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
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