EIGHTH MEDITATION OF OUR SAVIOR'S PASSION ~ LUCY HERBERT

DUCCIO di Buoninsegna 

Christ Before King Herod (scene 14)

1308-11

VIII. Meditation. 

CONSIDER how, that dismal night being past and morning now come, they hurry our Lord, bound with ropes, to Pilate and then to Herod and then to Pilate again; all which way his Divine Majesty went with exceeding weariness of body, by reason of the torments of the past night, and want of sleep. Both before Pilate and Herod he was continually accused by the Jews, but none of their accusations were found true. Then there rose up other witnesses against him, more powerful than the former, and they procured his death; but who could they be? Alas! none but ourselves, who continually accuse him by sinning: for, he being our bail, we make him guilty of death, by those crimes which make us so; thus he, though truly innocent as to any crime of his own, makes himself guilty by taking ours upon him;  and therefore he held his peace and was silent, because he would not refute this accusation; which silence made him pass for a fool or madman in Herod's court; and did we not know if him to be the wisdom of the Eternal Father, his judgment might be called in question, for undergoing what we see him suffer for ungrateful man. 

While you consider him in this condition, imagine you hear him say to you: Dost thou consider what I have done for thee? Thou callest me the Word of God, and the Eternal Wisdom, and I am so, if then I have chosen to be contemned and despised in this world for thee, oughtest not thou to do the same for me? See what your practice has hitherto been, if conformable to his example or no, and what you resolve it shall be for the future.

LUCY HERBERT