Prayers Before the Eucharist compiles all the prayers and meditations of St. John Henry Newman for use before the Blessed Sacrament. Each prayer places singular focus on God’s mercy, perfections, and transcendent love, moving the reader toward eternal life with Him. This meditation considers the unfathomable mental and spiritual sufferings of Christ.
After all His discourses were consummated (Matt. 26:1), fully finished and brought to an end, then He said, The Son of man will be betrayed to crucifixion. As an army puts itself in battle array, as sailors, before an action, clear the decks, as dying men make their will and then turn to God, so though our Lord could never cease to speak good words, did He sum up and complete His teaching, and then commence His passion. Then He removed by His own act the prohibition which kept Satan from Him, and opened the door to the unrest of His human heart, as a soldier, who is to suffer death, may drop his handkerchief himself. At once Satan came on and seized upon his brief hour.
An evil temper of murmuring and criticism is spread among the disciples. One was the source of it, but it seems to have been spread. The thought of His death was before Him, and He was thinking of it and His burial after it. A woman came and anointed His sacred head. The action spread a soothing tender feeling over His pure soul. It was a mute token of sympathy, and the whole house was filled with it. It was rudely broken by the harsh voice of the traitor now for the first time giving utterance to his secret heartlessness and malice. Ut quid perditio haec? “To what purpose is this waste?”—the unjust steward with his impious economy making up for his own private thefts by grudging honor to his Master. Thus, in the midst of the sweet calm harmony of that feast at Bethany, there comes a jar and discord. All is wrong; sour discontent and distrust are spreading, for the devil is abroad.
Judas, having once shown what he was, lost no time in carrying out his malice. He went to the Chief Priests, and bargained with them to betray his Lord for a price. Our Lord saw all that took place within him; He saw Satan knocking at his heart, and admitted there and made an honored and beloved guest and an intimate. He saw him go to the Priests and heard the conversation between them. He had seen it by His foreknowledge all the time he had been about Him, and when He chose him. What we know feebly as to be, affects us far more vividly and very differently when it actually takes place.
Our Lord had at length felt, and suffered Himself to feel, the cruelty of the ingratitude of which He was the sport and victim. He had treated Judas as one of His most familiar friends. He had shown marks of the closest intimacy; He had made him the purse-keeper of Himself and His followers. He had given him the power of working miracles. He had admitted him to a knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. He had sent him out to preach and made him one of His own special representatives, so that the Master was judged of by the conduct of His servant. A heathen, when smitten by a friend, said, “Et tu Brutë!” What desolation is in the sense of ingratitude! God who is met with ingratitude daily cannot from His Nature feel it. He took a human heart so that He might feel it in its fulness. And now, O my God, though in heaven, dost You not feel my ingratitude towards You?
O injured Lord, what can I say? I am very guilty concerning You, my Brother; and I shall sink in sullen despair if You dost not raise me. I cannot look on You; I shrink from You; I throw my arms round my face; I crouch to the earth. Satan will pull me down if You take not pity. It is terrible to turn to You; but merely turn Yourself to me, and so shall I be turned. It is a purgatory to endure the sight of You, the sight of myself—I most vile, You most holy. Yet make me look once more on You whom I have so incomprehensibly affronted, for Your countenance is my only life, my only hope and health lies in looking on You whom I have pierced. So I put myself before You; I look on You again; I endure the pain in order to receive the purification.
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This article is taken from a chapter in Prayers Before the Eucharist by St. John Henry Newman which is available from TAN Books.
