Passion of the Whole Body of Christ – Augustine

Augustine here connects the passion of Jesus beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane and culminating on the cross, with the sufferings of the whole body of Christ, commenting on Psalm 141 along with the passion narratives of Mark and Luke.

Lord, I have cried to you, hear me. (Psalm 141:1) This is a prayer we can all say. This is not my prayer, but that of the whole Christ. Rather, it is said in the name of his body. When Christ was on earth he prayed in his human nature, and prayed to the Father in the name of his body, and when he prayed drops of blood flowed from his whole body. So it is written in the Gospel: Jesus prayed with earnest prayer, and sweated blood (Luke 22:44). What is this blood streaming from his whole body but the martyrdom of the whole Church?

Passion of the Whole Body

Lord, I have cried to you, hear me; listen to the sound of my prayer, when I call upon you. Did you imagine that crying was over when you said: I have cried to you? You have cried out, but do not as yet feel free from care. If anguish is at an end, crying is at an end; but if the Church, the body of Christ, must suffer anguish until the end of time, it must not say only: I have cried to you, hear me; it must also say: Listen to the sound of my prayer, when I call upon you. Let my prayer rise like incense in your sight; let the raising of my hands be an evening sacrifice. (Ps. 141:2)

The Evening Sacrifice of the Cross

This is generally understood of Christ, the head, as every Christian acknowledges. When day was fading into evening, the Lord laid down his life on the cross, to take it up again; he did not lose his life against his will. Here, too, we are symbolized. What part of him hung on the cross if not the part he had received from us? How could God the Father ever cast off and abandon his only Son, who is indeed one God with him? Yet Christ, nailing our weakness to the cross (where, as the Apostle says: Our old nature was nailed to the cross with him), cried out with the very voice of humanity: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34).

The Fragrance of Prayer Rising like Incense

The evening sacrifice is then the passion of the Lord, the cross of the Lord, the oblation of the victim that brings salvation, the holocaust acceptable to God. In his resurrection he made this evening sacrifice a morning sacrifice. Prayer offered in holiness from a faithful heart rises like incense from a holy altar. Nothing is more fragrant than the fragrance of the Lord. May all who believe share in this fragrance. Therefore, our old nature in the words of the Apostle, was nailed to the cross with him, in order, as he says, to destroy our sinful body, so that we may be slaves to sin no longer.

This reading on the sufferings and passion of Jesus Christ and his whole body, the church, is taken from St. Augustine’s Commentary on the Psalms and is used by the Roman Catholic Church for the Office of Readings for Tuesday of the Second (2nd) week in Lent.  The accompanying biblical reading is taken from Exodus 16.

trong>For more great ideas for the Lenten Season, see the 40 DAYS OF LENT section of the Crossroads Initiative Library.