Meditations On The Funeral, And Burial Of Christ Our Lord Point I

CARAVAGGIO 
The Entombment 
1602-03

Of the funerals, and burial of Christ our lord

THE I POINT. 

1. The holy Virgin having had the body of her Blessed Son, awhile in her lap, she gave it to Joseph and Nicodemus, that they should perform towards it their office of piety, retaining to herself the crown of thorns, and the nails, as brooches and Jewels very precious. 

2. These men therefore, took unto them that most holy body, and anointed it, spending thereon all the hunger pounds, of Myrrh and Aloes, so that the whole body was replete and embalmed therewith: to signify that most sacred body, from his first conception even to the end of his life, lived always filled and replete with eh myrrh of travails and mortifications, to the end that the whole mystical body of his Church, and every member thereof being anointed with the like myrrh, may preserve itself from the corruption of sin. And, for that which the spouse saith in the Canticles. My hands have distilled myrrh, and my fingers are full of most approved myrrh.

Colloquy:

O my soul, remember thyself seriously of this myrrh of the beloved, and anoint therewith thin own body, bearing always therein as the Apostle did, the mortification of Jesus Christ, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in thy life, Amen.


3.This unction being finished, they wrapped the sacred body in a clean swindon, and the sacred head in a napkin, binding up the same in linen cloths with spices as was the manner of the Jews to bury.

Colloquy:

O sacred Virgin, what sorrow did thy heart feel, when thou safest wrapped up the face of thy Son, whereon thou desires more to look, then did the Angels of heaven? O face more pure then the sun, who hath covered thee with the cloud of this mortality? O celestial Adam, who hath clothed thee with the skins of dead beasts? Thy charity hath done this. to deliver from death the earthly Adam, and to take away by this means the clouds of my sins, which hinder me to behold thy divine countenance.

4. We may also ponder the love and affection, which Christ our Lord had unto property, who would that the myrrh, the swindon, and the napkin, should be given him os lames; As also that the sepulcher, should be another mans, and only be lent unto him: teaching us by this example, to love that virtue, which he himself so greatly loved, and actually to exercise the same, in our life, and in our death, according as himself hath done before us.

~ Venerable Luis de la Puente S.J.


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