On Herod’s deriding of our Lord Jesus
On Herod’s deriding of our Lord Jesus
LORD JESUS CHRIST, Eternal Wisdom of the Father, Supreme Truth, and Infinite Power of God, I bless and thank you for the shameful contempt and disdain by which Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked you. Herod had for a long time desired to meet you and in his curiosity hoped to witness one of your miracles. But when you declined to answer his questions and to work a sign for him—it was not then the proper time, it was the hour of suffering and not for working signs—he soon yielded to anger and ceased to respect you. Considering you a madman, he dismissed you, ordering that you be clothed in a white garment and sent back to Pilate.
I praise and honor you, my glorious Jesus, for bearing so much fatigue in the weary goings back and forth through Jerusalem’s lanes and streets and for being led amid shouts of derision from place to place and from judge to judge. You were everywhere denounced, everywhere dishonored, and after many an interrogation and long examinations, they demanded your crucifixion.
What remarkable patience shined forth in you at this time! Despite all those insults that patience never deserted you. The very thought of your being publicly dishonored engenders repentance in the hard of heart, it pacifies the angry, and invites the devout to weep. You, the Most High God, are here reduced to the lowest of men; you, the All-Powerful, are treated as the most wretched of men; you, the All-Wise, are ridiculed as the most foolish of men; you, the Most Innocent, are judged as the most villainous of men.
Woe to me, unfortunate sinner, weighed down with the heavy burden of sin! Because of my evil deeds I deserve to be assigned to eternal punishment, but you, holy, just, and loving God, chose to be despised and detested to deliver me from the devil’s deceits and everlasting death.
I therefore beg you, my good Jesus, whom neither unkind nor unbecoming words were able to disturb, to free me from everything that is outwardly vain and bizarre and that I learn to be content with simple and ordinary attire. It is indeed shameful for earth and ashes to want to be clothed in fine soft garments, while you, King of heaven, were put to ridicule wearing a white garment.
Keep before my eyes the disgrace and scorn you suffered and teach me to follow you in the way of derision and to find joy in contempt. Teach me not to place my trust in the sons of men, or in this world’s princes, or in powerful friends, but with my whole heart to despise all earthly delights and those who hanker after them. Lord Jesus, author of my salvation, may I ever follow you with absolute constancy and always keep in mind the many calumnies that you endured for me, unworthy as I am.