reason why they did not comprehend their Divine Master. For the worldly minded man comprehends not that which is supernatural and divine. After the Holy Ghost descended upon them on the feast of Pentecost the scales fell from their eyes, and they understood all that He had told them. We must not be scandalized by the humiliations of Christ. Christ endured all of this humiliation for a reason. Because of our pride the path to heaven is hidden from us. If we are to find this path and thus heaven we must learn and practice humility in imitation of Him.

The Jews without His will could not have executed their nefarious design of killing Him. On God depends the success of whatever man proposes. We often see evil prosper in this world, and we are tempted to question the providence of God. Evil succeeds, and good must suffer. But this view is very shortsighted. When we view these things from the perspective of eternity, we gain an entirely different perspective. The good is eternally rewarded and the evil is eternally punished.

There is nothing so evil that God cannot make good come from it.

If therefore we see the wicked oppress the Church and do much evil, be sure that they could not do it without God's permission. Everything however, which God ordains or permits will turn out well for those that love Him. This must be our consolation. All things work for the good of those who love God.

Let us sanctify Lent by frequently meditating on the passion and death of Jesus Christ that we may bring forth worthy fruits of penance. Let us resolve to receive the sacrament of penance and the Blessed Eucharist and to live for heaven showing that though dwelling on earth we are leading a heavenly life.

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