- 39 - Before the clairvoyant eyes of his trembling victim there now pass the scenes of the suffering in store for him: his capture, the flight of his disciples, Peter’s denial, the bloodthirsty roar of the multitude that but a few days earlier had hailed his entry into Jerusalem with hosannas, the death sentence, the flagellation, his captors’ brutality, the crown of thorns, the path to Calvary, the Crucifixion – everything painted in the most terrifying pictures – in order to drive him to despair and a spiritual breakdown. All the while the spirits of hopelessness and despair were driving the maddest of thoughts into the mind of this victim of theirs, whom all had forsaken. His pulse throbbed, his whole body shook with feverish tremors, his heart threatened to burst. The terror of death seized him, drops of blood oozing from his pores along with the cold sweat and trickling to the ground. All through their Master's dreadful experience, his disciples slept peacefully. The meagre outlines preserved by your Bible of the story of the Passion of Jesus fail utterly to convey to you the anguish of soul and body suffered by your Redeemer. Indeed, many of the worst tortures are not even mentioned in the Bible. Thus, nothing whatever is said there of the frightful hours Jesus was compelled to spend in the underground cellars of the courthouse. Into these dungeons, wet and swarming with vermin, the soldiers had thrust him after they had scourged and mocked him and crowned him with thorns, and after they had rubbed salt into the countless deep gashes left by the lash upon his lacerated body and had bound his hands, lest by removing the salt he might find some relief from his unspeakable torments. Never did man endure such torture as did this incarnated Son of God. Through its human tools, hell did its worst, for in him it recognized its greatest foe that could ever appear on earth. But these physical sufferings to which it subjected him were not as great as those that his soul had to endure; moreover, both forms of torment, of the soul and of the body, were applied to him simultaneously. Add to this the fact that to the last he was without any human comfort, and, what was still harder, without any Divine aid. God had withdrawn His protecting hand and had left him helpless to the devices of hell. The cry uttered by Jesus as he hung dying upon the Cross: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ reveals in full the agony he felt on finding himself forsaken by all in this hour of supreme suffering on earth. • Satan should never be able to claim that he failed to reduce this mortal to submission because of help received by his victim from external sources. He should be forced to admit that he had met his match in an unaided human being, who, in spite of the most excruciating torments of spirit and body, could not be driven to desert his God. The Biblical account according to which the mother of Jesus stood by the Cross, accompanied by John, is incorrect. Even this consolation was denied him. Not one of those dearest to him was at the Crucifixion. They could not have borne the sight. Where, indeed, can you find a mother who could look on while her child was being crucified? Again, you go so far as to assume that Mary was standing by the Cross throughout; had she been present at all, she would surely not have remained standing, but would have fainted and collapsed.
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