Our Lord’s Patience
The Patience of Our Lord
Jesus is the model of patience we should imitate. He lived this virtue throughout his life. But especially during his passion and death, our Lord gave us an example of patience, of being fully identified with the Will of the Father.
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Jesus did not find things easy. He did not find a ready audience. Crowds came to hear him, but, as he affirms, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (Mt 13:13). Nevertheless, he continued his task, preaching to all in Palestine.
The Twelve Apostles had been for some time with the Master, yet until the end, they did not fully grasp his message. The gospel shows us time and again how patient Jesus was with them. Though he knew their weaknesses and defects, he did not order but simply asked them to follow him. Being almighty, he could have filled them with holiness and virtues in a wink of an eye, effortlessly. Instead, he formed them little by little, step by step. He corrected them. He instructed them. He allowed time to make them suitable for the mission he would give them. Finally, after going up to heaven, he sent them the Holy Spirit to complete his work.
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Jesus lived patience and endurance in adversity while his enemies mocked him, scorned him, spat upon him, struck him, buffeted him with open hands, scourged him, crowned him with thorns, and put a bright robe on him as if he were a tinsel king. In fact, a thief, Barabbas, was preferred to Jesus.
Our Lord accepted God’s Will, and on the Cross suffered blasphemies and scorn: “If you are the Son of God, come down!” He could have commanded the earth to open up and swallow his tormentors, but he remained silent and accepted the horrible human failure.
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Jesus is patient in the Eucharist. He is at the will of the ministers, exposed, enclosed, visited, and forsaken.
Jesus’ divine and human natures remain hidden in the Eucharist: In cruce latebat sola deitas (“Only his divine nature was hidden on the Cross”), here even his human nature is unseen.
Jesus allows himself to be subject to our lack of refinement, to outrages, to sacrilege, and to appalling profanations.
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God is truly the Almighty, the Creator of all, the Invisible. He himself revealed to men the Truth from heaven and sent the holy and incomprehensible Word. He engraved it in man’s heart. Contrary to what one may surmise, God did not accomplish this by sending some subject, messenger, or assistant, some earthly prince or celestial creature. No, he sent the very Architect and Creator of the universe himself, through whom all was made.
Did he send him, one may ask, to act like a tyrant, sowing fear and terror? Not so. In gentleness and compassion he sent him, as a king sending his son. He sent him as King; as God and man. He sent him to men.
God sent his Son to persuade us and save us, not to do violence on us. Violence, you see, is not an attribute of God.
No man has ever seen God or known him, but God has revealed himself to us through faith, by which alone it is possible to see him. God, the Lord and maker of all things, who created the world and set it in order, not only loved man but was also patient with him. So God has always been, is, and will be: kind, good, free from anger, truthful; indeed, he and he alone is good.
When God had made all his plans in consultation with his Son, he waited until a later time, allowing us to follow our own whim. Thus, we were swept along by our unruly passions, led astray by pleasure and desire. Not that he was pleased by our sins: he only tolerated them. Not that he approved of that age of sin: he was planning this era of holiness.
When we had been shown to be undeserving of life, his goodness made us worthy of it. When it became clear to us that we could not enter God’s kingdom by our own power, we were enabled to do so by the power of God.
When our sins had reached their highest point, it became clear that punishment was at hand in the shape of suffering and death. The time then came for God to make known his compassion and power. How immeasurable is God’s generosity and love!
God did not show hatred for us, reject us, or take vengeance. Instead, he was patient with us, put up with us, and in compassion took our sins upon himself. He gave his own Son as the price of our redemption. The Holy One became the ransom for the wicked, the sinless One for the sinners, the just One for the unjust. The incorruptible One became the price for the corrupt, the immortal One for mortals.
For what else could have buried our sins but his sinlessness? Where else could we–wicked and sinful as we were– have found the means of sanctity except in the Son of God alone?
What a wonderful substitution, what a mysterious plan, what an inconceivable blessing! The wickedness of the many is buried in the Holy One, and the holiness of One sanctifies many sinners. (Epistle to Diognetus, 7-9, circa year 124)
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Without interruption, let us persevere in our hope and in the guarantee of our salvation–that is, Christ Jesus. “In his mouth, no hint of guilt was discovered; he committed no sin and yet bore our sins in his own Body on the tree” (1 Pet 2:22.24). Rather, he endured everything for our sake so that we might live in him.
Let us then imitate his patience in suffering; if we suffer because of his Name, let us give him that glory. This is the personal example he has given us; this is the object of our faith. (St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Letter to the Philippians, 8, circa year 130)
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There is a picture of the divine patience that exists, so to speak, away from us; the patience which prevails on high. God is patient. But what about that patience which existed openly among men on earth? A kind of patience, as it were, within our reach?
God became incarnate. In his mother’s womb, he awaited the time of birth. After his birth, he gradually grew into manhood. When an adult, he showed no eagerness to become known, but endured reproaches.
He was baptized by his own servant; and by his words alone repelled the attacks of the Tempter. Then he, the only begotten of God, became a master, teaching man how to avoid eternal death; he taught man for his own good how to offer reparation to outraged patience.
He did not wrangle or cry aloud; neither did anyone hear him shouting in the streets; a bruised reed he did not break; a smoking wick he did not quench (cf. Is 42:2,3). These words of the prophet Isaiah are the testimony of God himself, who placed his own spirit of patience in his Son; and God cannot mislead us or fail. (Tertullian, De Patientia, 3)
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Jesus did not do violence on one who was unwilling to stay close to him. He scorned no one’s table or dwelling; in fact, he attended personally to his disciples by washing their feet. He did not despise sinners or publicans. He showed no anger toward that city which refused to receive him, even when the disciples wished fire from heaven to fall upon such a shameful town (cf. Lk 9:52-56). He healed the ungrateful, and yielded to his persecutors.
More than this, Jesus kept in his company the one who would betray him and did not openly denounce him. Even when he was betrayed, when he was led like a beast to the slaughter for us, “he did not open his mouth, as a sheep before her shearers he was silent” (Is 53:7). If he wished, at a single word, legions of angels from heaven could have come to assist him (Mt 26:53); yet, he did not allow the use of an avenging sword by even one of his disciples (Mt 26:51; Jn 18:10). (Tertullian, De Patientia, 3)
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Jesus interceded for our sins as if they were his own. When a man commits a heinous crime, his friends and relatives disavow him and desert him to avoid being implicated in the crime. If there is a father or friend willing to help, he always begins by repudiating the evil deed and showing himself free from guilt and not connected with the crime.
But our merciful Lord, lover of our souls, took all the blame for our sins upon himself, and covered his face with shame. He acknowledged and recognized us before the tribunal of God, not only as his friends and relatives, but as his brothers and sons, and even as members of his own Body–the Church–of which he is the Head.
Jesus not only interceded for our forgiveness, but also offered himself to pay the penalty that we deserved, as if he were the malefactor.
Yet the sorrows of our Lord could have been lesser, had they not been increased by our ingratitude and neglect to return his love. (L. de la Palma, History of the Sacred Passion, 8)
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Amid the calumnies and accusations of false witnesses, our Lord kept silence before the Sanhedrin as if they were not speaking of him. His first reply had been ill-received; it was manifest that the judges would not listen to the truth. The court was a tribunal only in appearance, in truth a seat of violence and a robbers’ den. Jesus sought to benefit all the absent and all to come after him by keeping silence and giving an admirable example of meekness and humility.
He taught us that silence gives perfection and beauty to patience, and that it is great to persevere and suffer in silence in the midst of injuries, hatred, and insults; the more false and full of prejudices the accusation is, the greater the merit gained. (L. de la Palma, History of the Sacred Passion, 12)
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We must often recall that our Lord has saved us by his suffering and endurance, and that we must work out our salvation by sufferings and afflictions. We must endure with all possible serenity the offenses, denials, and inconveniences we meet.
Contemplate often Christ Jesus, crucified, naked, blasphemed, slandered, forsaken, and overwhelmed by every kind of torment, sorrow, and labor. Remember that your sufferings are not comparable to his, either in quantity or quality. You can never suffer for his sake as much as he did for you.
Think of the sufferings the martyrs endured, and of so many people who are now enduring torments incomparably greater than yours.
Think of our Lord, and of those who without help, assistance, or relief live a continuous trial under the burden of afflictions infinitely greater than yours. Then say, “Are not my hardships like consolations, and my thorns like roses in comparison with their sufferings?” (St Francis of Sales, Introduction to Devout Life, 3,3)
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We all have an ample share of suffering sufficient to make us saints, if we only suffered courageously and for supernatural motives. Many, however, suffer and complain with bitterness of heart, rebelling against divine providence. Others withstand suffering out of pride or ambition and thus forfeit the fruits of their endurance.
The true motive that should inspire us is submission to the Will of God, and the hope of eternal reward that will crown our patience. But the most potent stimulus should be the thought of Christ suffering and dying for us. If he, innocence itself, bore heroically so many tortures, physical and moral, to redeem us and sanctify us, should not we, who are guilty and who by our sins are the cause of his sufferings, consent to suffer with him and with his intentions? Should not we cooperate with him in the work of our purification and sanctification, and partake in his glory by sharing in his sufferings?
Noble and generous souls add to these motives the motive of zeal. They suffer to fulfil what is wanting of the sufferings of Christ and thus work for the redemption of souls. Here lies the secret source of the heroic patience of the saints and of their love for the Cross. (A. Tanqueray, The Spiritual Life)
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To understand the Sacred Scriptures, we should be guided by the actions of Christ and the behavior of the saints; these should be our criteria.
During his trial before Caiaphas, “one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’” (Jn 18:22-23)
Christ did not, actually, present the other cheek to that man, as he had hinted in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5:39); nor did St Paul to anyone. Therefore, a mere literal interpretation of the beatitudes falsifies their significance.
The precept of presenting the other cheek to an aggressor refers to a disposition of the soul; when required and fitting, we must bear a second affront, even a greater one, from an aggressor, without falling into sadness. This was the attitude of Christ, giving his body over to the final onslaught. Those words uttered by Jesus are, therefore, a lesson for us. (St Thomas, Commentary on the Gospel of St John, 18).
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If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the Cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid.
Christ endured much on the Cross, and did so patiently. “When he suffered he did not threaten; he was like a sheep led to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth.” Therefore Christ’s patience on the Cross was great.
In patience let us run for the prize set before us, looking upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, bore his Cross and despised the shame. (St Thomas Aquinas, Collatio 6 Super Credo in Deum)
The Calm Serenity of Jesus
From a purely human point of view, Jesus’ life was a complete failure. Yet his ill‑success did not upset the calm serenity of his actions. Opposition to his principles did not rouse him to indignation. The powerlessness to persuade did not cause him to desist from his efforts in despair, or renounce these efforts in petulance. He was not moved, either to overeagerness in manner, or to excess of vehemence in words. Each day, unmoved from his earnestness, or his dignity, or his calm, by the previous day’s failure, he resumed his work with the same force, the same courage, the same unimpaired energy of mind and will as before, exactly as if the disappointments of the past were not to be expected in the future.
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The heartbreaking wilfulness of men caused him pain, but no indignation. He was not irritated by, though he wondered at, their incredulity. Their persistence in error in the light of Truth so clearly, vividly and persuasively presented to them stirred him neither to bitterness, nor to anger. It caused him neither to be piqued nor to be disheartened, though it weighed like lead on his heart.
Nothing that he had to contend with wrought in him the least change in the perfection of the dispositions–the interior dispositions–with which he faced each new circumstance of his life. Ingratitude and forgetfulness on the part of those whom he healed and comforted produced no diminution of Jesus’ tenderness and mercy toward them. With what looked like unconquerable optimism he worked miracle after miracle to prove his Divine mission. And when this powerful reasoning found a barrier in the adamantine prejudices of his countrymen, he recommenced once more with unabated courage.
And we cannot say that his passing triumphs kept alive his hopefulness. He was well aware that these triumphs were superficial and ephemeral, more apparent than real. The Evangelist relates somewhat sadly: “Now many believed in his name, seeing the signs which he did; but Jesus did not trust himself to them, for he knew all men” (Jn 2:24).
Even in the narrow circle of his intimate friends, our Lord failed to excite a sympathetic understanding with himself. That he should have been misunderstood by his enemies would have been tolerable, if only he had not been so misunderstood by his friends.
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Each day our Lord took up life’s burden in the same calm way; he went straight on through its round of tasks. Jesus was content with doing each function rightly; he never allowed his interior dispositions to be altered or disturbed by the immediate fruitfulness of his labors. It is true that he felt keenly his repeated failures. But he never was tempted by the pain he suffered in his sensitive nature to renounce his enterprise; he never took refuge in inactivity, or in the execution of things which should meet with a better measure of success. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
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At all times our Lord bore himself with the same calm, unchanging, unbroken, undeviating fortitude. He did not waste valuable time in complaints or in self‑pity. He wasted no energy in rebellion against circumstances. And he did not passively acquiesce to the inevitable with a gesture of indifference or despair. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
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Even if I know what hell will be, I cannot really imagine what it will be to be hated by Christ, to hear, “I don’t know you” (Mt 25:12). Yes; it will be better to suffer a thousand thunderbolts, than to see that face of mildness turning away from me, those eyes of peace not wanting to look upon me.
He came to save me while I was his enemy, hating him, and turning away from him. He even gave himself up to death for me, and I rejected him. After all this, with what kind of eyes shall I ever again look at him?
Notice his gentleness, he does not speak of his gifts. He does not say, “You have despised me who have done so much for you.” He does not say, “You have rejected me. And I brought you into being; for your sake I made the earth, heaven, sea and air, and all things that are; I set you over all things on the earth; after been dishonored by you, I did not withdraw myself from you, but thought of you after it all; I chose to become a slave; I was beaten with rods and spat upon; I was slain for you; I died the most shameful death for you; I intercede on high for you; I freely send you my Holy Spirit; I grant you a kingdom; I made you such promises; I am, for your sake, the Head of my Body, the Bridegroom, the Food and Drink, the Shepherd, and the King; I took you to be my brother, and heir; I brought you out of the darkness into my light.”
He does not mention these things at all, but only the offense–sin.
He does not say, “Depart into the fire prepared for you,” but, “prepared for the devil.” There he shows his love and his patience toward you. (St John Chrysostom, Homilies on St Matthew’s Gospel., 23)
He Who Loves Jesus Christ Loves Sufferings
Life is a time to gain merits for heaven. To deserve that prize we must imitate Jesus Christ. He suffered for us to encourage us to suffer.
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This earth is the place for meriting and, therefore, for suffering. Our true fatherland, where God has prepared for us rest in everlasting joy, is paradise. We have but a short time to stay in this world; yet in this short time we have many labors to undergo; “Man born of a woman, lives for a short time, and filled with many miseries” (Job 14:1). We must suffer, and all must suffer. Be they just or sinners, each one must carry his cross. He who carries it with patience is saved; he who carries it with impatience is lost. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
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St Augustine says that the same miseries send some to paradise and some to hell: “One and the same blow lifts the good to glory, and reduces the bad to ashes.”1 The same saint observes that suffering is the test to distinguish the chaff from the wheat in the Church of God. He who humbles himself under tribulations, and is resigned to the will of God, is wheat for paradise; he who grows haughty, is enraged, and so abandons God, is chaff for hell. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
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On the day when the cause of our salvation shall be decided, we will like to enjoy the happy sentence of the predestined. To deserve that prize, our life must be patterned after that of Jesus Christ. “For whom He foreknew He also predestined to be patterned after the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29).
For this purpose the Eternal Word descended upon earth, to teach us, by his example, to carry with patience the cross that God sends us. “Christ suffered for us–wrote St Peter–leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). Thus, Jesus Christ suffered on purpose to encourage us to suffer. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
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O God! What a life was that of Jesus Christ! A life of ignominy and pain. The Prophet calls our Redeemer “despised, and rejected by men, a man of sorrows” (Is 53:3). A man held in contempt, and treated as the lowest, the vilest among men, a man of sorrows; yes, for the life of Jesus Christ was made up of hardships and afflictions.
God treats every one that he loves and receives as his son in the same manner as he has treated his beloved Son: “For the Lord trains the ones that he loves and he scourges all those that he acknowledges as his sons” (Heb 12:6).
Thus, Jesus one day said to St Teresa: “Know that the souls dearest to my Father are those who are afflicted with the greatest sufferings.”2 Hence the saint said that she would not exchange any of her troubles for all the treasures in the world. She appeared after her death to a soul, and revealed to her that she enjoyed an immense reward in heaven. The reward was not so much due for her good works, as for the sufferings she cheerfully bore in this life for the love of God. The saint added that if she could possibly return to the earth, the only reason would be to suffer more for God. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
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Some few persons have, at times, the depressing sense of being failures in the spiritual life. On occasions of retreat and recollection, and sometimes, too, in the midst of their occupations, there comes to them an agonizing sense of having drifted away from God. There is a feeling that Jesus and they move in different worlds with no point of contact. They feel very remote from him, from his thoughts and his ways. The consideration of the barrenness of their lives and of the–apparently–wholly unsupernatural condition of their souls fills them with dismay. Their souls present a sorry sight when examined according to the principles of Christian perfection.
These persons have a sense of sinfulness which is more poignant than the actual consciousness of some positive sin. Hateful to themselves, they judge that they must be an object of aversion for the Lord, whose graces they have squandered and whose hopes they have disappointed. Knowing his purity, his holiness, his utter faithfulness to his heavenly Father, they think that the Lord can no longer care for them. They see themselves so utterly different from Jesus in holiness and rectitude of life.
They are uneasy in his presence because they fear that he, so pure and so good, must shrink from creatures who are vile, mean and unworthy, as they know themselves to be. Seeing no good in their own souls, they are convinced that they can no longer be an object of regard to Jesus. There comes to them at this juncture the subtle temptation to make their drifting away from the Lord a reason for drifting still further from him.
Now, this is totally to misunderstand our divine Lord. It is true that he looks with hatred on sin, and that he cannot love us in so far as we are sinners. But he can and does love us for any little good that remains in us. And, above all, he loves us for what we can possibly become if we respond to the compelling appeals of his grace.
He does not love sin, but he does love those who are sinners. He is patient and never shrinks from contact with us–or from our contact with him–as long as there remains the possibility of our rejecting sin, so displeasing in his sight. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
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Look at Jesus’ patience with sinners.
The devil has never got a fully decisive victory over a soul until he has robbed it of full confidence in Jesus, in the inexhaustible goodness of Jesus’ Heart toward the wayward, the faithless and the sinful. The cruelest wound we inflict on his Heart, the gravest of our infidelities, occurs when we doubt of his tenderness and mercy.
Those who came in contact with him while he lived on earth never had this attitude of fear towards him, even when they recognized his awe‑inspiring holiness. In spite of the consciousness of grave sin that many who approached him must have had, we see no trace in their dealings with him of their having a tendency to shrink from his presence or to dread his approach.
“Now,” says St Luke, “the publicans and sinners drew near unto him to hear him” (Lk 15:1). So condescending did he show himself to them on all occasions and such trust had they in him that the charge of having a predilection for sinners and publicans was frequently levelled at him.
His enemies were repelled by the life of austerity led by John of Baptist. Yet they pretended to be scandalized at the absence of rigid penance in the life of Jesus, and at his attitude of clemency towards sinners. They found fault with the one and with the other so that our Lord was forced to call attention to the contradiction in their minds, saying: “John the Baptist came neither eating bread or drinking wine. And you say: He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come eating and drinking and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Lk 7:33-34).
Our Savior showed a habitual readiness to forgive sins, and exhibited such patience, tenderness, sympathy and kindness towards sinners, that it caused comment and criticism among the “rigidly righteous.” The allusions to this subject are frequent in the Gospels.
So constant did the murmurs of his enemies become, that one day our Lord turned on them in a series of parables on God’s mercy. There are three parables following one after the other. Jesus laid bare to an astonished world what passes through the human heart of God, his patience and love toward those who have left him to seek happiness in sin. The parables of the strayed sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son are a wonderful revelation of the tenderness of Jesus.
Those hard‑hearted Jewish priests, the representatives of God on earth and the ministers of his covenant with men, wanted Jesus to show himself austere and forbidding toward those who have failed. Stung to the quick, our Lord was driven to disclose the incomprehensible yearning of his great Heart even toward the most unworthy of us. He is forced, as it were, to reveal to the vulgar and the uncomprehending, to the conventional and the narrow‑hearted what looks like weakness: his love and patience toward sinners. He does not excuse his actions, he does not even pause to justify them. He simply lays bare the inner workings of his Heart–what the saints have had the hardihood to call the folly of his love–for us, miserable failures in the way of holiness. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
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Chapter XV in the Gospel according to St Luke is remarkable and repays study. It will be noticed that Jesus is not content with one parable, but figure is added to figure, image to image, detail heaped on detail, in order to give as complete a picture as possible of the boundless mercy and patience of the God‑Man. It would look as if all barriers of reserve were broken down, and Jesus allowed men to penetrate into the most mysterious recesses of his Heart. The words follow rapidly, one after another; the sentences are vivid and eloquent; each parable succeeds the preceding one without a break, almost with an appearance of breathlessness. And in all is observed the same rapid movement, the same nervous phrasing, the same vivid coloring.
Jesus’ defence of himself is beautiful in the extreme, beautiful in its simplicity, beautiful in that eloquence which touches the innermost fibers of our hearts.
The story of the Lost Sheep is sufficient in itself to bring consolation to the repentant sinners for all time, and to inspire the most obdurate with unbounded confidence in the Divine Mercy. But Jesus was not satisfied with it. He supplements this moving story by two others widely different, but equally moving and, perhaps, more consoling.
God’s mercy casts a wide net. As he was developing the first parable, our Lord saw all the possible phases of human waywardness. He feared that–in the future–some sorrowing man might find in the particularly heinous circumstances of his sin a reason for doubting of the mercy of God. Thus, he tried to forestall all possible objections by showing forth that no depths of wickedness, misery, and failure are too deep to be measured by the plummet of his Love.
In the portraits of the Good Shepherd seeking the stray sheep, the anxious householder looking for the lost coin, and the loving father awaiting the return of the prodigal son, Jesus shows that the mercy of God is multifaceted. Though simple in its essence, it is many‑sided and adaptable; able to meet every emergency occasioned by wickedness. To every form of sin it can oppose a new front. Wickedness will rather exhaust the possibilities of crime than the infinite resources of the Divine Goodness. God’s patience forgives all our trespasses. Our Lord has taken away from us every possible reason for not approaching him with confidence.
And as our Lord was in those days so he is now. He does not change with the passing years. Our treatment of him cannot change him. He is here with us in our churches. He is the same in Heart and in Mind as he was in those days when he pronounced the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Shepherd.
As he never then showed coldness, aloofness or displeasure towards those who approached him, no matter how stained their souls were with sin, he does not do so now. Our badness cannot modify his goodness, nor can it rob him of his interest in us. He looks out on us from the Tabernacle with the same yearning love, the same expectancy, the same hopefulness which no rebuff on our part can chill, as he exhibited to all those whom he encountered while on earth.
He is concerned about us as he was about those whom he compassionately fed in the desert. We are just as valuable in his eyes as they were. He will be at least as tender, as condescending, as kind towards us as he was towards them. They were probably no better than we are. No matter how frequently we may have failed in his service, there is no reason why he should not have an absolute, childlike confidence in Jesus.
The great little saint of Lisieux revealed the spiritual validity of this attitude. She writes: “If I draw near to God with love and trust, it is not because I have kept from mortal sin. Were my conscience laden with every imaginable crime, I should not have one whit less confidence. Heart‑broken and repentant, I would throw myself into my Savior’s arms. He loves the prodigal son: I know his words to Magdalene, to the adulterous woman, to that of Samaria. Who would make me afraid if I know his mercy and his love? I know that all my numberless sins would disappear in an instant, like a drop of water cast into a furnace.”
Having this patience toward sinners is our Lord’s own choice. When accused of going with those who were not remarkable for the rectitude of their lives, his answer was that “he was come not to call the just but the sinners.” Our sins, then, far from creating a barrier between us and him, really constitute a reason, a title or right, to come to him. They also constitute a reason for his coming to us. He could have said to the Pharisees: “I frequent sinners because they need me more than others. The physician spends his time with and gives all his attention and care to those that are ill, not to those that are in health. I am the Physician of souls. That is my work.” And “They that are in health need not a physician but they that are ill” (Mt 9:12).
Encouraging as is this simile for us, it does not fully exemplify the relations of Jesus to our souls. The doctor gives merely his services to his patients, places his skill at their disposal. Our Lord not only gives us his services, he lavishes on us his love as well.
That the Lord loves us is true, and it is incomprehensible. Why he is so devoted to us is not possible to fully explain, but one reason for it may be inferred: We have cost him so dear. For us, sinners, he poured forth his Precious Blood. “Knowing,” says St Peter, “that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled” (1 Pet 1:18-19). And again we read in St Paul: “For you are bought with a great price” (1 Cor 6:20).
The child is loved by his mother by the very pain he has cost her. Jesus values us because he has given his all for us–every drop of his Heart’s Blood. Is it not an astonishing mystery that he values us so highly, and we, alas, so often, so little value him?
Each of the parables insinuates that what was lost was precious in the eyes of the person who suffered the loss. To the shepherd, the animal that he had seen grow up amidst his flock had become dear. He had watched it as a lamb, and he had cared for and pastured it with solicitude. It had become an integral part of his possessions, and he had looked to it to bring him an increase of wealth in the shearing seasons. Anyone who is acquainted with the life of the country knows how attached those who tend domestic animals become to the objects of their charge. Hence it was that the shepherd felt that something had gone out of his life, when he observed that one sheep had strayed from the fold.
In the second parable, the thrifty housekeeper had amassed, by diligent toil, a modest fortune. Ten coins constituted her hard‑won savings–of considerable value to her as the fruits of a life of industry. Her distress was great when she missed one coin from her little hoard–it represented a tenth of her fortune. Our Lord describes in sympathetic and tender detail the anxious search she instituted for the missing coin and her great satisfaction at its recovery.
A kind of climax is reached in the third parable. In this, it is no longer an animal of the flock, or a relatively large portion of worldly possessions, but a dearly beloved son who by his desertion wrings with anguish the heart of a loving father. There is infinite pathos in the description of the sense of loss and abandonment felt by the bereaved parent. The deprivation of land and goods and household treasures counted as nothing with him when weighed in the balance against the loss of his youngest and his dearest son. All those details are purposely accumulated by our divine Lord. He waited to bring home to us that consoling truth, which we find so difficult to accept–that we mean very much to him, that we are very precious in his sight, and that he is ready to go to any length to keep us close to himself. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
Footnotes:
1 Serm. 52.
2 Life, addit.
Jesus is the model of patience we should imitate. He lived this virtue throughout his life. But especially during his passion and death, our Lord gave us an example of patience, of being fully identified with the Will of the Father.
***
Jesus did not find things easy. He did not find a ready audience. Crowds came to hear him, but, as he affirms, “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand” (Mt 13:13). Nevertheless, he continued his task, preaching to all in Palestine.
The Twelve Apostles had been for some time with the Master, yet until the end, they did not fully grasp his message. The gospel shows us time and again how patient Jesus was with them. Though he knew their weaknesses and defects, he did not order but simply asked them to follow him. Being almighty, he could have filled them with holiness and virtues in a wink of an eye, effortlessly. Instead, he formed them little by little, step by step. He corrected them. He instructed them. He allowed time to make them suitable for the mission he would give them. Finally, after going up to heaven, he sent them the Holy Spirit to complete his work.
***
Jesus lived patience and endurance in adversity while his enemies mocked him, scorned him, spat upon him, struck him, buffeted him with open hands, scourged him, crowned him with thorns, and put a bright robe on him as if he were a tinsel king. In fact, a thief, Barabbas, was preferred to Jesus.
Our Lord accepted God’s Will, and on the Cross suffered blasphemies and scorn: “If you are the Son of God, come down!” He could have commanded the earth to open up and swallow his tormentors, but he remained silent and accepted the horrible human failure.
***
Jesus is patient in the Eucharist. He is at the will of the ministers, exposed, enclosed, visited, and forsaken.
Jesus’ divine and human natures remain hidden in the Eucharist: In cruce latebat sola deitas (“Only his divine nature was hidden on the Cross”), here even his human nature is unseen.
Jesus allows himself to be subject to our lack of refinement, to outrages, to sacrilege, and to appalling profanations.
***
God is truly the Almighty, the Creator of all, the Invisible. He himself revealed to men the Truth from heaven and sent the holy and incomprehensible Word. He engraved it in man’s heart. Contrary to what one may surmise, God did not accomplish this by sending some subject, messenger, or assistant, some earthly prince or celestial creature. No, he sent the very Architect and Creator of the universe himself, through whom all was made.
Did he send him, one may ask, to act like a tyrant, sowing fear and terror? Not so. In gentleness and compassion he sent him, as a king sending his son. He sent him as King; as God and man. He sent him to men.
God sent his Son to persuade us and save us, not to do violence on us. Violence, you see, is not an attribute of God.
No man has ever seen God or known him, but God has revealed himself to us through faith, by which alone it is possible to see him. God, the Lord and maker of all things, who created the world and set it in order, not only loved man but was also patient with him. So God has always been, is, and will be: kind, good, free from anger, truthful; indeed, he and he alone is good.
When God had made all his plans in consultation with his Son, he waited until a later time, allowing us to follow our own whim. Thus, we were swept along by our unruly passions, led astray by pleasure and desire. Not that he was pleased by our sins: he only tolerated them. Not that he approved of that age of sin: he was planning this era of holiness.
When we had been shown to be undeserving of life, his goodness made us worthy of it. When it became clear to us that we could not enter God’s kingdom by our own power, we were enabled to do so by the power of God.
When our sins had reached their highest point, it became clear that punishment was at hand in the shape of suffering and death. The time then came for God to make known his compassion and power. How immeasurable is God’s generosity and love!
God did not show hatred for us, reject us, or take vengeance. Instead, he was patient with us, put up with us, and in compassion took our sins upon himself. He gave his own Son as the price of our redemption. The Holy One became the ransom for the wicked, the sinless One for the sinners, the just One for the unjust. The incorruptible One became the price for the corrupt, the immortal One for mortals.
For what else could have buried our sins but his sinlessness? Where else could we–wicked and sinful as we were– have found the means of sanctity except in the Son of God alone?
What a wonderful substitution, what a mysterious plan, what an inconceivable blessing! The wickedness of the many is buried in the Holy One, and the holiness of One sanctifies many sinners. (Epistle to Diognetus, 7-9, circa year 124)
***
Without interruption, let us persevere in our hope and in the guarantee of our salvation–that is, Christ Jesus. “In his mouth, no hint of guilt was discovered; he committed no sin and yet bore our sins in his own Body on the tree” (1 Pet 2:22.24). Rather, he endured everything for our sake so that we might live in him.
Let us then imitate his patience in suffering; if we suffer because of his Name, let us give him that glory. This is the personal example he has given us; this is the object of our faith. (St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Letter to the Philippians, 8, circa year 130)
***
There is a picture of the divine patience that exists, so to speak, away from us; the patience which prevails on high. God is patient. But what about that patience which existed openly among men on earth? A kind of patience, as it were, within our reach?
God became incarnate. In his mother’s womb, he awaited the time of birth. After his birth, he gradually grew into manhood. When an adult, he showed no eagerness to become known, but endured reproaches.
He was baptized by his own servant; and by his words alone repelled the attacks of the Tempter. Then he, the only begotten of God, became a master, teaching man how to avoid eternal death; he taught man for his own good how to offer reparation to outraged patience.
He did not wrangle or cry aloud; neither did anyone hear him shouting in the streets; a bruised reed he did not break; a smoking wick he did not quench (cf. Is 42:2,3). These words of the prophet Isaiah are the testimony of God himself, who placed his own spirit of patience in his Son; and God cannot mislead us or fail. (Tertullian, De Patientia, 3)
***
Jesus did not do violence on one who was unwilling to stay close to him. He scorned no one’s table or dwelling; in fact, he attended personally to his disciples by washing their feet. He did not despise sinners or publicans. He showed no anger toward that city which refused to receive him, even when the disciples wished fire from heaven to fall upon such a shameful town (cf. Lk 9:52-56). He healed the ungrateful, and yielded to his persecutors.
More than this, Jesus kept in his company the one who would betray him and did not openly denounce him. Even when he was betrayed, when he was led like a beast to the slaughter for us, “he did not open his mouth, as a sheep before her shearers he was silent” (Is 53:7). If he wished, at a single word, legions of angels from heaven could have come to assist him (Mt 26:53); yet, he did not allow the use of an avenging sword by even one of his disciples (Mt 26:51; Jn 18:10). (Tertullian, De Patientia, 3)
***
Jesus interceded for our sins as if they were his own. When a man commits a heinous crime, his friends and relatives disavow him and desert him to avoid being implicated in the crime. If there is a father or friend willing to help, he always begins by repudiating the evil deed and showing himself free from guilt and not connected with the crime.
But our merciful Lord, lover of our souls, took all the blame for our sins upon himself, and covered his face with shame. He acknowledged and recognized us before the tribunal of God, not only as his friends and relatives, but as his brothers and sons, and even as members of his own Body–the Church–of which he is the Head.
Jesus not only interceded for our forgiveness, but also offered himself to pay the penalty that we deserved, as if he were the malefactor.
Yet the sorrows of our Lord could have been lesser, had they not been increased by our ingratitude and neglect to return his love. (L. de la Palma, History of the Sacred Passion, 8)
***
Amid the calumnies and accusations of false witnesses, our Lord kept silence before the Sanhedrin as if they were not speaking of him. His first reply had been ill-received; it was manifest that the judges would not listen to the truth. The court was a tribunal only in appearance, in truth a seat of violence and a robbers’ den. Jesus sought to benefit all the absent and all to come after him by keeping silence and giving an admirable example of meekness and humility.
He taught us that silence gives perfection and beauty to patience, and that it is great to persevere and suffer in silence in the midst of injuries, hatred, and insults; the more false and full of prejudices the accusation is, the greater the merit gained. (L. de la Palma, History of the Sacred Passion, 12)
***
We must often recall that our Lord has saved us by his suffering and endurance, and that we must work out our salvation by sufferings and afflictions. We must endure with all possible serenity the offenses, denials, and inconveniences we meet.
Contemplate often Christ Jesus, crucified, naked, blasphemed, slandered, forsaken, and overwhelmed by every kind of torment, sorrow, and labor. Remember that your sufferings are not comparable to his, either in quantity or quality. You can never suffer for his sake as much as he did for you.
Think of the sufferings the martyrs endured, and of so many people who are now enduring torments incomparably greater than yours.
Think of our Lord, and of those who without help, assistance, or relief live a continuous trial under the burden of afflictions infinitely greater than yours. Then say, “Are not my hardships like consolations, and my thorns like roses in comparison with their sufferings?” (St Francis of Sales, Introduction to Devout Life, 3,3)
***
We all have an ample share of suffering sufficient to make us saints, if we only suffered courageously and for supernatural motives. Many, however, suffer and complain with bitterness of heart, rebelling against divine providence. Others withstand suffering out of pride or ambition and thus forfeit the fruits of their endurance.
The true motive that should inspire us is submission to the Will of God, and the hope of eternal reward that will crown our patience. But the most potent stimulus should be the thought of Christ suffering and dying for us. If he, innocence itself, bore heroically so many tortures, physical and moral, to redeem us and sanctify us, should not we, who are guilty and who by our sins are the cause of his sufferings, consent to suffer with him and with his intentions? Should not we cooperate with him in the work of our purification and sanctification, and partake in his glory by sharing in his sufferings?
Noble and generous souls add to these motives the motive of zeal. They suffer to fulfil what is wanting of the sufferings of Christ and thus work for the redemption of souls. Here lies the secret source of the heroic patience of the saints and of their love for the Cross. (A. Tanqueray, The Spiritual Life)
***
To understand the Sacred Scriptures, we should be guided by the actions of Christ and the behavior of the saints; these should be our criteria.
During his trial before Caiaphas, “one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’” (Jn 18:22-23)
Christ did not, actually, present the other cheek to that man, as he had hinted in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5:39); nor did St Paul to anyone. Therefore, a mere literal interpretation of the beatitudes falsifies their significance.
The precept of presenting the other cheek to an aggressor refers to a disposition of the soul; when required and fitting, we must bear a second affront, even a greater one, from an aggressor, without falling into sadness. This was the attitude of Christ, giving his body over to the final onslaught. Those words uttered by Jesus are, therefore, a lesson for us. (St Thomas, Commentary on the Gospel of St John, 18).
***
If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the Cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid.
Christ endured much on the Cross, and did so patiently. “When he suffered he did not threaten; he was like a sheep led to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth.” Therefore Christ’s patience on the Cross was great.
In patience let us run for the prize set before us, looking upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, bore his Cross and despised the shame. (St Thomas Aquinas, Collatio 6 Super Credo in Deum)
The Calm Serenity of Jesus
From a purely human point of view, Jesus’ life was a complete failure. Yet his ill‑success did not upset the calm serenity of his actions. Opposition to his principles did not rouse him to indignation. The powerlessness to persuade did not cause him to desist from his efforts in despair, or renounce these efforts in petulance. He was not moved, either to overeagerness in manner, or to excess of vehemence in words. Each day, unmoved from his earnestness, or his dignity, or his calm, by the previous day’s failure, he resumed his work with the same force, the same courage, the same unimpaired energy of mind and will as before, exactly as if the disappointments of the past were not to be expected in the future.
***
The heartbreaking wilfulness of men caused him pain, but no indignation. He was not irritated by, though he wondered at, their incredulity. Their persistence in error in the light of Truth so clearly, vividly and persuasively presented to them stirred him neither to bitterness, nor to anger. It caused him neither to be piqued nor to be disheartened, though it weighed like lead on his heart.
Nothing that he had to contend with wrought in him the least change in the perfection of the dispositions–the interior dispositions–with which he faced each new circumstance of his life. Ingratitude and forgetfulness on the part of those whom he healed and comforted produced no diminution of Jesus’ tenderness and mercy toward them. With what looked like unconquerable optimism he worked miracle after miracle to prove his Divine mission. And when this powerful reasoning found a barrier in the adamantine prejudices of his countrymen, he recommenced once more with unabated courage.
And we cannot say that his passing triumphs kept alive his hopefulness. He was well aware that these triumphs were superficial and ephemeral, more apparent than real. The Evangelist relates somewhat sadly: “Now many believed in his name, seeing the signs which he did; but Jesus did not trust himself to them, for he knew all men” (Jn 2:24).
Even in the narrow circle of his intimate friends, our Lord failed to excite a sympathetic understanding with himself. That he should have been misunderstood by his enemies would have been tolerable, if only he had not been so misunderstood by his friends.
***
Each day our Lord took up life’s burden in the same calm way; he went straight on through its round of tasks. Jesus was content with doing each function rightly; he never allowed his interior dispositions to be altered or disturbed by the immediate fruitfulness of his labors. It is true that he felt keenly his repeated failures. But he never was tempted by the pain he suffered in his sensitive nature to renounce his enterprise; he never took refuge in inactivity, or in the execution of things which should meet with a better measure of success. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
***
At all times our Lord bore himself with the same calm, unchanging, unbroken, undeviating fortitude. He did not waste valuable time in complaints or in self‑pity. He wasted no energy in rebellion against circumstances. And he did not passively acquiesce to the inevitable with a gesture of indifference or despair. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
***
Even if I know what hell will be, I cannot really imagine what it will be to be hated by Christ, to hear, “I don’t know you” (Mt 25:12). Yes; it will be better to suffer a thousand thunderbolts, than to see that face of mildness turning away from me, those eyes of peace not wanting to look upon me.
He came to save me while I was his enemy, hating him, and turning away from him. He even gave himself up to death for me, and I rejected him. After all this, with what kind of eyes shall I ever again look at him?
Notice his gentleness, he does not speak of his gifts. He does not say, “You have despised me who have done so much for you.” He does not say, “You have rejected me. And I brought you into being; for your sake I made the earth, heaven, sea and air, and all things that are; I set you over all things on the earth; after been dishonored by you, I did not withdraw myself from you, but thought of you after it all; I chose to become a slave; I was beaten with rods and spat upon; I was slain for you; I died the most shameful death for you; I intercede on high for you; I freely send you my Holy Spirit; I grant you a kingdom; I made you such promises; I am, for your sake, the Head of my Body, the Bridegroom, the Food and Drink, the Shepherd, and the King; I took you to be my brother, and heir; I brought you out of the darkness into my light.”
He does not mention these things at all, but only the offense–sin.
He does not say, “Depart into the fire prepared for you,” but, “prepared for the devil.” There he shows his love and his patience toward you. (St John Chrysostom, Homilies on St Matthew’s Gospel., 23)
He Who Loves Jesus Christ Loves Sufferings
Life is a time to gain merits for heaven. To deserve that prize we must imitate Jesus Christ. He suffered for us to encourage us to suffer.
***
This earth is the place for meriting and, therefore, for suffering. Our true fatherland, where God has prepared for us rest in everlasting joy, is paradise. We have but a short time to stay in this world; yet in this short time we have many labors to undergo; “Man born of a woman, lives for a short time, and filled with many miseries” (Job 14:1). We must suffer, and all must suffer. Be they just or sinners, each one must carry his cross. He who carries it with patience is saved; he who carries it with impatience is lost. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
***
St Augustine says that the same miseries send some to paradise and some to hell: “One and the same blow lifts the good to glory, and reduces the bad to ashes.”1 The same saint observes that suffering is the test to distinguish the chaff from the wheat in the Church of God. He who humbles himself under tribulations, and is resigned to the will of God, is wheat for paradise; he who grows haughty, is enraged, and so abandons God, is chaff for hell. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
***
On the day when the cause of our salvation shall be decided, we will like to enjoy the happy sentence of the predestined. To deserve that prize, our life must be patterned after that of Jesus Christ. “For whom He foreknew He also predestined to be patterned after the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29).
For this purpose the Eternal Word descended upon earth, to teach us, by his example, to carry with patience the cross that God sends us. “Christ suffered for us–wrote St Peter–leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). Thus, Jesus Christ suffered on purpose to encourage us to suffer. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
***
O God! What a life was that of Jesus Christ! A life of ignominy and pain. The Prophet calls our Redeemer “despised, and rejected by men, a man of sorrows” (Is 53:3). A man held in contempt, and treated as the lowest, the vilest among men, a man of sorrows; yes, for the life of Jesus Christ was made up of hardships and afflictions.
God treats every one that he loves and receives as his son in the same manner as he has treated his beloved Son: “For the Lord trains the ones that he loves and he scourges all those that he acknowledges as his sons” (Heb 12:6).
Thus, Jesus one day said to St Teresa: “Know that the souls dearest to my Father are those who are afflicted with the greatest sufferings.”2 Hence the saint said that she would not exchange any of her troubles for all the treasures in the world. She appeared after her death to a soul, and revealed to her that she enjoyed an immense reward in heaven. The reward was not so much due for her good works, as for the sufferings she cheerfully bore in this life for the love of God. The saint added that if she could possibly return to the earth, the only reason would be to suffer more for God. (St Anthony M. de’ Liguori, Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ)
***
Some few persons have, at times, the depressing sense of being failures in the spiritual life. On occasions of retreat and recollection, and sometimes, too, in the midst of their occupations, there comes to them an agonizing sense of having drifted away from God. There is a feeling that Jesus and they move in different worlds with no point of contact. They feel very remote from him, from his thoughts and his ways. The consideration of the barrenness of their lives and of the–apparently–wholly unsupernatural condition of their souls fills them with dismay. Their souls present a sorry sight when examined according to the principles of Christian perfection.
These persons have a sense of sinfulness which is more poignant than the actual consciousness of some positive sin. Hateful to themselves, they judge that they must be an object of aversion for the Lord, whose graces they have squandered and whose hopes they have disappointed. Knowing his purity, his holiness, his utter faithfulness to his heavenly Father, they think that the Lord can no longer care for them. They see themselves so utterly different from Jesus in holiness and rectitude of life.
They are uneasy in his presence because they fear that he, so pure and so good, must shrink from creatures who are vile, mean and unworthy, as they know themselves to be. Seeing no good in their own souls, they are convinced that they can no longer be an object of regard to Jesus. There comes to them at this juncture the subtle temptation to make their drifting away from the Lord a reason for drifting still further from him.
Now, this is totally to misunderstand our divine Lord. It is true that he looks with hatred on sin, and that he cannot love us in so far as we are sinners. But he can and does love us for any little good that remains in us. And, above all, he loves us for what we can possibly become if we respond to the compelling appeals of his grace.
He does not love sin, but he does love those who are sinners. He is patient and never shrinks from contact with us–or from our contact with him–as long as there remains the possibility of our rejecting sin, so displeasing in his sight. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
***
Look at Jesus’ patience with sinners.
The devil has never got a fully decisive victory over a soul until he has robbed it of full confidence in Jesus, in the inexhaustible goodness of Jesus’ Heart toward the wayward, the faithless and the sinful. The cruelest wound we inflict on his Heart, the gravest of our infidelities, occurs when we doubt of his tenderness and mercy.
Those who came in contact with him while he lived on earth never had this attitude of fear towards him, even when they recognized his awe‑inspiring holiness. In spite of the consciousness of grave sin that many who approached him must have had, we see no trace in their dealings with him of their having a tendency to shrink from his presence or to dread his approach.
“Now,” says St Luke, “the publicans and sinners drew near unto him to hear him” (Lk 15:1). So condescending did he show himself to them on all occasions and such trust had they in him that the charge of having a predilection for sinners and publicans was frequently levelled at him.
His enemies were repelled by the life of austerity led by John of Baptist. Yet they pretended to be scandalized at the absence of rigid penance in the life of Jesus, and at his attitude of clemency towards sinners. They found fault with the one and with the other so that our Lord was forced to call attention to the contradiction in their minds, saying: “John the Baptist came neither eating bread or drinking wine. And you say: He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come eating and drinking and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Lk 7:33-34).
Our Savior showed a habitual readiness to forgive sins, and exhibited such patience, tenderness, sympathy and kindness towards sinners, that it caused comment and criticism among the “rigidly righteous.” The allusions to this subject are frequent in the Gospels.
So constant did the murmurs of his enemies become, that one day our Lord turned on them in a series of parables on God’s mercy. There are three parables following one after the other. Jesus laid bare to an astonished world what passes through the human heart of God, his patience and love toward those who have left him to seek happiness in sin. The parables of the strayed sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son are a wonderful revelation of the tenderness of Jesus.
Those hard‑hearted Jewish priests, the representatives of God on earth and the ministers of his covenant with men, wanted Jesus to show himself austere and forbidding toward those who have failed. Stung to the quick, our Lord was driven to disclose the incomprehensible yearning of his great Heart even toward the most unworthy of us. He is forced, as it were, to reveal to the vulgar and the uncomprehending, to the conventional and the narrow‑hearted what looks like weakness: his love and patience toward sinners. He does not excuse his actions, he does not even pause to justify them. He simply lays bare the inner workings of his Heart–what the saints have had the hardihood to call the folly of his love–for us, miserable failures in the way of holiness. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
***
Chapter XV in the Gospel according to St Luke is remarkable and repays study. It will be noticed that Jesus is not content with one parable, but figure is added to figure, image to image, detail heaped on detail, in order to give as complete a picture as possible of the boundless mercy and patience of the God‑Man. It would look as if all barriers of reserve were broken down, and Jesus allowed men to penetrate into the most mysterious recesses of his Heart. The words follow rapidly, one after another; the sentences are vivid and eloquent; each parable succeeds the preceding one without a break, almost with an appearance of breathlessness. And in all is observed the same rapid movement, the same nervous phrasing, the same vivid coloring.
Jesus’ defence of himself is beautiful in the extreme, beautiful in its simplicity, beautiful in that eloquence which touches the innermost fibers of our hearts.
The story of the Lost Sheep is sufficient in itself to bring consolation to the repentant sinners for all time, and to inspire the most obdurate with unbounded confidence in the Divine Mercy. But Jesus was not satisfied with it. He supplements this moving story by two others widely different, but equally moving and, perhaps, more consoling.
God’s mercy casts a wide net. As he was developing the first parable, our Lord saw all the possible phases of human waywardness. He feared that–in the future–some sorrowing man might find in the particularly heinous circumstances of his sin a reason for doubting of the mercy of God. Thus, he tried to forestall all possible objections by showing forth that no depths of wickedness, misery, and failure are too deep to be measured by the plummet of his Love.
In the portraits of the Good Shepherd seeking the stray sheep, the anxious householder looking for the lost coin, and the loving father awaiting the return of the prodigal son, Jesus shows that the mercy of God is multifaceted. Though simple in its essence, it is many‑sided and adaptable; able to meet every emergency occasioned by wickedness. To every form of sin it can oppose a new front. Wickedness will rather exhaust the possibilities of crime than the infinite resources of the Divine Goodness. God’s patience forgives all our trespasses. Our Lord has taken away from us every possible reason for not approaching him with confidence.
And as our Lord was in those days so he is now. He does not change with the passing years. Our treatment of him cannot change him. He is here with us in our churches. He is the same in Heart and in Mind as he was in those days when he pronounced the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Shepherd.
As he never then showed coldness, aloofness or displeasure towards those who approached him, no matter how stained their souls were with sin, he does not do so now. Our badness cannot modify his goodness, nor can it rob him of his interest in us. He looks out on us from the Tabernacle with the same yearning love, the same expectancy, the same hopefulness which no rebuff on our part can chill, as he exhibited to all those whom he encountered while on earth.
He is concerned about us as he was about those whom he compassionately fed in the desert. We are just as valuable in his eyes as they were. He will be at least as tender, as condescending, as kind towards us as he was towards them. They were probably no better than we are. No matter how frequently we may have failed in his service, there is no reason why he should not have an absolute, childlike confidence in Jesus.
The great little saint of Lisieux revealed the spiritual validity of this attitude. She writes: “If I draw near to God with love and trust, it is not because I have kept from mortal sin. Were my conscience laden with every imaginable crime, I should not have one whit less confidence. Heart‑broken and repentant, I would throw myself into my Savior’s arms. He loves the prodigal son: I know his words to Magdalene, to the adulterous woman, to that of Samaria. Who would make me afraid if I know his mercy and his love? I know that all my numberless sins would disappear in an instant, like a drop of water cast into a furnace.”
Having this patience toward sinners is our Lord’s own choice. When accused of going with those who were not remarkable for the rectitude of their lives, his answer was that “he was come not to call the just but the sinners.” Our sins, then, far from creating a barrier between us and him, really constitute a reason, a title or right, to come to him. They also constitute a reason for his coming to us. He could have said to the Pharisees: “I frequent sinners because they need me more than others. The physician spends his time with and gives all his attention and care to those that are ill, not to those that are in health. I am the Physician of souls. That is my work.” And “They that are in health need not a physician but they that are ill” (Mt 9:12).
Encouraging as is this simile for us, it does not fully exemplify the relations of Jesus to our souls. The doctor gives merely his services to his patients, places his skill at their disposal. Our Lord not only gives us his services, he lavishes on us his love as well.
That the Lord loves us is true, and it is incomprehensible. Why he is so devoted to us is not possible to fully explain, but one reason for it may be inferred: We have cost him so dear. For us, sinners, he poured forth his Precious Blood. “Knowing,” says St Peter, “that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the Precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled” (1 Pet 1:18-19). And again we read in St Paul: “For you are bought with a great price” (1 Cor 6:20).
The child is loved by his mother by the very pain he has cost her. Jesus values us because he has given his all for us–every drop of his Heart’s Blood. Is it not an astonishing mystery that he values us so highly, and we, alas, so often, so little value him?
Each of the parables insinuates that what was lost was precious in the eyes of the person who suffered the loss. To the shepherd, the animal that he had seen grow up amidst his flock had become dear. He had watched it as a lamb, and he had cared for and pastured it with solicitude. It had become an integral part of his possessions, and he had looked to it to bring him an increase of wealth in the shearing seasons. Anyone who is acquainted with the life of the country knows how attached those who tend domestic animals become to the objects of their charge. Hence it was that the shepherd felt that something had gone out of his life, when he observed that one sheep had strayed from the fold.
In the second parable, the thrifty housekeeper had amassed, by diligent toil, a modest fortune. Ten coins constituted her hard‑won savings–of considerable value to her as the fruits of a life of industry. Her distress was great when she missed one coin from her little hoard–it represented a tenth of her fortune. Our Lord describes in sympathetic and tender detail the anxious search she instituted for the missing coin and her great satisfaction at its recovery.
A kind of climax is reached in the third parable. In this, it is no longer an animal of the flock, or a relatively large portion of worldly possessions, but a dearly beloved son who by his desertion wrings with anguish the heart of a loving father. There is infinite pathos in the description of the sense of loss and abandonment felt by the bereaved parent. The deprivation of land and goods and household treasures counted as nothing with him when weighed in the balance against the loss of his youngest and his dearest son. All those details are purposely accumulated by our divine Lord. He waited to bring home to us that consoling truth, which we find so difficult to accept–that we mean very much to him, that we are very precious in his sight, and that he is ready to go to any length to keep us close to himself. (E. Leen, In the Likeness of Christ)
Footnotes:
1 Serm. 52.
2 Life, addit.