Catholic during the Great Apostasy

“Who will give my eyes a source of tears
and I shall weep day and night?”
.Jerem. IX. 1.

These are the words of Jeremiah the prophet, weeping over the anger of the unbelieving people, who in vain admonished them, telling them of God’s future punishments. And we, my brothers, weeping over the Passion of our Lord, may we cry in the same words, remembering that not all enjoy this divine grace, disregarding the death of God’s Son and his sufferings, over which nothing is dearer, nothing greater.

Jeremiah the prophet wept over the insensitivity and hard-heartedness of the people, and let us also weep over our own insensitivity and the hard-heartedness of sinners who either turn their eyes away from Christ’s cross or, looking at it, walk away without learning anything, cold and indifferent, without letting out a single sigh or shedding a single tear over their sins.

If the loss of our dearest loved one inflicts a grievous and painful wound on our heart, and tears flow copiously and we are long inconsolable and sad, then, looking at the death of Christ, unmourned, unappreciated and insulted by many, we must involuntarily cry out; “oh who will give my eyes a fountain of tears and I will weep day and night.”Let us weep with all our souls as we behold Christ burdened with a heavy and long cross, bending and falling under its weight three times, and each time wounding anew His most holy body, recently mutilated from head to foot. Let us lament a people blinded by malice; from among whom Jesus emerges, covered with contempt and insults, a people who have not known the day of the Lord’s visitation.
Let us weep and mourn with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who, together with other pious women, is struggling along the way of her dearest son, so that she may comfort him and alleviate his sufferings with at least one word of the maternal heart, at least one tear of compassion.

And then, following Christ to Golgotha, let us perhaps pause, lest the incomprehensible sufferings of the God-Man should shock us and weaken our faith, lest we, like the Lord’s disciples, should run away from the cross, terrified by the enormity of the sorrow.
But no, my brethren, let us go, oh let us go! to the foot of the cross, for at this fountain of love we will ignite in our hearts a fire that never goes out; there we will weep with all our hearts, ache with all our souls, and for life; there, though we may be like cold stones, we will melt in the fire of love.

Let us look at this, behold, the image before us, this cross, bloodstained with the Most Holy Blood, the cross to which they nail our Saviour mercilessly!Let us close our ears, for behold, we seem to hear the hammering of the hammer, the sound of the nails, and the silent groaning, and the violent thumping of the heart of Jesus; behold, they have pierced those blessed hands which have brought so many blessings into the world, which have raised themselves for us in constant prayer to heaven, at every miracle, at every grace, those almighty hands which, having created the whole world, have blessed the world;Here they pierced with nails those sacred feet, untiring in their work for the earth, feet that bled constantly during their lifetime in the merciful pursuit of sinners; here they pierced the sacred side and the loving heart, our only refuge from the angry God!

Behold, already the cross is lifted up in the sight of the whole world; and from that cross flows blood abundantly!… Ah!let us fall down before it on our faces, let us bow down to this bed of sorrows of the dying Christ, this true Isaac, that we, like the once patriarch Jacob, may receive an ante-mortem blessing; let us, like good children, surround the bed of the dying father, and let us listen to what is his last will and testament; let us listen diligently, for it is contained in seven words and is proof of the greatest love for us.

O, who shall give to our eyes a fountain of tears, and we shall weep day and night over the death of our Saviour?

Who will give us this, unless the Virgin Mary, to whom we take refuge in humility. O Mary! do not abandon us; but standing beneath the cross of your Son, commend us to him! We share with all our hearts the sorrows of your heart, for who would not share the sufferings of his most beloved Mother!Ah! we wish to abide with thee to the end beneath the cross of Jesus, that we may receive his last words forever into our souls! Rejoicing with thee in sorrow, sorrowful Mother, we carry the angelic words of consolation, “Hail Mary.”

Not so long ago, the Saviour, full of health and strength, was teaching and doing good to the world, until, behold, already on a severe cross, raised above the world, in the midst of two evildoers, in the greatest sorrows of soul and body, he looks with the eye of mercy upon an uncounted people, devoid of all compassion, gazing with curiosity upon his passion, a people mocking and blaspheming, a people blinded, crying impiously: “If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross!” And Christ the Lord does not think of himself and at the last moment, but of us, and he proclaims to us his last will, his last law of love, he mercifully throws to the whole world seven last words, which let us listen to with holy reverence, for there is no more solemn speech than that of the dying God-Man.

Let us look in the spirit to Calvary! Behold, Christ’s lips are folded in prayer, and his eyes are lifted up to heaven: this pleading gaze of our Saviour clearly tells us that he asks the heavenly Father for sinful men, for his persecutors. And this prayer, veiling sinners from the punishing justice of God, is:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” did the pagan, pre-Christian world hear similar expressions and in a similar case? did it forgive its enemies, did it lift itself up so high in love?”Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” cried Jesus after the perverse people; for verily, too, did this memorable people know what they were doing when, seized by a wild, animal passion, they crucified the God-Man!!!!

This ignorance, however, was very sinful; it blinded the eyes of this unfortunate people to the light, and closed their ears to the truth, and so, progressing further and further in evil, they became so blinded that they themselves did not know what they were doing when they crucified the Son of God. Sinner, listen to the merciful words of Christ’s prayer and return to virtue, to faith, to the love of God! Every sin is a blindness of the mind and of the heart; it is that intoxication which dulls in us all the powers of the soul, fuelling the senses so that we forget God. And Christ the Lord prayed for us, the Church prayed for us, and we saw again, and returned to God, and God forgave our sins: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” said the Saviour, for our example, that we, like him, should forgive our neighbours;

“Let us therefore be gracious, says St. Paul, forgiving one another, forgiving those who do not know what they do. let us therefore be gracious, says St. Paul, forgiving one another, forgiving one another’s trespasses, as God also in Christ has forgiven us.”

But, oh, how often we do not follow that voice! We lack mercy when not only do we not want to forgive grudges, but sometimes we translate even the best deeds of our neighbours into evil or condemn them with impudence. Oh, what would have happened to us if Christ the Lord had so judged us on the cross?Let us be ashamed of our haughtiness, let us forgive from the heart our mutual resentments, let us shake hands fraternally, for we are children of one Father in heaven, and let us repeat with Christ after all our enemies: Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do….

Three crosses are erected on Calvary, because our Saviour was crucified between two scoundrels; but what was meant to serve for the greater dishonour of Christ served for the greater glory of Christ. The prayer of Jesus, which he had recently made to God for his enemies, brought abundant grace upon one of the scoundrels who did not resist it, while the other remained a criminal to the end and died without repentance, having Jesus, the source of all grace and forgiveness, beside him.Let us see what Byzmas, the good villain, did: behold, enlightened by the grace of God, he acknowledged God in Christ, and used his passion for his salvation. Hearing the blasphemies of the evil villain, he admonished him, saying, “Neither art thou afraid of God; we justly reap a worthy reward for our deeds, but this one has done nothing evil.”

And all was fulfilled: the deity of Christ proved, the work of man’s redemption accomplished, Satan vanquished, the fetters of our bondage broken and laid at the foot of Christ’s cross, over which hangs the victorious banner of salvation!
And when one of the soldiers, Longinus, as the ancient legend has it, came forward, he opened Christ’s side with a spear, so that the prophecy might be fulfilled; and soon blood and water gushed forth and poured out upon the church the seven troughs of the holy sacraments; and the church, the pure bride, took the place of Christ on earth, and leads mankind to its intended goal, now and to the end of the world, recommending the fulfilment of the will of the heavenly Master.

What a great step towards salvation, what sincere repentance, what recognition of one’s own unworthiness, what enduring of punishment, what flight to the most holy wounds of Jesus and joy at suffering with him, what faith in the divinity and holiness of the Crucified One, what firm conviction that Christ can take away the sins of the whole world!!!With such confidence in the mercy and omnipotence of the Saviour, he cried out, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom!” And the Saviour, seeing the contrite and humbled heart, did not disdain this request, and forgiving in an instant the stagnant crimes, uttered these words full of consolation and happiness: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

The three crosses, says St. Augustine, reveal to us the great mysteries; the three crosses are the three states of man’s soul: it is his holiness, as in holiness in Christ, it is his repentance or hardness in sins, as in these two villains.The whole world is divided into two camps, the whole world is a good or a bad villain; for whoever does not confess Christ with all his heart and life is a bad villain and perishes with him; whoever, confessing his deity, places all his trust in him, who, seeing his own unworthiness, resorts to his merits, like a good villain will be saved.

Christ the Lord, on the cross, as king and judge, pronounced two judgments: he saved one thief and condemned the other; the same will happen at the end of the world: at the terrible judgment Christ the Lord, judge of the living and the dead; he will separate the good from the bad, take the first to the eternal tabernacle with him, condemn and perish the others for ever….

Ah, my brethren, let us be filled with holy fear and dread at the thought of this, and today, when we hear this, let us desire heaven and work for it, not delaying sincere repentance for our sins, for though the Lord is able to forgive us in a moment the sins of our whole life, yet we cannot be sure that, having despised the grace of God all our life, we will heed its call at death

The Holy Fathers, followed by St. Vincent Ferrara, say that the shadow of Christ’s cross covered the good thief like a robe of God’s mercy and converted him to the Lord, that the blood of Jesus, gushing out from his wounds in abundance, washed him clean, that finally, as St. Bernard says, the Most Holy Mother, standing beneath the cross, interceded for Diosma to her Son Jesus and prayed for him heaven,These salutary means, which the converted criminal used for good, are also open to us: let us go under the shadow of Christ’s cross, under the protection of St. Peter and St. Paul, where the blood of the Saviour gushes forth, and where the blood of the Saviour is poured out, let us go to the Church of the Holy Spirit, where the blood of the Holy Spirit is poured out. Let us go under the shadow of Christ’s Cross, under the protection of the Church, where the blood of the Saviour gushes forth for our salvation, under the protection of the Mother of God, whose intercession for us sinners before Jesus will obtain our conversion and forgiveness; and we will hear, like the good thief, these words, full of consolation, in the depths of our soul: “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” that is, you will receive an abundance of my grace, which brings unspeakable happiness and peace to the heart and conscience of the justified sinner….

We have said that the Mother of Jesus stood at the foot of the Cross. She stood at the foot of the Cross with the other holy women weeping in pious silence over the passion of their Lord; but Mary had a loftier mission than these: she stood at the foot of the Cross as our co-redemptrix, sharing the sorrow of Jesus, suffering most of all human beings, of all mothers, however sorrowful.She suffered out of love for us, wishing to save us from the hands of the enemy by the passion of her Son – and this love for us overcame the pain in her.

Have we ever wondered, brothers, about the sorrow of our Mother? Have we ever entered, with filial love, into the heart of Mary, pierced by seven swords of sorrow? The sorrow of that Mother, already foretold by the holy old man Simeon, increased day by day, until finally, behold, now beneath the Cross, it surged like the waters of an angry sea and struck at her maternal heart, in which love reigned stronger than death.A terrible cry arose, hammers struck, and severe nails drove into the most innocent body of Jesus, blood flowed in streams from the most sacred wounds, enemies mocked and blasphemed, and Mary, the most tender-hearted Mother, felt all this in her most tender heart; yet she did not depart from the cross, but stood by it, desiring that her most beloved Son should make the sacrifice; She stands calmly, patiently, counting every blow of the hammer, every groan of Christ, every insult, and, in spite of the incomprehensible sorrow, she offers Him to the Eternal Father as atonement for our sins, she also offers herself for all the sorrows without end, for death itself, so that we may have eternal life….

And so the most holy Virgin became our true Mother in her sorrows at the Cross, and we her children, whom she never forgets, even when we, ungrateful, forget her.It was her motherhood and our filiality that the Saviour solemnly asserted from His cross, saying to Mary of John: “behold thy son;” and to John of Mary:”behold thy mother;” he said, and all things came to pass, and came to pass almighty; and the Virgin Mary felt from that moment an incomprehensible love in her heart for us, which she will burn with to the end of the world; and men will feel grateful for her care and love for ever, and will call upon her help in every adventure, in every danger….

Yes, beloved brethren, Mary loves us as her own children, because we are the true sons of Jesus, she loves us with the greatest love on earth, and she intercedes for us that we may be saved! Oh, “let us not forget, brethren, the groaning of our mother, that our supplication and our blessing may be accomplished” (Eccl. VII).

We read in the Scriptures that Moses, having to deliver the people of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, among other plagues covered Egypt with darkness for three days; something similar happened at the death of Jesus, our saviour from the hands of the enemy of salvation; “and darkness fell, says the Gospel, over all the earth;” now all nature is indignant at the insult of Christ:darkness has covered the wicked city of Jerusalem with a thick, gloomy robe, taking over all with unspeakable terror, and all is silent:The remembered executioners stand stupefied at the sight of the dreadful miracle, Mary with a few pious ones, plunged into sorrows, and the Saviour suffers terribly, for behold, once more, more violently than in the Garden of Olives, the sins of the whole world have struck him; wherever he turns his eyes, he sees sin everywhere; and having nowhere to comfort himself, he cried out with a great voice: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”

O! great must have been the suffering of Jesus when He spoke in these words, not that He was forsaken of His Father, with whom, as God, He comprised one being, but that even from heaven for a moment all consolation ceased, so that He suffered for us all the weakness, all the fear, all the abandonment of the sinner, above which there is nothing more terrible.”My God, why hast thou forsaken me,” asks Christ, that we ourselves in our souls may give the answer-that for our sins, that because we may not be forsaken for ever, that we may have God’s grace forever.

Thus weary with sorrows, exhausted with bloodshed, burned from sorrows, from the heat of the sun, and still more from the burning love within, cried Jesus, “I thirst;” and at once one of the soldiers standing handed him a sponge, dipped in vinegar and gall: and Jesus tasted that unpleasant drink, which expressed all our malice, and the scripture was fulfilled, “in my thirst they drink vinegar for me.”
There is nothing more acute than thirst; the wicked rich man expresses the sorrows of hell in one word, “I thirst,” and many die of thirst; Christ felt such a deadly thirst, but it is his word “I thirst” that has a deeper meaning.

This word, uttered on the cross, is the content of Christ’s entire life; he repeated this word from the moment of his birth until his last: he desired our salvation, and that is why he came into the world; he desired our happiness, and that is why he taught about God’s will; he desired redemption, and that is why he ascended to the cross, and here he still desires without end. He once spoke a word of the same content to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and she understood Jesus’ desire; he cried the same word on the cross to the Jews, but they did not understand it, and they drank vinegar and gall while he thirsted for their faith and conversion.

To Christ’s cry, “I thirst,” there is no end; and now, and for so many centuries, and to the end of the world, he will cry, “I thirst;” he will cry to the whole world, to all people who, like the Jewish people, give him the vinegar of their evil deeds; he calls to those who have no faith, he calls to those who, having received the treasure of faith, sell it and dissipate it through an evil life, he calls to all those who in any way diminish the glory of God and themselves perish eternally;To such he calls with a mighty voice, which pierces heaven and earth, he calls with the voice “I thirst,” and woe to him who does not listen to this voice, or who, having heard it, does not want to understand it, and instead of the sweet drink of living faith and love, gives him the bitter and sour drink of insult and sin!

Jesus had already accomplished everything; there was no law that he had not revealed, no grace that he had not left behind, no prophecy that he had not fulfilled, and everything in the strictest, most perfect way, everything in a divine, extraordinary, miraculous way. And Jesus ran through all this with his divine mind in a single moment, he ran through forty centuries of mankind’s existence, and when he saw that everything had already been fulfilled, he solemnly said: “It is done.”This voice he uttered to his Father, for he had already fulfilled the mission which he had entrusted to him on earth, and although wounded by the thorny road, he reached the finish line, the summit of Calvary, and poured out to the last drop the cup of bitter agony.It is finished,” he said to all the people, for he could do nothing more for them, because his passion and death, a miracle of omnipotence, a miracle of divine love, is an incomprehensible mystery which human reason could never have foreseen and which it still cannot understand.

Oh, indeed, who can add anything to what Christ has done? Who can add even the smallest iota to the doctrine which he has revealed? Everything has been fulfilled! True progress has already been completed; already man has been brought near to God by grace; already there is no other progress except after Christ; already the world will create nothing new, nothing higher will be found, and true progress will only be in fulfilling Christ’s law and directing everything to his holy will. Everything has been fulfilled! There are no greater mysteries to be revealed, no graces to be poured out

Rejoice, patriarchs and prophets; rejoice, all ye saints of every state and age; join your voices with those of the angels, and in the heavenly rapture of joy sing an everlasting hosanna to the Lord! Rejoice, O holy Church, for the victory of thy Bridegroom, who hath bestowed upon thee eternal peace and an everlasting kingdom; rejoice, all ye elements, and join your voices in a united song of thanksgiving; rejoice, O earth and heaven!… only thou, hell, tremble, wail with a groan of despair, and yield thyself at last to thy eternal victor, Christ-God; for all is fulfilled, all is accomplished!!! Glory be to God on high, and on earth be peace to men of good will!!!

But that is not all, there remains the greatest miracle of all, the death of Christ, the God-Man, the miracle of his omnipotence, which neither man nor angel can even comprehend: and this miracle will be performed by the Saviour of the world, who will die to free us from eternal death.Let us gaze, my brethren, with holy reverence upon our crucified Lord: behold, already a cold sweat is pouring down upon the divine face of Jesus; behold, his eyes are looking up to heaven, bringing us the last blessing; behold, at last, a mighty voice is issuing from his breast, which the whole world will hear: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!…” And the God-Man died… He died, becoming obedient to God even unto death and the death of the cross!…

And what shall we say next! Christ died for us on the cross… The God-Man died!… Ah, brothers, let us pause, at the sight of such an incomprehensible miracle!For it is the end of all things, it is a mystery, it is an all-pervading, incomprehensible event, before which we can only humble ourselves in our nothingness; it is an unheard-of, unfathomable blessing, for which we have scarcely sacrificed our whole life, scarcely died!… What more can we say, when everything on earth and in heaven has stood amazed, has fallen silent?! The angels stopped their songs, and fell on their faces at the foot of the cross, and cry in mute sorrow for the people who, harder than rocks, do not want to cry; the rocks crumble, the tombs open, the dead come out, the sun refuses to shine, the veil in the temple in Jerusalem tears, the earth shakes, and the astonished centurion, beating his chest in humility, solemnly confesses that Jesus is the Son of God….And all was fulfilled: the deity of Christ proved, the work of man’s redemption accomplished, Satan vanquished, the fetters of our bondage broken and laid at the foot of Christ’s cross, over which hangs the victorious banner of salvation!
And when one of the soldiers, Longinus, as the ancient legend has it, came forward, he opened Christ’s side with a spear, so that the prophecy might be fulfilled; and soon blood and water gushed forth and poured out upon the church the seven troughs of the holy sacraments; and the church, the pure bride, took the place of Christ on earth, and leads mankind to its intended goal, now and to the end of the world, recommending the fulfilment of the will of the heavenly Master. ‎And if we would not listen to this will and fulfil it, we would not be saved: let us listen to it and put it into practice, if we wish to sanctify and save ourselves.

But, alas, not all believe in the Church, as not all believed in the deity of Christ, and many, very many, to whom the star of faith does not shine, are angry with the Holy Church, and cry out, “Crucify him;” and they condemn his judgments and opinions, and crown him with thorns, and sprinkle him with gall and vinegar, and drag him through the mire of the scriptures,and cry, ‘Crucify him;’ and they pass judgment and sentence upon him, and crown him with thorns, and infuse him with gall and vinegar, and trample him through the mud of the choicest writings, and he speaks with the words of Christ, ‘Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do; Lord, enlighten them, and convert them to thyself!” With such weapons, and not with others, the church bids us war, with the weapons of love and forgiveness; with such, and she herself still fights, and defeats many an adversary, and repeats to the returned the second word of Christ, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

But the Church knows that she would not win many to heaven, would not keep many on the right path without the grace of God, and she also makes no secret of the fact that these graces pour down upon men through Mary; therefore she cries out to the Christian world, pointing to Mary:”behold thy mother;” he cries out in the words of Christ, reminding everyone that omnipotent help is deposited in the maternal heart of this most holy Mother, sensitive to every need of her children;The Church recalls these words by honouring Mary first of all after God, by constituting many festivals in her honour, by erecting churches and altars in her honour, by founding societies under her holy protection, by adorning her name with so many names testifying to her high qualities, and by declaring her to be the Queen and Mother of all classes and of all saints.

Behold thy Mother,” cries the Church to the sinner, awakening him from his slumber to trust in Mary; “Behold thy Mother,” cries the righteous one, saying that no virtue means anything without the protection of this almighty Mother. Oh, let us never forget, brethren, that Mary is our Mother and Queen, let us not underestimate her motherhood, acquired in sorrows under the Cross! Not always does the Church of St. John of God enjoy the desired peace, not always does the sun of prosperity shine brightly and serenely over it.Not always does the Church of St. Mary, our Mother and Queen, enjoy the peace she desires, not always does the sun of prosperity shine bright and clear over her; often a storm rumbles and roars, and a whirlwind blows, and black clouds full of thunder and lightning hang over her building, and the boat shakes and wobbles, and in the midst of the turmoil that God permits, and always for the most holy purposes, the Church seems to cry out like Christ on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”and with these words it revives the faith of its faithful, calling them to sincere and united prayer, to improve their morals, to be watchful and vigilant.Again, reassured, it continues to carry out the work of God, and still, like Christ, it cries out “I thirst, I thirst;” and it continues to work to fulfil its desire, to win as many souls as possible to God, to convert the heathen world and to keep the followers of Christ in holiness and truth; for the fulfilment of this holy task, the church spares no effort, uses every means, full of sacrifice, self-denial, even to the point of blood, even to death itself.And if we want to see this truth for ourselves, let us look at the apostolate of the church, let us look into the wilderness, and there we will meet poor but valiant missionaries who, with a cross in their hands and love in their hearts, greet the barbarians with the name of Christ, and suffer and work for him, and, like him on the cross, shed holy blood, which becomes the fruitful sowing of new believers’, new martyrs’.

And the church will not cease to cry this word “I thirst” until one day there is one fold and one shepherd, until all come to the knowledge of the truth, until the whole world falls to its knees before the Crucified One; and then the church, like Christ at the time of His Passion, will solemnly cry “It is fulfilled!”and will commit the spirit of all men into the hands of God, the eternal Father, and we shall all live and breathe the spirit of Christ in an incorruptible eternity… Oh, let us act as one with the thought of the holy church and with the thought of Christ, and we shall accomplish the great mission on earth, which we are all called to fulfill in Christ Jesus our Lord!

O my beloved brothers, all of you who have the cross of Christ expressed in your hearts, show in your lives that you are his followers and imitators; continue steadily on the path of virtue, go boldly on into the world, and if you find people who have the traits of Christ on them, and, for the love of God, do not pass them by, or else you would miss Christ!Pay close attention, for every virtuous and poor man is Christ, holy and having nowhere to bow his head; every distressed and sad man is Christ, mourning in the Garden of Olives; the persecuted is Christ, bearing his cross; the dying in pain is Christ, dying on the cross!

Let every misery move you, every crime terrify you, every holiness edify you, every love inflame you, and you will faithfully express on yourselves the Passion of Jesus, which will sanctify and save you for ever!Oh, let us always keep the cross of Christ before us, let us carry it in our hearts, let us carry it in our souls; let us follow this banner in our lives, and even if everything in the world perishes, we shall not perish and we shall reach where our Lord and King is, for only through struggle does one go to victory, for only through the cross does one come to the glorious resurrection….

And now, let us fall to our knees, brothers, let us give thanks to God for the graces we have received: O Crucified Lord, Lover of our souls, Giver of all good and blessing! We humbly thank Thee for the good thoughts and affections Thou hast given to our souls during this Way of the Cross. We ask Thee only one more grace, and that is, that Thy Holy Cross may be so deeply impressed upon our hearts as to mark and sanctify all our thoughts, words and deeds!O Jesus of incomprehensible sorrow, we bid you farewell, sorrowful and mournful; we depart from the foot of your cross, but we carry it in our hearts. O Lord, you who suffered for us, O almighty God, have mercy on us!

Amen.

Ks. Karol Antoniewicz – Kazania Wielkopostne. 1892.