CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
MOUNT CALVARY
T hen we go o u t TO MOUNT CALVARY1 where the true Elisha,2 was jeered by foolish servants3 and let into his eternal joke his very own children, of whom he says,
Behold, I and my children whom God has given me.A These are good children, by contrast with those malicious ones,5 children whom the psalmist exhorts to praise, saying, Praise the Lord, O children, praise the name of the Lord.'6
Praise is enhanced in the mouths of holy infants and sucklings7 just as it is impaired in the mouths of the envious, those of whom he complains thus: I have nurtured my children and raised them up, but they have spurned me.'8 He ascended the cross, accordingly; our Bald-Pate himself went up,9 exposed to the world for the sake of the world, with bared head and unveiled face,10 making atonement for sin.11 To deliver us from eternal shame12 and to restore us to glory, he took no shame in the ignominy of a bleak and des-
Calvariae locum-, the place of the skull. Jn 19:17.
2 Kings 2:23.
Mt 27:39; Mk 14:65. Bernard is playing on the double meaning of the Latin puer which can mean either boy or servant.
Is 8:18; Heb 2:13.
2 Kings 2:23; Ps 21:17.
Ps 112:1.
Ps 8:3.
Is 1:2.
2 Kings 2:23. A play on calvus (bald) and calvariae locum.
10 2 Cor 3:18.
Heb 1:3.
12 Ps 77:66; Jer 23:40.
In Praise of the New Knighthood picable death nor did he shrink from its torment. No wonder.
What did he have to be ashamed of? He washed us from our sins,13 not as water which itself becomes polluted as it cleanses, but as a sunbeam which dries up filth and itself remains pure.
Indeed he is the very wisdom of God14 whose purity penetrates everywhere.15
13 Rev 1:5.
14 1 Cor 1:24.
15 Wis 7:24.