Saturday of the First Week of Lent – 28 February – Our Lenten Journey With St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Doctor of the Church
Saturday of the First Week
The Love of God
Exhibited in the Passion of Christ
“God commendeth His charity towards us because when, as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us.”
Rom v 8, 9
- “Christ died for the ungodly” (ibid 6
This is a great thing if we consider Who it is Who died, a great thing too if we consider on whose behalf He died.
For scarcely for a just man, will one die (ibid 6), that is to say that you will not find anyone who will die even to set free a man who is innocent, nay even, it is said, “The just perisheth and no man layeth it to heart” (Isaias l vii).
Rightly, therefore, does St.Paul say scarcely will one die. There might perhaps be found one, someone rare person, who out of sa uperabundance of courage, would be so bold as to die for a good man. But this is rare, for the simple reason that so to act is the greatest of all things. “Greater love than this, no man hath, says Our Lord Himself, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John xv. 13).
But the like of that which Christ Himself did, to die for evildoers and the wicked, has never been seen.
Wherefore rightly do we ask in wonderment, why Christ did this.
- If in fact it be asked, why Christ died for the wicked, the answer is that God, in this way, commendeth His Charity towards us. He exhibits to us in this way that He Loves us with a Love which knows no limits, for while we were as yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The very death of Christ for us, depicts the Love of God, for it was His Son Whom He gave to die that satisfaction might be made for us. God so Loved the world, as to give His Only Begotten Son (John iii. 16).
And thus, as the Love of God the Father for us is proved in His giving us His Holy Spirit, so also is it proved in this way, by His Gift of His Only Son.
The Apostle says, God commendeth, signifying thereby that the Love of God cannot be measured. This is exhibited by the very fact of the matter, namely the fact that He gave His Son to die for us and it is proved too by reason of the kind of people we are, for whom He died.
“Christ was not stirred up to die for us by any merits of ours, when as yet we were sinners. God (who is rich in mercy) for His exceeding Charity wherewith He Loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ ” (Eph ii. 4).
- All this is almost too much to be believed.
“A work is done in your days which no man will believe when it shall be told” (Habac i. 5).
This Truth that Christ died for us is so difficult a Truth that scarcely can our intellect grasp it. Nay it is a Truth which our intellect can, in no way understand.
And St Paul preaching, makes echo to Habacuc, I work a work in your days, a work which you will not believe, if any man shall tell it to you (Acts xiii 14).
So great is God’s Love for us and His Grace towards us that He does more for us than we can believe or understand.
ST THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)
Priest, Theologian, Dominican
Doctor Angelicus (Angelic Doctor)
Doctor Communis (Common Doctor)
Added by Pope Saint Pius V in 1568
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