made of the earth; He only kept for Himself the sins of the world, to make satisfaction for them. He had no grave of His own in which His Body might lie: it was buried in the grave of a stranger, by the charity of him who owned it.
Patience in suffering. Our Divine Saviour remained hanging on the Cross till men came to take Him down. Ought we, then, to consider it too much to remain hanging on the cross (of suffering) till it pleases God to take us down?
The opening of the Side of Jesus, sleeping the sleep of death on the Cross, was, according to the Fathers of the Church, a fulfilment of the type presented by the creation of the first woman from the side of the sleeping Adam. From the Side of Jesus Christ, the second Adam and our spiritual Father, there proceeded the Church, which is the second Eve, the true mother of the living.
Preparation for Holy Communion. Even as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped the Sacred Body of Jesus in clean linen, and laid it in a tomb fragrant with sweet spices, so ought we to receive the Body of our Lord in Holy Communion with hearts cleansed from sin, and fragrant with devotion and the perfume of virtues.
The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was visited by many pilgrims even in the first centuries of the Christian era. In the year 325, St. Helen, the mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great, discovered the True Cross, together with the Nails and Title. But as the crosses of the two thieves were found together with and in the same place as the Cross of Jesus, it was a matter of uncertainty which of the three crosses was that of our Lord. St. Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, caused a poor woman, afflicted with a mortal complaint, to touch the three crosses in turn. The touch of the first two had no effect on her; but as soon as she had touched the third, she arose perfectly cured. This miracle made it plain which was the true Cross of Jesus. Fragments of the Holy Cross have been* distributed among the faithful in almost every Catholic country. Constantine built a large church on Calvary over the Holy Sepulchre.
Application. Would you not consider yourself very happy, if you could go to Jerusalem and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and pray on the two spots where your Saviour was crucified and buried? Your heart would glow with devotion and grateful love, and tears of emotion would flow from your eyes. But in the tabernacle on the altar your Divine Saviour is present with His divine and human natures, under the appearances of bread; and every morning at the holy Mass the Sacrifice on the Cross is renewed in an unbloody manner; and yet you behave so thoughtlessly and indevoutly in church, and are so unwilling to hear Mass!
