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| The Crucifixion of Christ |
From the Moral Reflections on Job
by Saint Gregory the
Great, pope
The mystery of our new life in Christ
Holy Job is a type of the Church. At one time he speaks for the body, at
another for the head. As he speaks of
its members he is suddenly caught up to speak in the name of their head. So it is here, where he says: I have suffered this without sin on my
hands, for my prayer to God was pure.
Christ suffered without sin on His hands, for He committed
no sin and deceit was not found on His lips.
Yet He suffered the pain of the cross for our redemption. His prayer to God was pure, His alone out of
all mankind, for in the midst of His suffering He prayed for His persecutors: Father, forgive them, for they do not know
what they are doing.
Is it possible to offer, or even to imagine, a purer kind of
prayer than that which shows mercy to one’s torturers by making intercession
for them? It was thanks to this kind of
prayer that the frenzied persecutors who shed the blood of the Redeemer drank
it afterward in faith and proclaimed Him to be the Son of God.
The text goes on fittingly to speak of Christ’s blood: Earth, do not cover over my blood, do not
let my cry find a hiding place in you.
When man sinned, God had said: Earth
you are, and to earth you will return.
Earth does not cover over the blood of the Redeemer, for every sinner,
as he drinks the Blood that is the price of his redemption, offers praise and
thanksgiving, and to the best of his power makes that Blood known to all around
him.
Earth has not hidden away His blood, for holy Church has
preached in every corner of the world the mystery of its redemption.
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| Blood of Christ |
Notice what follows: Do
not let my cry find a hiding place in you.
The Blood that is drunk, the Blood of redemption, is itself the cry of
our Redeemer. Paul speaks of the sprinkled blood that calls out more
eloquently than Abel’s. Of Abel’s
blood Scripture had written: The voice of
your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth.
The Blood of Jesus
calls out more eloquently
than Abel’s,
for the blood of Abel asked
for the death of Cain the fratricide,
while the Blood of the Lord
has asked for, and obtained,
life for His
persecutors.
If the sacrament of the Lord’s Passion is to work its effect
in us, we must imitate what we receive and proclaim to mankind what we
revere. The cry of the Lord finds a
hiding place in us if our lips fail to speak of this, though our hearts believe
in it. So that His cry may not lie
concealed in us it remains for us all, each in his own measure, to make known
to those around us the mystery of our new life in Christ.
