Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent – 11 March – Our Lenten Journey With St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Doctor of the Church
Wednesday of the Third Week
The Price of Our Redemption
“You are bought at a great price.”
I Cor vi. 20
The indignities and sufferings anyone suffers are measured according to the dignity of the person concerned.
If a King is struck in the face, he suffers a greater indignity than does a private person.
But, the dignity of Christ is Infinite, for He is a Divine Person. Therefore, any Suffering undergone by Him, even the least conceivable Suffering, is Infinite.
Any suffering at all, then, undergone by Him, without His Death, would have sufficed to Redeem the human race.
St Bernard says – the least drop of the Blood of Christ would have sufficed for the Redemption of us all.
And Christ could have shed that One Drop without Dying. Therefore, even without Dying He could, by some kind of Suffering, have Redeemed, that is, Bought Back, all mankind.
Now in any purchase, two elements are required, i.e. an amount equal to the price demanded and, the assigning of that amount to the purpose of buying.
For if a man gives a price which is not equal in value to the item to be purchased, we do not say that he has bought it but only that he has partly bought it and partly been given it.
For example, if a man buys, for ten shillings, a book worth twenty shillings, he has partly bought the book and it has, partly been donated to him.
… If, therefore, when we speak of the Redemption and Buying Back of the human race, we have, in view, the amount of the Price required, we must say that any Suffering undergone by Christ, even without His Death, would have sufficed because of the Infinite worth of His Person.
If, however, we speak of the Redemption with reference to the setting of the Price to the purpose in hand, we have then to say that no other Suffering of Christ less than His Death, was set by God and by Christ, as the Price to be paid for the Redemption of man kind.
And this was so for three reasons:
- That the Price of our Redemption should not only be Infinite in value but be of the same kind as what it bought, i.e., that it should be with a Death that He Bought us Back from death.
- That the Death of Christ would be not only the Price of our Redemption but too, an example of courage, so that men would not be afraid to die, for the Truth.
St Paul makes mention of this and the preceding cause when he says, That, through death, He might destroy him who had the empire of death (this is the first cause) and might deliver them, who throug the fear of death were subject to servitude all their lifetime (this for the second cause) (Heb ii. 14, 15). - That the Death of Christ might be a Sacrament to work our Salvation; we, that is, dying to sin, to bodily desires and to our own will through the power of the Death of Christ. These reasons are given by St Peter when he says, Christ who Died once for our sins, the Just for the unjust that He might offer us to God, being put to Death indeed in the flesh but enlivened in the spirit (1 Pet iii. 18).
And so it is that mankind has not been Redeemed by any other Suffering of Christ without His Death.
But, as a matter of fact, Christ would have paid sufficiently for the Redemption of mankind, not only by giving His Own Life but by Suffering any Suffering, no matter how slight, if this slight Suffering had been the requirement Divinely appointed and Christ, would thereby, have paid sufficiently because of the Infinite worth of His Person.
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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