Pints With Aquinas - Meditation for Good Friday

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

Welcome to this special edition of Pints with Aquinas. Today I'd like to share with you a short meditation written by Saint Thomas Aquinas for Good Friday. The death of Christ. That Christ should die was expedient to make our redemption complete. For although any suffering of Christ had an infinite value because of its union with his divinity, it was not by no matter which of his sufferings that the redemption of mankind was made complete, but only by his death. So the Holy Spirit declared, speaking through the mouth of Caiaphas, It is expedient for you that one man shall die for the people.

When St. Augustine says, Let us stand in wonder, rejoice, be glad, love, praise and adore, since it is by the death of our Redeemer that we have been called from death to life, from exile to our own land, from mourning to joy. To increase our faith, our hope, and our charity with regard to faith, the psalm says, I am alone until I pass from this world, that is, to the Father. When I shall have passed to the Father, then I shall be multiplied. Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone.

As to the increase of hope, St. Paul writes, God cannot deny us this. For to give us all things is less than to give his own son to death for us. St. Bernard says, The arms outstretched in an embrace, the hands pierced to give, the side opened to love, the feet nailed to remain with us. Come, my dove, in the clefts of the rock. It is in the wounds of Christ the church builds its nest and waits, for it is in the passion of our Lord that she places her hope of salvation and thereby trusts to be protected from the craft of the falcon, that is, the devil. scripture says, at noon he burneth the earth. That is to say, in the fervor of his passion, he burns up all mankind with his love. So St. Bernard says, the chalice thou didst drink,

O good Jesus, maketh thee lovable above all things. The work of our redemption easily, brushing aside all hindrances, calls out in return the whole of our love. That it is which more gently draws out our devotion, builds it up more straightly, guards it more closely, and fires it with greater ardor. © transcript Emily Beynon