The High Priest had appealed to our Lord's enemies. They had heard the blasphemy. He had claimed to be the Son of God and so they had judged Him worthy of death. Out of His own mouth they had convicted Him, for He had blasphemed the Most High. There was a strange belief at this time among the Jews. They held that the golden band on the High Priest's mitre, on which were graven the words, "Holiness unto Yahweh", had the power on the day of atonement, of satisfying for those who blasphemed and repairing for their blasphemy. But in the hearts of men like Caiaphas in which burnt fiercely the fires of hatred, there could be no smallest nook or corner for any possibility of pardon to lurk. The mitre of a divine dignity, silence and meekness which shone over the consecrated brow of the Man-God was invisible to the jaundiced eyes of the Priests who were that night determined to take His life.
All day they had plotted and toiled for His undoing, yet all their efforts had failed and they were forced to distort and twist into a blasphemy the words which He had uttered. Upon these they pounced as wild beasts upon their prey, and condemned Him to death when all else had failed. Triumph gleamed in their eyes and congratulations were on every lip as the excited throng brought the farcical proceedings to an end. Their victim and captive was alone unmoved, calm, silent and divine.
Now that their sinful and wicked purpose was accomplished, the assembly broke up and they dispersed to their homes. The day had been a busy and anxious one. From early morning they had been occupied in plotting and scheming, hurrying from place to place, gathering false witnesses and rehearsing their testimony. The journey to the Garden and our Lord's capture had been a task of exceeding anxiety. The long hours of examination and trial with its disappointments had been wearisome and disturbing. But they had been rewarded by the testimony of the accused Himself who had apparently played into the hands of the clever Caiaphas. But all is well that ends well and they could now go home content and take some rest, before the final triumph which on the morrow would crown their zealous efforts. The whole incident had been most annoying, but still it was well worth all their strivings if they could bring things to a successful issue, as now seemed certain.
The Priests went to their homes, promising to reassemble at an early hour and make an end of this disagreeable business. They did not neglect to give the strictest commands to His keepers to guard their Prisoner most carefully. Fidelity to duty during the night is promised generous reward, neglect threatened with severe penalties. Had the Priests only known that their Captive was a willing victim, there had been no need of such injunctions. The guards might have retired to rest, they might have thrown open the doors, and have broken the shackles on His sacred hands and feet. He was a willing Prisoner, "He was offered, because it was His own will."
Holy writers have told us that no pen can describe, no imagination picture the indignities to which our Blessed Lord was subjected during the dark hours of this night of horror. Every revolting insult, every mark of contempt and every injustice which suggested itself to the minds of these coarse, brutal men was heaped upon their unresisting and helpless victim. Possibly some of the Priests, anxious to make sure that our Lord would not escape, tarried for a time to satisfy themselves that there would be no neglect. The servants of Caiaphas and the guards, ignorant men knowing the disposition of the Priests towards Christ, were only too eager to curry favor with their masters, and were thus spurred on to greater ingenuity in inventing humiliating tortures and to more cruel efforts in inflicting them. Possibly the Priests before leaving for their comfortable homes may have flung a last stinging taunt at their victim by telling Him to call on His twelve legions of Angels for help, or by asking Him about His promise to rebuild the Temple of the Sacred City.
The servants of the High Priests, the guards and the common rabble now united in heaping insults and indignities upon the innocent Lamb of God. The innate vulgarity of such a throng, which loves to trample upon fallen greatness now found full scope. Their natural cruelty, freed from restraint by the withdrawal of their masters, was now unchained and sought full satisfaction in unspeakable brutalities, affording pleasure and amusement to the vile throng usually gathered among the dregs of the hangers-on about the palace and the courts. Yet all through that dreary night of horrors in the dark dungeon that lonely Sufferer, not defenseless, but undefending, not conquered, but unresisting, not helpless but voluntarily submitting to taunts, blows and indignities, was both paying the penalty in His own Person for crimes committed against the Godhead, and furnishing an example which in future centuries would comfort and encourage under insult and humiliation myriads of unborn children, when writhing under pain and shame they would kneel in spirit at His sacred feet, and look into His face covered with spittle and from that vision learn to be like Him.
Since those hours in the dark dungeon, when through the long night our Lord was the play-thing of the common rabble and scum of the sacred city, His holy ones have loved that livery of shame and gloried to be garbed with the garments of humiliation. What to the world has been a vesture of weakness and ignominy, has been to them a sacred and holy chasuble of strength and honor. When human nature writhes and shrinks back from insult and injury, when the blush mantles the cheek and fires kindle in the eyes under injustice, when passion, pride and anger clamor for indulgence, then the vision of the Innocent Sufferer rises above the darkness of the storm raging wildly in human souls, and that vision calms and strengthens and brings peace.
Sometimes one wonders if we have advanced much beyond the brutality of that scene. The wild cry of the French Revolution "Destroy the Infamous One," meaning to banish Christ from the hearts of men; still more the teaching of innocent children to place flowers before the banners on which was inscribed that blood-curdling cry; the desire of the French statesman of today to blot out from the heavens the name of Christ; the efforts of men to keep God out of the schools and out of the souls of our little ones, efforts favored and abetted at times by bad Catholics; are not these proofs that men care as little nowadays for the Man-God and His teachings as did His torturers that night in the cellars of the High Priest's palace; and that they are just as ready to revile and insult Him in the person of His Church and His children?
The painful scenes we are contemplating are told us in detail by the Evangelists: "And the men that held Him, mocked Him and struck him. And some began to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to say unto Him: Prophesy; and the servants struck Him with the palms of their hands." Saint Luke adds: "And the men that held Him, mocked Him and struck Him. And they blindfolded Him and smote His face." Not a word, not a murmur, not a complaint escaped the lips of the Divine Sufferer during these long hours. No rebuke to His torturers, no indignant expression of outraged Majesty, no cry of distress from a nature infinitely sensitive to every slight and insult. He was a willing victim. His Father had pressed the chalice to His lips and to the deepest, bitterest dregs He would drain it. Slowly but entirely and lovingly would He drink of the cup of humiliation and sorrow.
Let us pause for a moment and reflect upon the varieties of pain, shame, reproaches and sufferings to which our loving and innocent Saviour submitted during those hours of torture and horror. What an agony the cords and ropes which bound His sacred limbs must have caused! How meekly He bore the buffets which were rained upon Him by the rough servants and cruel soldiers! Contemplate the livid marks upon His pale but beautiful Face, the Face into which the Angels were looking in an ecstasy of wonder and adoration, the Face which Mary had so often and tenderly kissed. As we kneel and see those sacred eyes covered with a filthy rag and hear the savage blows upon His holy countenance, can, we forget the words of the prophet: "He shall give His cheek to him that striketh Him. He shall be filled with reproaches"?
As we meditate upon this scene can we not gain courage to suffer for His sake and His love? Will not the memory of these sufferings stand us in good stead, when our vanity is wounded, our pride touched, our sensitiveness pricked? How much braver in daily humiliations we should be at times if before the Tabernacle we pondered on the horrors of this awful night! We shall be stouter of heart if we can make the long hours in the dungeon in the Priests palace a living memory in our daily lives.
- from The Mountains of Myrrh, by Father John O'Rourke