Chapter 60: Of the adorable Burial of the Lord Jesus

O LORD JESUS CHRIST, sweet Savour of life, and Brightness of the everlasting day, I bless You, and give thanks SJ to You, for the careful preparing with precious spices of Your sacred Body for Its burial. This was not indeed needful for warding off corruption; but You did accept it as showing the devotion of Your friends, and as being in accordance with Jewish custom — witness the instances of like burial recorded of certain of the Patriarchs and Kings.

I praise and glorify You, for the loving enwrapment of Your sacred Body in a clean linen cloth, and for the respectful binding round of Your everblessed Head with a pure white napkin, which was afterwards found in the Holy Sepulchre.

I praise and glorify You for the removal, amid many tears, of Your Body to the place of Its burial; for the reverence with which It was placed there; for Your condescension in lying in the new tomb hewn out of a rock, which was provided for You by Joseph, a noble counsellor; where, because the hour was late. You were, by Your weeping friends, honourably buried, and were tightly closed up therein with a heavy stone.

Rejoice and be glad, O venerable Joseph, that so pious an office was yours, and that you were able to do this charitable work for Christ. I thank you much, and heartily commend as worthy of all honour your noble conduct throughout this matter; for not only did you ask of Pilate leave to bury the sacred Body, but for It you did open that very tomb, which you had made ready for yours own future resting-place. How highly must God have thought of you, when He, Whose dominion extends to the ends of the earth and over everything within the circuit of the Heavens, chose your tomb above all other places in the world as the place of His Burial. Be sure, O most illustrious of men, that henceforth, so long as this world shall last, and one faithful soul shall be left in it, you shall ever be had in honour, both by God and by men.

For this most Holy Sepulchre shall be more noble and more glorious than all the sepulchres of Saints and Kings, and shall be celebrated throughout the world. From the uttermost parts of the earth shall pilgrims flock to visit this holy place, and to worship at the spot where the Body of their Lord was laid to rest. Here was Jesus buried, here the Crucified was laid; here did the holy women lament over Him, here were the guards set; here did Christ rise on the third day; here was Jesus seen of Mary Magdalene; here appeared from Heaven the Angel of the Lord; here were the guards struck with terror, and became as dead men.

Here then, by the Tomb, do you, O my soul, for a while abide, so as to join the holy women in mourning over the Lord Jesus, Who for your sake was laid in the grave. Fitting indeed is it that you should pay your tribute of grief to Him, at Whose hands you do hope one day to receive the reward of joy eternal. Think how intense was the grief of all Christ's faithful ones, and specially of the holy women, at seeing Jesus taken from them, and laid in a tomb — Christ for love of Whom they had given up all that they had, Whom they had followed hither and thither for so long, to Whom they had so often ministered of their substance. Whom they had loved so tenderly that they could scarce bring themselves to lose His sweet presence for even a short moment; with Whom they longed ever to live and to hold sweet converse, and through Whom they believed that joy everlasting would be theirs. The more intense their love, the more bitter surely will have been their grief.

But what above all rent the hearts of these sorrowing ones was the thought that the hope of their Lord's rising again seemed to be at an end; and that their faith was, so to speak, buried with Jesus in the tomb. It seemed therefore to these poor women that the only comfort left them was to weep over Him Who had been taken from them, or to make ready sweet spices; that so if they could not bring Him back to life, they might at least, by their faithful service in embalming It, preserve His Body from decay. But, O holy and devoted women, you who love Christ with an unquenchable love, do not, I pray you, lament over much; do not give way to despair; call to mind the words which Jesus Himself spoke to you when He was in Galilee, and wait yet a while for their fulfilment; for after three days He will without doubt rise again. Then quite plainly and with great joy, shall you again see Him, over Whose burial, with spirits utterly broken and with such sad hearts, you are now lamenting. Then shall the hearts of all His friends, who now so deeply mourn His death and burial, be filled with renewed joy; nor will He need this embalmment of yours, for when He rises from the dead He will appear in great glory. He will have put on immortality, and death shall no more have dominion over Him.

Learn you too, O my soul, from the Burial of Jesus to meditate with profit upon the dissolution of your own body. Needs must that what from the earth you did receive, that to the earth you must restore: dust you are and to dust shall you return. Upon what then do you pride yourself, you who must soon be mere rottenness, and a thing hidden out of sight in the ground? What see you to yearn after in a world, out of which you must so soon be cast, trodden under foot of men? Whenever then you look upon the graves of the dead, remember that you too will soon be with them. There — and you know it well — there is the home appointed for every one that lives. There, laid low together, content with a mere corner of earth, shall the rich man and the poor man share one bed. There gentleman and commoner cannot be known the one from the other, and the strong and the weak are upon the same footing. There the miser's wealth will not profit him; nor will the crafty man be helped by all his cunning. There the epicure will be food for worms, and the fop will stink in the nostrils of the passer-by. There the loftiness of men will be bowed down, and the counsel of the haughty ones will be brought to nought. Remember that nothing mortal can endure for ever, and that man, having corrupted his nature by sin, must needs go back to the slime from which he was taken.

Strive so to live in this present world, and so to mortify by the spirit the deeds of the flesh, that when your body is mouldering in the dust your soul may be found meet to rest in a home of blessed peace. Spend the Good Friday of this life in painfulness and toil, and you shall have a Holy Saturday of rest, and an Easter of joy unspeakable at the resurrection of the just. The stricter therefore your life in this world, the calmer shall be your sleep in the tomb; the stronger now your hold upon the Cross, the greater shall be your confidence when you come into the presence of Christ. The more bitter now your sorrow for your sins, the fewer of them will there be to be purged away by the avenging fire.

Bewail then, bewail now your sins, while the day of grace is yours, while the door of mercy stands open, while God, with Whom is plenteous Redemption, is ready to accept your penitence. Bewail also the unhappy condition of the world, and that grievous softness of men, whence it comes that so few true followers of the Crucified are to be found, and that the spiritual fervour of so many soon grows cold.

Henceforth, then, be it your daily practice to meditate upon Christ Jesus. Him Crucified keep ever before your eyes; stand ever beneath your Saviour's Cross; in life and in death be with Jesus in the Tomb; that so when Christ, your Life, shall appear, you too may rise with Him in glory. Amen.

↑ This passage was probably suggested by a sermon of St. Bernard, part of which is set down in the Roman Breviary as Lesson IV., 2 Noct. of Friday after Ash Wednesday.

↑ [Jesus Nazaremis, Rex Judaeorum.']

↑ We do not know for certain whether he was then alive or dead; but John, after he had been long kept in prison, had been put to death; and now Jesus also was about to die, and soon to pass from His Mother's sight.

↑ [The word used in the original is secretarius, sacristan. Probably the idea meant to be expressed is that St. John was the Divinely appointed custodian (tresorier) of the most precious treasure of the Church.]

↑ [The Responsory from which these words are taken is not to be found in Office-books of the present day; but during the Middle Ages it was customary in some churches to introduce, at the end of Tenebrae, certain tropes; and it is one of such which is quoted in the text. This trope (Kyrie eleison: qui passzirus, etc.) is known to have been in use in the Diocese of St, Gall (Switzerland) in the tenth century; and from its being found quoted here it would seem to have been in use in the Diocese of Utrecht in the fifteenth. For the material of this note and of those at pages 204 and 259 infra, I am indebted to the kindness of the Right Rev. Dom Fernand Cabrol, Abbot of Farnborough, who, as the authority for this note, cites " Paleographie Musicale, Partie Monumentale," i. 225, and Pothier.]

↑ [St. Ignatius, M.]

↑ [The original adds: "Ad ventrem. O sacer et incon taminatus venter Domini mei Jesu Christi, quern portavit et aluit virginalis aula sanctae Mariae, qui multis verberibus fuisti acerrime percussus, adoro te dignanter et osculor compatienter, supplicans mihi relaxari, quotiens corpora meo ampliorem, quam necessitas exigebat, curam impendi. Ave Maria."]