Have We Forgotten The Guilty One?

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

Last week I suggested that our individual and collective loss of any sense of sin and the moral decline in our current culture might well be attributed to our failure and reluctance to ponder the Passion, Sufferings and Death of Our Lord. 

If you missed that short post you can find it here.

In thinking further about this point, I recalled reading an excerpt some time back from an an article in an old issue of The Sacred Heart Messenger, entitled "The Guilty One".  

This compelling reflection may explain our reluctance to spend time at the foot of Christ's Cross. I hope it, and the words of Monsignor Hugh F. Blunt which it quotes, will provide additional fruit for your contemplation:

"And we - who are we? - We are the ones who murdered her [Mary's] Son. That is another fact we too often forget! It was just after we had spiked Him to His deathbed and just before He died that He made the bequest [Son, behold your Mother. Mother behold your son]. That is why in the silence of our hearts we must ever supply for the silence of the Gospels and Tradition. The Gospels give us the name of the traitor who kissed His lips - Judas; the names of His principal accusers - Annas and Caiphas; the names of His judges - Pilate and Herod; the name of the one who pronounced final sentence - Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator. Tradition tells the name of him who drove the lance through His side and into His heart - Longinus. But who crucified Him? 

With Monsignor Hugh F. Blunt let us ask and answer - and find the guilty one:

'Who plaited the crown of thorns for His brow? Some Roman soldier, nameless now.

Who hewed the Cross from the grim pine-tree? Some Jew - a carpenter - as was He.

Who forged the nails He was fastened with? He knew no better - poor nameless smith.

Nameless all! - for the sin and the shame were done by one who bears my name!'

While Mary still stands at the foot of the cross and Jesus hangs upon it, it is well to ponder long on those questions - and answers above and realize that we -we are the guilty ones! 

We are the ones who nailed Him hands and feet, and set her standing 'neath the sacrilege. It is that shuddering realization that brings us to the heart of all mystery; for at the center of Calvary's teeming mysteries, as at the center of mystery from the first Fiat of Creation, down through the Fiat of the Incarnation, and on into the Fiat of our Redemption lies the fact that God, who is love, endlessly pours Himself out in love upon us insignificant and infinitely insulting creatures."