heavenly consolation. All fear of loneliness and despair in death must
therefore be cast away; for Jesus, who is our true light, the Way, the
Truth, and the Life, has preceded us on that dreary road, has
overspread it with blessings, and raised his Cross upon it, one glance
at which will calm our every fear. Jesus then (if we may so express
ourselves) made his last testament in the presence of his Father, and
bequeathed the merits of his Death and Passion to the Church and to
sinners. Not one erring soul was forgotten; he thought of each and
everyone; praying, likewise, even for those heretics who have
endeavoured to prove that, being God, he did not suffer as a man would
have suffered in his place. The cry which he allowed to pass his lips
in the height of his agony was intended not only to show the excess of
the sufferings he was then enduring, but likewise to encourage all
afflicted souls who acknowledge God as their Father to lay their
sorrows with filial confidence at his feet. It was towards three o'clock
when he cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani?' 'My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' These words of our Lord interrupted
the dead silence which had continued so long; the Pharisees turned
towards him, and one of them said, 'Behold, he calleth Elias;' and another,
'Let us see whether Elias will come to deliver him.' When Mary heard the
voice of her divine Son, she was unable to restrain herself any longer,
but rushed forwards, and returned to the foot of the Cross, followed by
John, Mary the daughter of Cleophas, Mary Magdalen, and Salome. A troop
of about thirty horsemen from Judea and the environs of Joppa, who were
on their way to Jerusalem for the festival, passed by just at the time
when all was silent round the Cross, both assistants and spectators
being transfixed with terror and apprehensions. When they beheld Jesus
hanging on the Cross, saw the cruelty with which he had been treated,
and remarked the extraordinary signs of God's wrath which overspread the
face of nature, they were filled with horror, and exclaimed, 'If the