As, at a former time, the Lord Jesus, for our instruction, used prudence, in fleeing, showing how there are places and occasions, when we ought warily to avoid the fury of our persecutors ; so now He uses fortitude, because His time had come. Thus He returns of His own accord, to offer Himself for His Passion, and that He might deliver Himself up into the hands of His enemies. Thus on another occasion He employed temperance, when He avoided the honour which the crowds wanted to thrust upon Him, in making Him a king. On the other hand, He displayed justice, when He received the honour which was due to Him as a king, as the people went forth to meet Him with branches cut down from the trees, and He willed to allow this simple triumph, and therefore He rode upon an ass, as S. Bernard says.1 These four virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, the Lord of Virtues for our sakes made use of. They are called cardinal, or chief, because from them all other moral virtues ‘flow. By no means, therefore, is our Lord to be considered variable, as no one of us would be, if on different occasions we exercised different virtues.
The Lord Jesus, then, on the Sabbath day before Palm Sunday, returns to Bethany, which is not far from Jerusalem, that is about two miles ; and there they made Him a supper, in the house of Simon the leper; but Lazarus, Martha, and Mary were also there, who were, perhaps, relations, or at least on intimate terms with Simon. Then Mary poured upon His Head a pound of precious ointment, and with it anointed His Head and His Feet This deed, which she had once done in the same house out of contrition, she did now from the motive of devotion. For she loved Him above all things, and could never do enough to serve Him. But Judas, the traitor, murmured at this. Whereupon the Lord replied to him, and defended her, as was right Nevertheless the traitor remained indignant, and from thence took occasion to betray Him ; and on the Wednesday following, he sold the Lord Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. See, then, our Lord, sitting at supper with His friends, and conversing with them during the short time which elapsed before His Passion. But further, see Him in the house of Lazarus, in that house of him and of his sister, which was His ordinary shelter. There He eat by day, and slept at night with His disciples. There, haply, His Blessed Mother also rested with the sisters, for she was greatly honoured by all, and Magdalen, we may imagine, clung to her, and could by no means be torn from her. Behold the Virgin Mother, filled with fear for her most beloved Son, from that time never voluntarily perhaps quitting His Presence. And when the Lord, defending Magdalen from the murmuring of the betrayer, said, “In that she hath poured this ointment on My Body, she did it for My burial,”2 do you not suppose that the sword of this word pierced through His mother’s heart? For how could He more expressly speak of His Death ? Likewise, all the rest were terrified with fear, and full of anxious surmisings, speaking one with another, now here, now there, as people speak who have some terrible communication to make. But their fear reached its height when He went into Jerusalem, which He did daily. For from that Sabbath to the Supper, He spake much to the Jews, and did many works openly in Jerusalem, to which I intend to make no reference, save to His Entry when riding on an ass ; lest our meditations concerning Himself be interrupted, for we are on the very threshold of the Passion. Take heed, then, and gather up all your powers, so as to avoid all distraction, that you may thus be enabled to meditate well on the mysteries which precede the Passion, as well as on the Passion itself, with a mind free from cares, and very attentive; in the meanwhile, converse freely at Bethany with those who are assembled there.
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