It is stupid of us to idealise the Passion in any way – the meaning is, ‘He is God; He suffers; the man Jesus suffering is God’ – but the fact could properly be called the Butchery, the Murder, the Foul Hideous Torture – it is what human beings have been doing to one another, on and off, since time began. Let’s not pretend the Passion is O.K. because it’s over, in time.

W.H. Auden wrote (I can’t remember it well) –

As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others: they were small
And could not hope for help, and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died. (‘The Shield of Achilles’)

Yes; atrocity. Jesus went to the heart, the black terrible centre, of human atrocity, and died there. What we fear most, dread to think of – or think of with obsessive sadism – He endured, with us. He set aside all protection. He is now Us. Therefore we should – I trust I do – love him with a burning love, a love as unprotected as his own, without reservation. He set aside Godhead and even the safeguards of humanity – the protection of law, of respectability. Let’s never talk again, in our safe hutches, about ‘exemplary punishment’ – let us rather weep for ourselves and Him.

When Z—, who had no legs, left her crucifix hanging in my room, I used to kiss it every night before sleeping and it was the Passion. It was terrible to kiss it – being in the atmosphere of death, wounds, agony, suppuration, amputation – heavy, heavy, heavy! I had to force myself to kiss it; yet I wished to share the Passion with her and with Him. I was kissing my own death.

When I gave it back to her, I put it round her neck, and said – ‘Now you carry my death for me’ – and she smiled, for she understood what I meant.

I said – ‘Suffering is the engagement ring, Z—, but joy is the wedding ring.’ She understood that too. She may yet be a great spiritual mother to many.

He has taken the makutu (the death-curse) of the tribe upon Himself. How are we to react? Are we to say – ‘Thank you, Brother. Now I’ll go and have a ball for myself?’

It is more appropriate for us to imitate Him and take on ourselves the makutu of our friends. This can be done because WE are HIM (the Mystical Body).

When the kids complained somebody was ‘putting black magic’ on them – sitting up wide-awake, owl-eyed and terrified in the moonlight in the old house next door, I first gave them each a crucifix and got them to recite the Apostles’ Creed with me. But they were still troubled. So I took off my shirt and hit my bare back twenty times with the belt buckle and I said – ‘If there is any makutu, I take it on myself. Now you can sleep.’

And they slept peacefully.

When Y— (that sensible rational girl) confessed to me that she was troubled by demons every night, I gave her a crucifix and told her to recite this prayer – ‘O my Jesus, help me to accept my own faults and the faults of others.’ She was not troubled again. I told her the Lord had made himself into the lightning conductor who carried evil into Himself, away from the Tribe.

It was a prayer of humility, and of identification with Him. The demons can’t bear the odour of humility.

Y— was an agnostic.

We should bless the Thief, the spokesman for our tribe, perhaps before all other men. For he gave Him that great gift of love and recognition. Our Blessed Lord carried in his heart all his life a very deep painful wound, because his own people, the Jews, did not accept his love and truth, did not see He is the Messiah. But there at the last – when He was blinded, bloody, filthy, tormented, unrecognisable – the Thief said – ‘Remember me, Lord, when you enter your kingdom.’

He gave Him honour and recognised his kingship. A strange courtier and a strange King!

The big inner question for the serious believer has always been – ‘How shall the just and holy God forgive me? I am a creature made of bubbles. My penitence looks to me like a sham. I don’t obey Him well; then how can I claim to love Him?’

The answer from the Cross –

‘Child, I know this. But I have changed the equation for you. I have become the Human Tribe. Now you are able to have mercy on me, your God. My justice is still just – mercy must be given for mercy to be received. If you are merciful – in ordinary practical ways as well as those of the spirit – sharing food and money, reassuring the sad – then I will pour down mercy on you, and you will know Me in the act of mercy. My terrible identification with the tribe makes this possible for all, sinners though they be. From now on, be merciful and delight in My mercy. For I love you more than you could ever conceive.’