Friday, April 09, 2004

Lancelot Andrewes was a Bishop in the Church of England during the reign of King James. He is celebrated for his great preaching and his ability to live in the thick of daily ministry and still translate much of the Old Testament for the Authoriozed Version (KJV) of the Bible. Here is a thoughtful Good Friday reflection from his pen.
It is well known that Christ and His cross were never parted, but that all His life long was a continual cross. At the very cratch, His cross began. Then Herod sought to do that which Pilate did, even to end His life before it began. All His life after, saith the Apostle in the next verse, was nothing but a perpetual ‘gainsaying of sinners’ which we call crossing; and profess we cannot abide in any of our speeches or purposes to be crossed. He was in the psalm of the Passion, the twenty-second, in the very front or inscription of it, He is set forth unto us under the term of a hart, cervus matutinus, ‘a morning hart,’ that is, He a hart roused early in the morning; as from His birth He was by Herod, and hunted and chased all His life long, and this day brought to an end, and as the poor deer, stricken and wounded to the heart. This was His last, last and worst; and this we properly call His cross, even this day’s suffering. To keep up then to our day, and the cross of the day. ‘He endured the cross.’

‘He endured.’ Very enduring itself is durum, durum pati. Especially for persons of high power or place as the Son of God was. For great persons to do great things, is no great wonder; this very genius naturally inclineth to it. But to suffer any small thing, for them is more fortitude, and the Divine his Christian obedience, rather in suffering than in doing. Suffering is the sure the more hard of the twain. ‘He endured.’

If it be hard to endure, it must be more hard to endure hard things; and of all things hard to be endured, the hardest is death. Of the philosopher’s pe/ute Fober_., ‘five fearful things,’ it is the most fearful; and what will not a man, nay what will not a woman weak and tender, in physic, in chyrurgery, endure, not to endure death? ‘He endured’ death.

And that if He endured, and no more but that, it might suffice; it is worth all we have, for all we have we will give for our life. But not death only, but the kind of death is it. Morten, morten autem crucis, saith the Apostle, doubting the point; ‘death He endured, even the death of the cross.’

The cross is but a little word, but of great contents; but few letters, but in these few letters are contained multa dictu gravia, perpessu aspera, ‘heavy to be named, more heavy to be endured.’ I take but the four things ascribed by the Holy Ghost to the cross, answerable to the four ends or quarters of it. 1. Sanguis Crucis, 2. Dolores Crucis, 3. Scandalum Crucis, 4. Maledictum Crucis: that is, the death of the cross is all these four; a 1. bloody, 2. doleful, 3. scandalous, 4. accursed death.”

–Lancelot Andrewes

Also - go to First Things for a great reflection by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus on Good Friday.

Pax, Peter+

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