We call up the scene under the olives, and find that we
wander and are inattentive and idle when we most want to be attentive
and alert. We place ourselves in the group that surrounds our Lord when
the soldiers, led by Judas, come, and ask ourselves shall I too run
away? And our memory flashes the answer: You have run away again and
again: you have in the face, not of grave dangers, but of insignificant
trifles--how insignificant they look now--for fear of criticism, for
fear of being thought odd, for fear of the opinion of worldly
companions, for fear of being pitied or laughed at, over and over again
you have run away. The things that seemed important when they were
present seem pitifully insignificant in the retrospect.
We follow out of the garden to the meeting-place of the Sanhedrin, to
the Judgment seat of Pilate, to the palace of Herod. Any impulse to
criticise S. Peter is speedily suppressed: we have denied so often under
such trifling provocation. S. Peter was frightened from participation in
the act of our Lord's sacrifice through mortal fear of his life. We have
stayed away from the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, how often! from
mere sloth, from disinclination to effort, from the fact that our
participation would prevent us from joining in some act of worldly
amusement.
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