A synthesis of the commentary of Cornelius à Lapide' (1567 - 1637) on the Passion of Our Lord from St. Matthew's Gospel compiled by a priest and friend of Rorate Caeli. (from Chapter XXVII).
THE CRUXIFIXION
Ver. 50. But Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. “Again” refers to the former words on the Cross. He first cried out, and then expired. S. Luke gives the exact words, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” In the Greek, “I will lay down My life; I will consign it into Thy hands as a deposit, to take it back when I am raised up on the third day.” Hence the faithful use this verse when dying, as David first used it when in suffering (Ps. xxxi. 5) [xxx 6].
It was by a miracle that Christ cried with a loud
voice, for the dying lose their voice, so that they can hardly speak. For
though S. Thomas says (par. iii. q. 47) that Christ
preserved the vigour and strength of His body to the last; yet others suppose,
more correctly, that His strength had so failed by what He had gone through,
that He could not cry out naturally, but only by a miracle, for otherwise He
would not have died through the violence of His sufferings, but merely by His
own voluntary severing of His soul and body, and thus would not have been
slain, or have made satisfaction to His Father by His death of violence.
He cried out, then, by the supernatural powers
which His Godhead furnished. And that to signify, 1st, that He, as God, died
not by compulsion or necessity, but of His own free will. As He said, “I have
power to lay down My life,” &c. (John x. 18); and that His sacrifice of
Himself might clearly be voluntary. “He had His whole life and death,” says S.
Victor of Antioch, “entirely in His own power.” 2nd To show that He was more
than man, and was God, as the Centurion exclaimed. 3rd To set forth His vehement
love of God, His reverence, His obedience, and earnest desire for man’s
salvation (see Heb. v. 7, and notes thereon). 4th To indicate His sure and
certain hope of His glorious resurrection on the third day (so Origen).
Yielded up the ghost. Voluntarily. “For that which is sent
forth (emittitur) is voluntary, that which is lost (amittitur) is
of necessity,” S. Ambrose (in Luc. xxiii.); and S. Augustine (de
Trin. iv. 13), “The spirit of the Mediator left not His
body against His will, but because of it when He willed, and as He willed it;
for man was blended into union with the Word of God. Hence He says, ‘I have
power,’” &c. (John x. 18).
So, too, S. Jerome, Bede, and others. Whence, also,
“He bowed His head” (John xix. 30). “As the Lord of death,” says Theophylact;
“for other men when dying first breathe their last, and then bow the head,
which thus droops by its own weight.” S. Chrysostom says this was “to show that
He died not of necessity, but voluntarily. He lived as long as He willed; when
He willed He gave up the ghost.” A spurious work attributed to S. Athanasius is
also quoted to the same effect. For though His human nature sank beneath the
violence of His pains, and He ought to have died, yet His Godhead was able to
give it strength, and to prolong His life. That nature, therefore, could not
die, except by permission of His Godhead. He therefore freely died, whether as
God or man; for His human nature could have asked, and would have obtained,
this strength from His Godhead.
Observe, He died at the ninth hour, the very hour
when Adam sinned, and to expiate his sin. The same hour also when the Paschal
Lamb was slain, and the Jews offered the daily sacrifice. And this to show that
He thus fulfilled all these types in His death. Whence the ninth hour is the
Christian’s hour of prayer.
Symbolically and Morally: He bowed His head, as bearing the
burden of all men’s sins, sin being the heaviest of all burdens; to mark His
obedience, thus teaching “religious” persons, and those under authority, to
obey those over them (conf. Phil. ii. 8); to humble Himself before the Father,
to do Him reverence, and to submit His own will to His, even to the death of
the Cross; to bid farewell to the world, especially to Italy and the West, for
His head, as we have said, was turned towards Italy, which He wished to make
illustrious by His faith, and by the Pontificate and martyrdom of SS. Peter and
Paul; to bid farewell to His Mother; to mark the spot where the spear was to
pierce Him; to show that He and His Father were by His Passion reconciled to
men. So S. Augustine (de Virg,.) says, “Behold His wounds when hanging,
His Blood when dying, His value when dying, His scars when rising, His head
bent down to kiss, His heart opened to love, His arms extended to embrace, His
whole body exposed to redeem.” &c. It was, again, to show that His soul
would descend below, and set the Patriarchs free; to manifest His compassion.
“He made His head to melt,” says Laur. Justiniani (de Triumph. Agone,
cap. xx.), “to show compassion; He bent down to display His grace; He
bowed it to show forgiveness;” again, to manifest His love for S. John, the
Magdalen, and others like them who were standing by, and to turn away from
those who shrank from the Cross; to look away (again) from the title on the
Cross, as declining, and teaching us to decline, all worldly sovereignty and
pomp; to show that His death, as He was to rise on the third day, was rather
sleep than death; for they who sleep bow the head, “I will lay me down in
peace,” &c. (Ps. iv. 8). Lastly, having fulfilled His mission, He asks, as
it were, His Father’s blessing and permission to depart from the world. He
seems to say, I have finished My course, I have done and suffered for man’s
salvation all Thou commandest. Permit Me to die, and return to Thee. And I ask,
too, according to Thy promise (Ps. ii. 8), that all nations may be converted
and saved by My Passion and death. I have done Thy bidding, fulfil Thou Thy
word. “Religious” persons and Priests, in like manner, when their mission is
done, return to their Superiors, bow the head, and ask their blessing, and
their former rank and position. S. Bernard pointedly says, in a moral sense,
“What avails it to follow Christ if Thou canst not come up with Him? For S.
Paul said, ‘So run that ye may attain.’ Fix the limits of thy course where
Christ fixed His. ‘He became obedient even unto death.’ However far thou hast
run, if thou hast not gone as far as unto death, thou wilt not win the prize.”
