Lent with Bossuet – Meditations on the Gospel (18)

A Symbol of the Sterile Soul Without Good Works

“Jesus was hungry.” Literally, He fasted a great deal. Conforming to the mystery, He was hungry and thirsty when it was necessary, but He is always hungry and thirsty for our salvation.

When His disciples stopped at the fig tree, which they found desiccated to the very root; Peter said to the Saviour: “Rabbi, behold the fig tree, which Thou didst curse, is withered away” (Mk. 11:21).

Jesus did not wish to leave this world without showing the sensible effects of His curse, wanting them to feel its power. Through an admirable effect of His goodness, He strikes the tree and spares the man.

Thus, when He wished to show them how malevolent the demons were, and how far their power went, And he said to them: Go. But they going out went into the swine, and behold the whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea: and they perished in the waters” (Mr. 8:32).

How good Jesus is, and how He grieves to strike man! Let us not constrain the Saviour, against His inclination, to demonstrate on us the effect of His vengeful anger.