Night Office Readings,
Holy Week Good Friday
FRIDAY
OF HOLY WEEK, YEAR II
A READING FROM THE PROPHET JEREMIAH
(The
loneliness of the Prophet: Jeremiah 16:1-15)
The
word of the LORD came to me: “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have
sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and
daughters who are born in this place, ...
Second
Reading (Alternative):
From
a sermon by Cardinal Henry Newman
Works of John Henry Newman
Discourse 14. The Mystery of Divine
Condescension
You have died that I might live.
Such would be the
conjecture of man, at fault when he speculated on the height of God, and now
again at fault when he tries to sound the depth.
He thinks that a royal glory is the note of
His presence upon earth; lift up your eyes, my brethren, and answer whether he
has guessed aright. Oh, incomprehensible in eternity and in time! solitary in
heaven, and solitary upon earth! "Who is this, that cometh from Edom, with
dyed garments from Bozra? Why is Thy apparel red, and Thy garments like theirs
that tread in the wine press?" It is because the Maker of man, the Wisdom
of God, has come, not in strength, but in weakness. He has come, not to assert
a claim, but to pay a debt. Instead of wealth, He has come poor; instead of
honour, He has come in ignominy; instead of blessedness, He has come to suffer.
He has been delivered over from His birth to pain and contempt; His delicate
frame is worn down by cold and heat, by hunger and sleeplessness; His hands are
rough and bruised with {302} a mechanic's toil; His eyes are dimmed with
weeping; His Name is cast out as evil. He is flung amid the throng of men; He
wanders from place to place; He is the companion of sinners. He is followed by
a mixed multitude, who care more for meat and drink than for His teaching, or
by a city's populace which deserts Him in the day of trial. And at length
"the Brightness of God's Glory and the Image of His Substance" is
fettered, haled to and fro, buffeted, spit upon, mocked, cursed, scourged, and
tortured. "He hath no beauty nor comeliness; He is despised and the most
abject of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity;" nay, He is
a "leper, and smitten of God, and afflicted". And so His clothes are
torn off, and He is lifted up upon the bitter Cross, and there He hangs, a
spectacle for profane, impure, and savage eyes, and a mockery for the evil
spirit whom He had cast down into hell.
Oh, wayward man! discontented first that thy God is far
from thee, discontented again when He has drawn near,—complaining first that He
is high, complaining next that He is low!—unhumbled being, when wilt thou cease
to make thyself thine own centre, and learn that God is infinite in all He
does, infinite when He reigns in heaven, infinite when He serves on earth,
exacting our homage in the midst of His Angels, and winning homage from us in
the midst of sinners? Adorable He is in His eternal rest, adorable in the glory
of His court, adorable in the beauty of His works, most adorable of all, most
royal, most persuasive in His deformity.
Think you {303} not,
my brethren, that to Mary, when she held Him in her maternal arms, when she
gazed on the pale countenance and the dislocated limbs of her God, when she
traced the wandering lines of blood, when she counted the weals, the bruises,
and the wounds, which dishonoured that virginal flesh, think you not that to
her eyes it was more beautiful than when she first worshipped it, pure,
radiant, and fragrant, on the night of His nativity? Dilectus meus candidus et
rubicundus, as the Church sings; "My beloved is white and ruddy; His
whole form doth breathe of love, and doth provoke to love in turn; His drooping
head, His open palms, and His breast all bare. My beloved is white and ruddy,
choice out of thousands; His head is of the finest gold; His locks are branches
of palm-trees, black as a raven. His eyes as doves upon brooks of waters, which
are washed with milk, and sit beside the plentiful streams. His cheeks are as
beds of aromatical spices set by the perfumers; His lips are lilies dropping
choice myrrh. His hands are turned and golden, full of jacinths; His throat is
most sweet, and He is all lovely. Such is my beloved, and He is my friend, O ye
daughters of Jerusalem."
So is it, O dear and gracious Lord, "the day of death
is better than the day of birth, and better is the house of mourning than the
house of feasting". Better for me that Thou shouldst come thus abject and
dishonourable, than hadst Thou put on a body fair as Adam's when he came out of
Thy Hand. Thy glory sullied, Thy beauty marred, those five wounds welling out
blood, those temples torn and raw, that {304} broken heart, that crushed and
livid frame, they teach me more, than wert Thou Solomon "in the diadem
wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his heart's joy". The
gentle and tender expression of that Countenance is no new beauty, or created
grace; it is but the manifestation, in a human form, of Attributes which have
been from everlasting. Thou canst not change, O Jesus; and, as Thou art still
Mystery, so wast Thou always Love. I cannot comprehend Thee more than I did,
before I saw Thee on the Cross; but I have gained my lesson. I have before me
the proof that in spite of Thy awful nature, and the clouds and darkness which
surround it, Thou canst think of me with a personal affection. Thou hast died,
that I might live. "Let us love God," says Thy Apostle, "because
He first hath loved us." I can love Thee now from first to last, though
from first to last I cannot understand Thee. As I adore Thee, O Lover of souls,
in Thy humiliation, so will I admire Thee and embrace Thee in Thy infinite and
everlasting power.
