Lent with Bossuet: Meditations on the Gospel (8)

The Character of Humiliation and Death 

It was after having said: “They have pierced my hands and my feet,” (Ps. 21:17, 28) that David had added: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and shall be converted to the Lord.”

He saw, therefore, that it was at this price that He was to buy these new people. Their redemption was to cost Him His life. Filled with this truth, and after having said: “The hour has come when the Son of Man shall be glorified,” He added: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground dies, itself remaineth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:23-24).

It is thus, through the words of Jesus, that we see the real commentary and the real explanation of the prophecies. We are the grain of wheat, and we have a germ of life hidden within ourselves. In this way, like Jesus, we must bear much fruit, and the fruit we bear is intended for life eternal.

But first, it is necessary that everything die within us. This germ of life must disengage itself, and rid itself of all that envelops it. The fecundity of this grain will appear only at this price. Let us hide in the ground. Let us humiliate ourselves. Let us allow the exterior man to perish; that is, the life of the senses, the life of pleasure, the life of honor, the life of the body, curiosity, concupiscence, all that is sensible within us. Then this interior fecundity will develop its entire strength, and we shall bear much fruit.