Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/162

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

demned by the council of the high priest, ignominiously treated in the court of the governor, and sentenced to death at the tribunal of the president. Learn, hence, to contemn the opinions and judgments of the world which was so unjust to your Saviour.

II. He suffered from those whom He came to save, on whom He had already bestowed most singular favors during His private and public life; so that He might truly say, " they have hated me without cause." (John xv. 25.) And what, is still more, He suffered Himself to be betrayed by His own disciple, to give us an example of patience in the failure and abandonment of friends. " The man of My peace, in whom I trusted, who ate My bread, hath greatly supplanted Me." (Ps. xl. 10.)

III. He was left exposed to the machinations of hell, according to the expression of St. Luke: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." (Luke xxii. 53.) He was surrendered to the power of Satan, not as holy Job was, with this restriction, "but yet save his life" (Job ii. 6), but absolutely and even to death. Compassionate your Lord, thus forsaken by His friends and left to the mercy of His most cruel enemies; and if at any time it should be your fortune to experience the insolence of men, remember " the disciple is not above his Master." (Matt, x. 24.)

FRIDAY.

Christ's Passion in General.

FOR WHOM DOES HE SUFFER?

I. Christ did not suffer for Himself, for He was incapable of doing anything that deserved punishment; but He suffered in order to reconcile mankind to His eternal