Three Good Friday Things from St. Thomas Aquinas

Last updated on: April 3, 2015 at 9:56 am by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Three Good Friday Things from St. Thomas Aquinas 2015-04-03T09:56:04-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez

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We are advised to think diligently, that is, to think upon him over and over again. In all your ways, says Holy Scripture, think upon him (Prv 3:6). The reason for which is that no matter what anxiety may befall us, we have a remedy in the cross.

For there we find obedience to God. He humbled himself becoming obedient, says Saint Paul (Phil 2:8). Likewise, we find a loving forethought for those akin to him, shown in the care he had, when upon the very cross, for his Mother: We find, too, charity for his fellows, for on the cross he prayed for sinners, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk 23:34). He showed, also, patience in suffering: I was dumb and was humbled, and kept silence from good things, and my sorrow was renewed (Ps 39:3). Finally he showed, in all things, a perseverance to the end, for he persevered until death itself: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46).

So on the cross we find an example of all the virtues. As Saint Augustine says, the cross was not only the gallows where our Lord suffered in patience, it was a pulpit from which he taught mankind.
But what is it that we are to think, over and over again?
Three things:

–The kind of Passion it was. He endured opposition, that is, suffering from spoken words. For instance they said, You who would destroy the temple (Mt 27:40). It is said in the Psalms (Ps 18:44), You rescued me form the strife of peoples and it was foretold that our Lord should be a sign which shall be contradicted (Lk 2:34). Saint Paul, in the text, says such opposition, meaning so grievous and so humiliating an opposition. All you who pass by the way, look and see whether there is only suffering like my suffering (Lam 1:12).

— From whom he suffered the Passion. It was from sinners, from those for whom he was suffering. Christ died once for our sins, the just for the unjust (1 Pt 3:18).

— Who it was that suffered. Before the Passion, from the beginning of the world he had suffered in his members, but in the Passion he suffered in his own Person. Whence the words against himself. Who his own self, says Saint Peter (1 Pt 2:24), bore our sins in his body upon the tree.

To think diligently upon our Lord’s Passion is a very profitable employment, which is why Saint Paul adds that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds (Heb 12:3). The Passion of Christ keeps us from fainting. Saint Gregory says, “If we recall the Passion of Christ, nothing seems so hard that it cannot be borne with equanimity.” You will not then fail, worn out in spirit, in loyalty to the true faith, nor in the prosecution of good works.

Saint Paul again gives a reason for our courageous perseverance when he says, in the following verse, You have not yet resisted unto blood (Heb 12:4). As though he said, “You must not faint at these anxieties your own troubles cause you. You have not yet borne as much as Christ. For he indeed shed his blood for us.”

(I am reminded what an excellent guide to St. Thomas Aquinas — and thus to Christ — this new book from Peter Kreeft is … in case you are looking for Easter reading… )

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