Chapter VII: The Devotional Aspect of the Stations

It must be evident from the contents of the preceding chapters that, so far as concerns many details of the exercise of the Way of the Cross the historical foundation of our present system of Stations is quite of the slenderest. We have no sufficient warrant for the episode of Veronica, none for the meeting with our Blessed Lady, none for the three falls, while the order adopted for these various incidents does not depend even upon the medieval traditions current in Jerusalem, but upon a work of the imagination belonging to relatively modern times which first saw the light in Flanders. To some readers this uncertainty may seem to involve the unwelcome conclusion that the whole practice is tainted with superstition, and that amid such turbid waters all reference to the Passion of CHRIST as a pure fountain of devotion becomes singularly out of place. This, however, will not, I think, be the inference drawn by any one who takes a large and generous view of the subject. On the contrary, the curiously complicated development of the Stations of the Cross seems to the present writer to illustrate, in a conspicuous way, the working of a law akin to that of the survival of the fittest, a law which meets us, more often than might be expected, in this and many similar matters of popular piety. If one particular set of Stations has prevailed in preference to another, this, I conceive, is ultimately to be attributed to the fact that the one appeals more strongly than the other to the pious imagination or to the devotional needs and feelings of the faithful at large. While we may recognize, in the most emphatic way, the desirability of more rigorous scrutiny into the authenticity of relics, indulgences, legends, patristic apocrypha and other such matters of pious credulity, we have after all to remember that these things are the aids and means of devotion, but not its final cause. Historical research concerns itself with such matters, and the verdict of science most certainly should be respected. But historical research is not possible for the rank and file of Christian believers, nor even _ex professo_ for the pastors of the Church. Provided that the large element of uncertainty which enters into such matters be admitted, no great harm can arise from the prevalence of any particular legend which, though historically doubtful, is not in itself extravagant or disedifying. As the celebrated Dominican, Père Lagrange, has admirably said when speaking of the authenticity of certain of the holy places, venerated by the faithful and enriched with indulgences:

“If Origen, Eusebius, St Jerome, Sozomen, are all mistaken, not merely as to the precise situation of the house of Cleophas, but about the identity of Emmaus Nicopolis with the Emmaus of the Gospels, how can we expect a pilgrim prostrate in the dust at a street corner to hold for certain that at this identical spot our SAVIOUR fell for the second or the third time? We are told the pilgrims come to make the Stations of the Cross, and that if they have not a blind confidence in the _hic_ (here) of the lay-brother who is taking them round, they lose all devotion. Surely this is a poor compliment to pay them. The faithful know very well that when the Church proposes some special mystery of our LORD’S life for their veneration, the word _hodie_ (to-day) which is used in the liturgy has only an approximate value. The pilgrims are no more the slaves of the _hic_ than they are of the _hodie_. They are happy to follow the footsteps of CHRIST, to make protestation of their gratitude to the GOD made Man; to kiss the stone in token of their humility and adoration; but their devotion will only be the more free and spontaneous if it is not necessarily taken for a stolid act of faith in the assertion of a topographical fact. If it were otherwise, we should have to remind them that our SAVIOUR has taught us to adore the Father in spirit and in truth.”[146]

Once the symbolical character of so many of our aids to devotion is understood and allowed for, we can use them without danger as stepping stones to a higher knowledge and a deeper love of the Source of all grace. We venerate them for what they symbolize and for that which they help to bring nearer to us, but we are comparatively indifferent at such moments to questions of history or fact. It is sufficient for us that they possess a certain relative truth. Dives and Lazarus may or may not have been actual living persons, but when we are meditating upon the lessons of our LORD’S parable, it does not occur to us to press the inquiry whether it was founded upon an incident that had actually occurred.

It has just been said that we have probably arrived at our present series of fourteen Stations by a sort of process of the survival of the fittest. Without attempting any rigorous proof of such a proposition, it is at least easy to see that some of the incidents which are from an historical point of view most open to question, are also, devotionally speaking, among the most helpful to piety. Take, for example, the sixth station, the episode of St Veronica. Few of our LORD’S sufferings on His toilsome journey to Calvary have suggested more beautiful thoughts to those who have commented on the Stations than this parable of loving charity. This is how the episode has moved the devout fancy of Cardinal Newman. It will be remembered that the meeting with our Blessed Lady and the call of Simon of Cyrene are the Stations which immediately precede. Of Veronica Cardinal Newman writes thus:

“The relief which a Mother’s tenderness secured is not yet all she did. Her prayers sent Veronica as well as Simon—Simon to do a man’s work, Veronica to do the part of a woman. The devout servant of JESUS did what she could. As Magdalen had poured the ointment at the feast, so Veronica now offered Him this napkin in His passion. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘would I could do more! Why have I not the strength of Simon, to take part in the burden of the cross?’ But only men can serve the great High Priest, now that he is celebrating the solemn act of sacrifice. O JESUS, let us one and all minister to Thee according to our places and powers. And as Thou didst accept from Thy followers refreshment in Thy hour of trial, so give to us the support of Thy grace when we are hard pressed by our foe.”[147]

To that great sufferer and lover of the poor, Henri Perreyve, the same Station suggests a quite different train of thought, but one not less beautiful. I take the following passage from a recently published Anglican translation:

“I adore Thee, LORD, as I behold the holy Veronica wiping with a linen cloth Thy sacred face bathed in sweat, in tears and in blood. She is not deceived by Thy wan bruised face, Thy weary step, Thy soiled garments. It does not astonish her that Thou now dost realize the vision of the completed sorrow which afflicted the eyes of Isaiah, that Thou art the man of sorrows acquainted with grief, wounded and bruised, whom the prophet confessed that he did not recognize. The love of Veronica is not mistaken in Thee, to her Thou art always JESUS. Nothing stops her, neither the dense crowd through which she must break, nor the noise of the people, nor the presence of the guard, nor the disdainful glances of the Pharisees, nor the stately progress of the public procession, nor the prancing of the horses, neither false shame nor the fear of death. She does not hesitate, she runs and touches Thee, and tenderly wipes Thy face, her hands trembling the while with holy fear; all was impossible, but she has dared all, she has accomplished all.

“O Master, in this scene Thou art the perfect type of all humanity, poor and suffering; and Veronica is the type of charity. While Thou art dragging after Thee Thy cross, little resembling the perfect Man, but rather, as the psalmist dares to say, ‘a worm and no man,’ Thou bearest in Thy person all the poor; but on the other hand, the least of the poor who suffer hunger and cold in our great cities bears Thy image, O JESUS, and recalls the practical teaching of thy gospel. As there is in the Holy Eucharist Thy real presence, so also there is another real presence of Thee in the persons of the poor, and therefore Thou hast said plainly that what is done to the meanest of them is done unto Thyself.

“More happy than Veronica, whose trembling hand touched Thee but once, Christian charity is able, every day and every moment to dry Thy tears, to wipe the sweat from Thy brow, the brow of Thy poor. Who will teach us to love Thy poor sufficiently, who will teach us to regard their sorrows, to worship them as the sacrament of Thy passion? Who will teach us always to see beneath their features, disfigured though they may be by physical and moral misery, the features of JESUS? Who will give us the spirit of Veronica, her unquenchable hope, her irresistible courage, her conviction that she will succeed, and the degree of love which we need to accomplish all that we have undertaken? Thou only, O divine Master, canst kindle in our souls those flames of love, which would fain devour all the evils of the earth, and will not die down in Thy Church while there yet remains one sorrow in the world.”[148]

Veronica as a personage—she must be distinguished from her napkin, often also called by the name Veronica (in English _Vernicle_)—was not a very familiar character in the devotional literature of the middle ages. Her house was not shown in Jerusalem before the fourteenth century at earliest,[149] and it is not generally spoken of by pilgrims before 1435. Hence, in the York mystery plays, though we find the incident of the napkin and the miraculous portrait, it is not Veronica, but one of the three Marys who presents the napkin to our LORD.

But the beautiful symbolism of the episode itself did not fail to impress the imaginations of our pre-Reformation forefathers. The _Salve sancta facies nostri Redemptoris_ was one of the most popular of medieval hymns, and when Veronica does appear in medieval drama, we may detect, if I mistake not, a very tender note in the few brief words assigned to her. Thus in the Coventry mysteries dating from the early fifteenth century, we read:

_Veronica._ “Ah! ye synful pepyl! Why fare thus?
For sweat and blod He may not see!
Alas! Holy prophete, CHRYST JHESUS!
Careful (i.e., full of care) is myn heart for Thee.”

And she wipeth His face with her kerchy.

JHESUS. “Veronica, thy wiping doth me ease;
My face is clene, that was black to see.
I shall them kepe from alle mysese
That lokyn on thy kerchy and remember me.”

Again there is undoubtedly something which makes a special appeal to man’s weak and sin-laden heart, both in the conception of the fall of JESUS under His cross and in the circumstance of its triple repetition. “Who is it,” asks St Leonard of Port Maurice, “that has thus again stricken down the LORD of heaven and earth? It is I, I who have heaped sin upon sin, who have added torment to torment.” Or, if I may again quote the beautiful language of Cardinal Newman:

“Yes, it is as I feared; JESUS, the strong and mighty LORD, has found for the moment our sins stronger than Himself. He falls—yet He bore the load for a while; He tottered, but He bore up and walked onwards. What, then, made Him give way? I say, I repeat, it is an intimation and a memory to thee, O my soul, of thy falling back into mortal sin. I repented of the sins of my youth and went on well for a time, but at length a new temptation came when I was off my guard, and I suddenly fell away. Then all my good habits seemed to go at once; they were like a garment which is stripped off, so quickly and utterly did grace depart from me. And at that moment I looked at my LORD, and, lo! He had fallen down, and I covered my face with my hands and remained in a state of great confusion.”

It is difficult to quote translations after such perfect English as this, but in turning again to the Stations of the saintly Henri Perreyve I will venture this time to cite with modifications the text of an older English version of Catholic origin:

_Jesus falls beneath the weight of the Cross._

“I adore Thee, LORD JESUS, falling beneath the weight of the cross. Thou didst erewhile receive it with the steadfast courage of love for Thy creature man. In that courage the sad procession set out. But as the Victim advances the anguish of the sacrifice increases. That cross which at first seemed supportable has become an overwhelming burden. O Master! Thy strength hath failed Thee, Thou hast fallen prostrate by the wayside.

“And so also is it with human sorrows in this world, when they follow one upon the other, accumulating force with time. Such stricken souls may often be seen strong and courageous at first, yet they are at last crushed to earth by the ever-growing weight of their desolation. It is a beloved child that has been taken, but two remained; death comes again and takes a second, and then the other. It is too much, all strength fails, the cross is too heavy; it is no longer that cross of yesterday, which was still endurable. No, it seems a mountain, a very world of woe. The soul gives up the struggle and itself sinks to earth amid the ruin of all that it has loved. Poor tortured soul! when thou hast rallied from that swoon of pain, there is nothing of which I would talk to thee save of the fall of JESUS—JESUS sinking beneath His cross. Look upon Him, I pray thee, look upon Him while I hold my peace. He alone can speak life-giving words capable of raising thy soul from that worst of all agonies, despair.

“O eternal Word! O Son of GOD! consubstantial with Him in the plenitude of Thy eternal generation, inseparable from that divine nature, one with the FATHER and the HOLY GHOST, distinct only in Person, I thank Thee that, assuming our humanity, Thou wert willing also to fathom the uttermost depths of our weakness. Thou couldst have saved the world without that excess of humiliation, but Thou couldst not without it have consoled us by Thy example in the hour of crushing agony and desolation. For that we needed a SAVIOUR who had known like ourselves the weight of a cross beyond His strength, who could teach us through his own infirmity not to fall into utter contempt of ourselves in those moments of supreme discouragement. My REDEEMER, Thy mysterious fall reconciles me to my own weakness. That fall did not hinder Thy sacrifice; it did not prevent Thee from reaching the summit of Calvary. Thou didst stagger to Thy feet and continue to go forward.

“O JESUS, when my strength fails, when the cross becomes too heavy, when I fall, do Thou raise me up, and with the support of Thy divine hand enable me to follow Thee along that road of daily difficulties and sorrow in which Christian virtue is put to its hardest test.”

The reader, I trust, will not be wearied by this series of quotations. It seems to me that they illustrate well the rich vein of spontaneous and devout reflection which the subjects of the Stations open up to reverent minds. Neither need we suppose that it is only men of the intellectual standing of Newman and Perreyve who can find food for thought in such meditations. Here, for instance, is a little prayer which appears originally in Pascha’s “Spiritual Pilgrimage,” and which has been summarized by the seventeenth-century English translator “R. H.” in the following form. It deals with the incident which Pascha called the fifth station, but which is now the second of our series—“JESUS is made to carry the cross:”

“O most noble KINGE and valiant Standard Bearer, who for the love of me didst permit the heavier burthen of the crosse to be laid upon Thy shoulders, which were full sore with stripes, and therewithal all the sins of the world, offering the same by Thy death upon the aultar of the crosse to Thy heavenly FATHER, I beseech Thee to help me to carrie my crosse that I may willingly sustaine the same and to serve Thee according to my vocation. Amen.”

“O noble King and valiant Standard Bearer” is surely a memorable phrase, rich with subtle memories of the _Vexilla Regis_ and yet within the comprehension of the simplest and the rudest. So is the same writer’s description of our LORD “walking between two thieves as the Captain of them” when He presents Himself to the view of His Blessed Mother, or again the suggestion that His sacred Body was “stretched like a string upon the cross, Thy veins and sinews being so broken therewithal that Thy precious Blood issued forth like fountains of water.”

Of course the ideal attitude of the faithful soul when engaged upon the exercise of the Way of the Cross is that of the actual pilgrim who has journeyed over land and sea to pay homage to the scenes of our SAVIOUR’S passion and bitter death. What deep feelings were aroused in the pilgrims of old, upon their coming within the precincts of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has already been illustrated incidentally by our quotations from Fabri and other early writers. But there is no lack of such testimonies. Neither can we have the least doubt that these pilgrims were just as simple and sincere in the account which they gave of their emotions of piety as they were in their frank comments about matters which were more mundane. It is precisely this quality of unmistakable candour in Fabri which makes his narrative so extraordinarily attractive. Moreover, his diffuseness shows that he has written entirely at his ease. He talks to us with exactly the same freedom with which he would have gossiped with some old schoolfellow and fellow religious in his convent at Ulm, thoroughly enjoying both his own story and the perfect comprehension of his listeners. Perhaps nothing in all Fabri’s wanderings tells us more of the ardent spirit of the old pilgrims than the passage in which he describes himself as unable, when nearing the coast of Palestine, to eat or rest or converse, but as seated all day long in the bows of the vessel straining his eyes to catch the first glimpse of that blessed shore. However, it will be more to our purpose if I quote the account which he gives, first of all of the rock of Calvary and then of the Holy Sepulchre. And before we come to these longer extracts it will be well to preface his remarks by two shorter passages, one descriptive of the feelings of another pilgrim, a good Augustinian friar, who came to the Holy Sepulchre 150 years before Fabri, the other taken from Fabri’s own account of the starting of the procession within the sacred edifice. And, first, this is how Brother James of Verona describes his sensations of awe when after many months of weary pilgrimage he was at last permitted to cross the threshold of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:

“Upon Monday, August 7, in the year of our LORD, 1335, the Sepulchre of our SAVIOUR was thrown open to me and my companion and to two strangers; there were but four of us in all. It was the third hour, and the door was immediately shut again. And as I entered, sinner though I be, the LORD JESUS CHRIST wounded my heart, and the ardour of a most burning love possessed me, so that while sober, as regards food and drink, I was intoxicated with a certain heavenly sweetness. I fell prostrate upon the earth, reminding myself that I was unworthy in the presence of so priceless a sanctuary to look upon it with my eyes, to draw near with my feet, to touch it with my hands, or to traverse it with my body. Nevertheless, trusting in the divine Goodness, seeing that it was said by the prophet David: _Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini_ (approach Him, and be enlightened), I did draw near, I looked, I touched and I wrote down what I had seen.”[150]

Fabri, when he visited the Holy Sepulchre, was one of a much larger party. We have already learned the substance of the instructions delivered to the pilgrims by the Father Guardian of Mount Sion. After the summary which he gives of that discourse, Fabri proceeds as follows:

“Having thus received the rules by which we were to be guided while in the holy temple, we each of us went to the merchants, and every one bought candles of the whitest of wax, great or small, ornamented or plain, as he pleased. There was no lack of vainglory even in this, for some had candles curiously twisted and decorated with gilding and painting, which they carried with ostentation, and looked with scorn upon those who carried plain candles, blaming them for close-fistedness. Some bought many candles, which they lighted in the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre and then extinguished, and afterwards took them home with them to their own country, where they made their wives hold them lighted when they were in childbed, that they might be delivered without danger, for they say that these candles are useful for that purpose.

“Now, while we were busied about buying our candles, the brethren with the Father Guardian were arraying themselves, putting on their sacred vestments, which they had brought with them from Mount Sion, to make a solemn procession round all the holy places in the same order, wherein they had made that on Mount Sion, as has been told before.

“So when we were all standing in order with our lights burning, the precentor at the head of the procession began in a loud and cheerful voice to sing the _Salve Regina_, which we all took up, and chanting this hymn we came in procession to the chapel of the glorious Virgin Mary, to the altar in front of the chapel.”

The details of the passing of the pilgrims from shrine to shrine are a great deal too diffusely narrated to be quoted here. Let us come, however, to what our pilgrim tells us of their visit to what he calls: “The most Holy Mount of Calvary, whereon the LORD JESUS hung upon the cross.”

“After we had finished all that was to be done in the holy cave, we presently came up again and re-entered the church through the door. As we resumed our procession the precentor began in a loud voice to sing the hymn, _Vexilla regis prodeunt_, etc. Singing this we came to the way up to the most holy Mount of Calvary, up which we went by eighteen stone steps from the church below it. Above we entered a light, beauteous chapel, adorned with polished, variegated marble, and wherein there hung many lighted lamps. In it stood three altars, adorned with paintings done in mosaic work. This chapel is built of vaulted work, supported by a marble column in the midst of the building. On the other side of the vault are paintings of David and Solomon, David with the text, _Qui edebat panes meos, magnificavit super me_,[151] etc., and Solomon with the text, _Sapientia ædificavit sibi domum_,[152] and a picture of the sacrifice of Isaac. This chapel is built above the Mount of Calvary. When we were all come into it, and now before our eyes was displayed that wondrous stone, that desirable rock, with its admirable socket-hole, wherein the most holy cross bearing the crucified One was inserted—when we beheld these things, scared and bewildered at their exceeding great holiness, we fell down upon our faces on the earth, and one heard no longer psalmody, but lamentation; no longer the singing of hymns, but wailings and groans. No one was there who could withhold himself from tears and cries; for who could have so hard a heart that it would not be rent in that place, where he beheld before his eyes the hardest rock to have been rent? Who would not even weep aloud in the place where CHRIST our GOD cried with a loud voice as He hung upon the cross; where likewise He prayed for those who had crucified Him, promised paradise to the thief, commended His deeply sorrowing Mother to the care of John, and drank the vinegar mingled with gall; where He said that all was finished, yielded up His spirit into the hands of His Father, and breathed His last; where the soldier pierced His side with his lance, and there came forth blood and water? Lo, devout pilgrim, it was here that Abel was slain by his brother,[153] and Isaac was bound for sacrifice by his father, the brazen serpent was set up by Moses, the paschal lamb was slain according to the law, GOD was slain by man, JESUS was crucified in the flesh, thy King was hung upon the cross, thy LORD was condemned to death, the meek and holy and innocent was drenched with blood, offering Himself both as priest and as victim. These thoughts and others of a like nature occurred to our minds at this most solemn place, and we remained for a long time bowed to the earth in prayer. When we had finished our prayer, we went one after another to the holy rock, which projects above the floor, and each one as best he could, crawled to the socket-hole of the cross, kissed the place with exceeding devotion, and placed his face, eyes and mouth over the socket-hole, from whence in very truth there breathes forth an exceeding sweet scent, whereby men are visibly refreshed. We put our arms and our hands into the hole down to the very bottom; and by these acts we gained plenary indulgences.

“On the left hand side of the socket-hole is a great rent in the rock, from the top to the bottom, which is believed to have been made at CHRIST’S death. We went up to this rent one after another, and kissed it, putting our heads into it and as much of our bodies as we could. Moreover, on either side of the holy socket there are two other sockets, in which the crosses of the two thieves, Dysmas and Gresmas, who were crucified together with JESUS, were placed; but these sockets cannot be seen, because upon them stand low pillars, upon whose heads there are iron spikes, upon which wax candles and lights are stuck, so that these pillars are, as it were, candlesticks. Howbeit, we kissed the pillar which stood at the right hand of the cross.”

Fabri tells us that the whole body of pilgrims remained on Calvary “giving themselves up to prayer and devotion,” for more than an hour. Afterwards, following the course of the passion, they visited the stone of unction and some other shrines. But the climax of this solemn procession was the coming to the Holy Sepulchre. Obviously the joy of that supreme moment was still vividly present to his mind when he wrote his account: He heads this section: _How the pilgrims came into the most Holy Sepulchre of the_ LORD JESUS.

“Rouse up yourselves now, my lords and brother pilgrims, arise and hurry onward with a swifter pace, but come not save in a cheerful mood. Lay aside all sorrow, wipe away the tears from your eyes, refrain from lamentations, and all together sing that sweet Easter song, Alleluia; for after the gloomy Jewish Sabbaths a genial light has shined forth upon the world from the squalid and darksome sepulchre which we are about to enter; for the world has received far brighter light from thence than from the glimmering bodies in the firmament. Come then with joy and praise, look upon the place where the LORD was laid, and behold the end of your pilgrimage. So hereupon the precentor in a pleasant and cheerful voice began the paschal hymn, _Ad cænam agni providi_, etc., and we walked on in procession chanting it, and came to the most precious sepulchre of the LORD JESUS, before which we rang out our Easter hymns with many an Alleluia, with as great, or it may be with even greater joy than if we had reached happy Easter day after a sad and toilsome Lent. For as on Mount Calvary we pitied our LORD CHRIST, and shed tears, so here we rejoiced with our REDEEMER, and offered to Him sweet tears of joy and lively songs, and rightly so; for JESUS, our SAVIOUR, after His tears and sorrow, after His mockings and scourgings, after His cups of vinegar and gall, after His torture and wounds upon the cross, after His terrible death itself, after His piteous burial, after He had descended into the everlasting shades of hell, after He had broken the iron bars, after He had bound the prince of darkness, and set free all the chosen patriarchs, rose glorious and triumphant from this tomb we now behold. From this darksome cave there shone forth so bright a light, there darted forth so brilliant a ray, there gleamed such snowy whiteness, there appeared such blessed peace, there came forth such happiness, there breathed forth such salvation as made the earth, sea and sky to rejoice together. In this sepulchre, in this tiny hut did the eagle renew its youth, the lion roused up its cub, the phœnix renewed its life, Jonah came forth unharmed from the whale’s belly, the candlestick was clad with gold, the tabernacle of David which had fallen down was set up again, the sun shone forth after being behind a cloud, the grain of wheat which had fallen into the earth and died had quickened, the stag again put forth his horns, Samson bore away the gates and broke through his guards, Joseph was brought forth from prison, shaved, gaily dressed, and made Lord of Egypt. The sackcloth of CHRIST JESUS was cut away; He was clothed with gladness, and besides all this, our toilsome pilgrimage, our weary wanderings are here ended and brought to rest. Here, then, I pray you, let us lay aside our pious plaints of sorrow, our clouds of grief, and let us draw a quiet breath in happiness: let us who have followed our REDEEMER to His tomb with sorrow now take part in the joy of His glorious resurrection. Come, then, gather yourselves together, knights and kindly pilgrims, enter the most holy sepulchre and see with your eyes, feel with your hands, touch with your mouth the place where the LORD lay. So we joyously went in, one after another, into the most precious sepulchre of the LORD JESUS, kissed the most holy bier, and received entire and most plenary indulgences for all sins. We were indeed filled with an especial joy here, greater than what we felt at the other holy places. Thus St Bernard, in the second chapter of his sermon to the Knights Templars, says that the sepulchre hath as it were the pre-eminence among the holy and desirable places, and that something more of devotion is felt at the place where He lay at rest than at those where He moved about in life. Thus, too, the remembrance of His death excites our piety more than that of His life: I suppose because His death was cruel, while His life was pleasant by comparison, and because our human weakness is more attracted by the repose of sleeping than the toil of living among men, more by the safety of death than by righteousness of life. The life of CHRIST is to me a rule by which to live, His death is my redemption from death. Here we received spiritual refreshment and indulgences, and passed out with joyous thanksgiving, and thus our procession came to an end one hour before midnight.”

As a counterpart to this vivid description of an actual visit to the Holy Sepulchre, I venture to turn to the meditation which Perreyve suggests for those who, in making the Stations of the Cross, would contemplate the Sepulchre in spirit. He takes up and develops an idea which is already suggested by Fabri, that of the grain of wheat falling to the ground. No one of Perreyve’s reflections on the Stations is more beautiful than this.

_The Sepulchre._

“I adore Thee, Lord Jesus, whilst faithful, loving hands bear away Thy sacred body and lay it in the Sepulchre, of which they close the entrance with a great stone. I adore Thee during the silence of that stupendous night, in which the author of all life seemed bound in the chains of death. The Pharisees, alarmed by the memory of Thy prophecies, cause the stone-closed entrance of Thy tomb to be sealed; guards watch before it; Thy disciples are dispersed; all around is wrapped in silence. It seems as if death had gained the victory, and finally asserted its empire.

“Yet speak, O Master, and tell me what lesson I ought to learn from that last act of Thy Passion.”

JESUS CHRIST: “My child, you must not see in My tomb a mystery of death, but a mystery of life. Let not My lips now so silent, My body so motionless, My heart so chill and pulseless deceive you; it is not death which triumphs, it is life which withdraws itself for a moment but which will soon rise again to roll away the stone for ever.

“Remember, My child, the parable I one day spoke to My disciples: ‘Unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’[154] Think of what a grain of wheat is in the hands of him who sows. The grain at first is hard, shut up in itself, unproductive. Then if the hand of the sower cast it into the furrow, it disappears into the earth, and it remains hidden, covered as with a shroud. Next follows death. The seed is dissolved by rain, by the ardent rays of the sun, by the very action of its tomb; it dies, but immediately all-conquering life springs from the confines of its utter annihilation. Nothing can resist it now, neither stones, nor darkness, nor the winding-sheet that wraps it round, nor the tomb within which it lies; it grows, it climbs, it pierces the earth, and looking fearlessly out upon the sun, it pushes its way upwards, bearing in its bosom an entire harvest. Now this triumphant death of the grain of wheat is the symbol of My death, and of the spiritual death of all My children. It faithfully portrays the transformation of souls, who once for all learn to die with Me, and to await in My sepulchre their hour of resurrection. Happy the soul which realizes that it is only awaiting the moment of release. For you, My child, to whom I have confided My secrets, surely you understand now what it all means.

“‘My sepulchre,’ I have said. Shall I tell you what it is? It is all that hides the Christian from the world and from himself. It is all that humbles you, my child, all that opposes your wishes, defeats your best efforts, checks every generous impulse, reduces your will to impotence, seems to drag you down to nothingness, and to render you unheeded and useless in this world. It may be bodily infirmity, that great contradiction of nature, which twenty times a day breaks down your will; it may be the unintelligent malice of men who do not understand your generous projects, and take pleasure in putting a thousand obstacles in the way of their fulfilment. It must be in any case the cumulative effect of the weakness, the difficulties, the misunderstandings, the misery in yourself and in others, which so often cast a dull and heavy pall over your life and leave you without heart for the struggle. This is your sepulchre. Enter it, My child, enter it as I entered the tomb, in the spirit of obedience to the will of My Father, in the spirit of faith, and, above all, of indomitable hope. Accept sickness, contradiction—that obstacle which all that is worth anything is sure to encounter—accept at My feet the full bitterness of that hour in which everything seems to prove that life is over for you, that you will never again achieve anything among men. Enter, then, as the grain of wheat, into the bosom of the earth, enter into the depths of humiliation, of abandonment, of self-renunciation. Enter fearlessly, for, again I say, this is your sepulchre.

“But in what do you suppose that all these trappings of death are after all to end? What was it that I was meditating in my tomb—the triumph of death or its defeat? Was not that tomb the cradle of all life? Look well into the depths of My sepulchre, My child, and faith will teach you to see therein the germ of all that lives and endures. I tell you, in all truth, that everything is there which was afterwards to come—My resurrection, the inspiration of My Apostles, their courage, which from that day never faltered; the fortitude of My martyrs, the purity of My virgins, the daring of My apologists, the learning of My doctors, the authority of My pontiffs, the strength of My confessors, the light of all Christian ages, all the progress of humanity even to your own days. All these things lie in germ beneath the shroud which covers Me. That great river of life, of strength, of virtue, of immortality wells up from that tiny spring. Do you not see, then, My child, that there is nothing in all the world so full of living promise as My sepulchre?”

And here we may leave this fruitful theme of the devotional suggestiveness of the Stations of the Cross. No exercise by which our LORD’S Passion is honoured is likely to be more practically helpful than this, precisely because of the wide range of thought which it admits and of its contact upon so many sides with the needs and interests of our daily life.

Footnote 146:

Père Lagrange, O.P., in the “Revue Biblique,” 1903, p. 461.

Footnote 147:

Newman, “Meditations and Devotions,” p. 198.

Footnote 148:

Perreyve, “Stations of the Cross,” translated by the Rev. E. Day.

Footnote 149:

The Proœmium to the pilgrimage of James of Verona (1335) contains a
mention of “locus ubi CHRISTUS dedit Veronicam, id est faciem.” The
Proœmium may be a later interpolation, but it is older than 1420. See
“Revue de l’Orient Latin,” III, p. 163.

Footnote 150:

James de Verona, “Liber Peregrinationis,” in the “Rev. de l’Orient
Latin,” III, p. 183.

Footnote 151:

Ps. xli, 9.

Footnote 152:

Prov. ix, 1.

Footnote 153:

It might seem that Fabri was speaking metaphorically, and that he only
meant that here was the accomplishment of all these types; but from
another passage it is clear that he believed that Abel was slain,
Isaac offered, etc., in this very spot.

Footnote 154:

John xii, 24.