MEDITATION ON OUR LORD'S PASSION: And He Said Unto Them: If I Should Tell You, You Would Not Believe Me:

MEMMI, Lippo 
Mocking of Christ 
c. 1340

And he said unto them: If I should tell you, you would not believe me: And if I shall ask, yes will not answer me, nor let me go: But hereafter the Son of man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God. And they all said: art thou then the Son of God/ who answered; you say, that I am.

Consider first that our Lord, before he professed himself to be Christ, did use a preface, for whereas he professed the same most plainly in the night and was so far from profiting, that thereby a greater accusation was framed against him; here being asked the second time, he stem to make some difficultly in answering: That thou mayest learn that the suggestions of God, being once rejected, do hardly return again.

Consider secondly, how often they asked, and never believed. For there are some, which always repeat the self same question, not because they are ignorant, but because thereby they may find out something, which may please their own will, and not be repugnant to their desire, ever learning, and never coming to the truth of knowledge. Thou also how many things doest thou know, and how few doest thou perform? Doubt not, But the Servant, which knoweth the will his Lord, and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes.

Consider thirdly (if I shall ask, yes will not answer me) the pride of the wicked, who would not vouchsafe to answer Christ their Lord: What will they do at the latter judgment, when they shall have him for their Judge, whom they judged unworthy of their answer. Think thou hereof as often as thou shalt be admonished by God in thy conscience, and thou dost reject his inspirations.

Consider fourthly that our Lord being asked, whether he was Christ, did answer out of Davids Psalm of the sitting of the right hand of his Father, which Psalm he alleged to them another time, that by that argument (which otherwise they could not solve) they might know that the Messias was the Son of God, which they did easily understand, for they inferred upon his answer, Art thou then the Son of God? Admire the goodness of God which ceased not to admonish, and to withdraw them from this grievous sin, wherein they should sin not against man only, but against him, who was the Son of God.  

Pray thou unto Christ, that the reverence & respect of him: may move thee, that whensoever thou shalt sin; who mayest think of that saying: To thee alone have I sinned, and I have done evil before thee: For it is God, who is offended, & not man alone.

Fr. Francis Costerus S.J. 1616

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