Sunday, March 29, 2020

They put on Him His own garments

Saint Matthew - Chapter 27


They put on Him His own garments. J-J Tissot
[31] Et postquam illuserunt ei, exuerunt eum chlamyde, et induerunt eum vestimentis ejus, et duxerunt eum ut crucifigerent.
And after they had mocked him, they took off the cloak from him, and put on him his own garments, and led him away to crucify him.

From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

Pilate and his assistants had now left the Gabbatha; the scarlet military cloak in which the Master had been put to derision is taken off His shoulders; the blood flows afresh as the wounds are reopened and the crown of thorns is torn from the Victim's brow, in order to pass over His head the seamless vesture for which lots will be cast on Calvary.  The Saviour,s white robe is then restored to Him, together probably with His sash, sandals and lastly His cloak.  According to tradition, certain pious believers had taken charge of the garments of the Master when they were taken off after the ill-treatment He had received in the house of Caiaphas.  There had been time to have them cleaned and mended.  We are, we think, justified in supposing that all through His Passion Jesus was allowed to retain the under-garment of linen which Jews then wore about the loins next the skin and which was fashioned something like the under-drawers of the present day.  If so, He was never perfectly naked even on Calvary, but I feel bound to add but few agree with me on this point.  Their is, in fact, a tradition to the effect that when Jesus was stripped before the crucifixion His modesty was saved from being put to the blush by the charity of one of the Holy Women standing by.  Nothing, however, confirms this touching story, which is probably after all only a pious fiction, and it is infinitely more likely that Jesus wore the light garment referred to above until the end.


Totus tuus ego sum 
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 

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