Blessed Schuster’s Daily Thoughts on the Rule: Passion Wednesday

Passion Wednesday
Station at St Marcellus

New Attacks under Solomon’s Portico

1. The station is at Saint Marcellus, at the base of the Quirinal hill, where the body of the exiled Pontiff was transported from the cemetery of Priscilla.

The Gospel reading describes the tumult of the Jews, who seize rocks so as actually to stone the Lord.

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Previously they had asked Him: ‘If You are the Christ, tell it to us openly.’ (John 10:38) The Lord replies by noting this last word: ‘openly’. After so many journeys, after so much preaching, after so many wonders, what do the Jews require for the announcement of the Messiah to be made ‘openly’?

Even now, after twenty centuries, unbelievers make the excuse that the ‘religious fact’, as they call it, is still wrapped in mystery, so that their incredulity may thereby come off justified. Unfortunately, as the proverb says, there is no deaf man worse than one who will not hear! There is, however, a reason why the language of the Lord proves unintelligible to one who has not Faith: ‘You do not believe, because you are not My sheep, nor do you listen to My voice.’ (John 10:26)

Let us accept a good piece of counsel from Saint Benedict:

‘Let us open our eyes, so that they may be inundated with the divine and divinising light.’ (Rule, Prologue)

Let us open our ears and listen to the voice of God crying out to us every day, for our instruction.

Who then are the sheep of Jesus?

The Saviour Himself declares it today.

Oves meae vocem meam audiunt. [John 10:27: ‘My sheep hear My voice.’]

This is why the preaching of the divine word is multiplied in the Church, so that it may be a seed to regenerate new children unto God.

‘To listen willingly to divine readings’ (Rule, Ch. 4), instructs Saint Benedict in the Chapter on the instruments of good works; and he means above all meditation on the Sacred Scriptures, as was the common practice at that time.

But the phrase Vocem meam audiunt can also refer to the exercise of prayer, in which God communicates Himself to the devout soul and makes her hear His voice. Quid dulcius nobis ab hac voce Domini invitantis nos?, writes the Cassinese Patriarch [Saint Benedict]. (Rule, Prologue: ‘What is there sweeter than this invitation of the Lord?’)

This sweetness, however, is not fully understood, if it is not first perceived.

This is why the Saints persevere long hours and entire nights in prayer: they taste there the company and the conversation of God.

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2. The sheep of the Christian flock are distinguished by a second required characteristic.

Et ego cognosco eas et sequuntur me; et ego vitam aeternam do eis. [John 10:27-28: ‘And I know them and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life.’]

Only those sheep, therefore, belong to the Lord’s flock who follow Him faithfully by imitation. Christ is pleased in them and glories in them before His heavenly Father. His task, received from the Father, is precisely to give eternal life to as many as the Father Himself has entrusted to Him.

The Abbot in the monastery, too, participates with Christ in this mission. He has been placed by the Church in charge of his community, so that he may give eternal life to the sheep entrusted to him and not lose any of them.

Et ita—writes the Holy Patriarch—timens semper futuram discussionem Pastoris de creditis ovibus, cum de alienis ratiociniis cavet, redditur de suis sollicitus. (Rule, Ch. 2: ‘Being thus always apprehensive for the account of the sheep which he must render to the Shepherd, while providing for the judgment about these, he will likewise be solicitous on his own account.’)

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3. They had accused Jesus of not declaring openly His character as Messiah, but of veiling His saying by means of everyday parables ut videntes non videant et audientes non intelligant. (Luke 8:10: ‘So that they may see and not see, hear and not hear.’)

Jesus, therefore, repeats the declaration they desire, solemnly asserting His consubstantiality with the Father: ‘I and the Father are one.’ [John 10:30]

This time it is impossible for the audience not to understand; but behold, as soon as Jesus has pronounced the awful phrase, His adversaries gather rocks from the ground and are now about to stone Him.

In His own defense, the Saviour then reminds the Jews of what is said in the Psalter regarding the judges ordained by the law: ‘I have said: You are divine.’ (Ps 81:6) If then—Jesus argues—they become divine to whom the divine word is addressed, how much more holy is the Son of God, sent to the world for the salvation of man!

Let us too attend well to the Gospel teaching: Si illos dixit deos ad quos sermo Dei factus est, et non potest solvi Scriptura. [John 10:35: ‘If it called them gods to whom the word of God was addressed, and Scripture cannot be undone.’]

Act then in such a way as to render yourself too worthy of God, that He may direct His word to you and make you divine—and a Vir Dei: Man of God.