聖体の黙想
人である聖体
34 聖体は霊魂の医師である
礼拝 あなたの肉体と霊魂とは無数の病を蔵している。この事実を深く自覚し、あつい望み、けんそんな信頼をもって、いとも親切で力のある医師イエズスを礼拝しよう。主は医師と呼ばれることを望んでおられ、地上でのかつてのご生涯におけるように、今日聖体のうちにおいても、医師の務めを果たされるのである。『医師を要するは壮健なる人にあらずして病める人なり』 Nan egent qui sani sunt medico, sed qui male habent とおおせになった主は、いつもどこででも人間の霊魂と肉身との医師でおいでになる。
今日世間は重病に伏し、まことに力のある医師を要している。だから、天来の医師がみ手を休められることなく、ししとしてお励みくださるのは、まことにありがたいかぎりである。
人祖が禁断の木の実を食べてから、病毒は人類の血液中にはいりこみ、諸器官を侵し、血液を腐敗させた。これによって人類は虚弱となり、害毒を受けやすく、その恐ろしい結果として手のくだしようがない難治の病をもつようになった。霊魂の病の本態は、肉身の病よりもいっそうわかりにくい。聖アウグスチノは、『全世界の上に横たわるこの大病人には偉大なる医師が必要である』 Magnus de coelo venit medicus quia magnus per totum orbem terrce jacebat cegrotus. といった。
主はこの病をいやすために地上においでになった。実に主のご托身それ自身が、すでに根本的に全人類をいやしてくださるものだったのである。主が天主性を、人性すなわち人間の霊魂と肉身とに一致させてくださったことは、そのまま人類を健全な生きた体となされたことである。天主性に一致されたキリストの人性は、すべての病に対する力のある解毒剤となった。イザヤが『われらは主の御傷によりていやされたり』 De livore ejus sanati sumus. といったのは、その意味にほかならない。主はそのご教訓をもって私たちの病んだ知能をいやし、愛をもって私たちの死んだ心をよみがえらせ、秘跡をもって主のすべての御徳とご生命とを私たちの霊魂のうちに循環させてくださる。また医師であるキリストは私たちの肉身をも顧みてくださり、あるいは奇跡によって病をいやしてこれを健康体にし、あるいは聖体拝領によって心の苦しみを和らげて光栄ある復活の御約束の保証を与えてくださるのである。
『医師を尊め。そは全能の主われらをあわれみ、病をいやさんとて彼らを送りたまいたればなり』 Honor a medicum propter necessitatem ; etenim ilium creavit Altissimus, a Deo est omnis medela. (Ecclus. xxxviii.) と聖霊もおおせになった。医師としての完全な知識と経験とをもって、私たちのすべての病をいやす方法を知っていらっしゃるイエズスをあがめ、そして礼拝しよう。どんな傷にも献身的な愛を示し、またどんなにわがままで恩知らずの病人であっても忍耐を失われない主をあがめ、そして礼拝しよう。私たちは主の治療に信頼し、その処方を忠実に守って、その全知、全能、全善に依頼して少しも疑ってはならない。
感謝 主が地上のご生涯の間、霊魂または肉体的な病人に、いかなる慈愛と忍耐と熱心とをもって近づかれたかを思うとき、私たちは感謝の心を抱かないではいられない。主は、彼らを訪問し、また彼らが群れ集まることを許された。『病をいやされんとて群集おびただしく集まり来たり』『彼はそのすべてをいやしたまえり』 Magna multitudo languentium ; Et curabantur omnes. とは聖書のところどころに見られる言葉である。ある時は、ただ一言をもって、または手を触れただけで病をいやされた。またある時は病人に近づいて御身をかがめ、肉体の健康とともに、慰藉と信仰、改心と心の平和とを与えてくださった。
肉体的な病人よりももっと苦しんでいる精神的な病人、すなわち悲しむ者、泣く者たちに対しても、主は彼らをいやそうと約束なさった。その際、主がお求めになったのは、主の御もとに来てその心に信頼し、いっさいの重荷をおまかせすることだけであった。『われに来たれ、すべて労苦して重荷を負える者よ、われ汝らを回復せしめん』 Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis... et ego reficiam vos. と。
もしあなたが求めるなら、主は今日、より以上のことをしていっそうの愛を示し、私たちのためにその御力を用いて、各人の霊魂のすべての不安、すべての病をいやしてくださるのである。この際のあらゆる薬剤が、たったひとつの偉大な薬のうちに含まれている。それは主ご自身である。主は天主性と人性、ご霊魂とご肉身、御血と御肉、御徳とその御功力とのすべてをもって、ひとつの霊薬をつくり、日々これを私たちに施してくださるのである。アンチオキアの聖イグナチオは『聖体は不死の薬、死の解毒剤、罪を清め悪を追う霊薬である』 Panis pharmacum immortalitatis est, mortis antidotum, medicamentum purgans vitia et omnia pellens mala (S. Ign. Antioch.) といった。
主の薬は非常に飲みやすい。『天よりの医師は甘味に満てるよき香油もて薬をつくり、われらを見守りたもうに倦（う）みたもうことなし』 In his curans mitigabit dolorem, et unguentarius faciet pigmenta suavitatis, et unctiones conficiet sanitatis, et non consummabuntur opera ejus. (Ecclus. xxxviii.) とあるとおりである。たびたび全快はおそく、不明瞭であり、また病人の不注意と不従順とによって妨げられる。しかし主は、少しもこれを意にかけられず、いつも同じ慈愛と深い心づかいとをもっておいでになり、病人の最後の日までこれを繰り返されるのである。
ああ慈悲深いよき医師よ、倦むことなく私たちをいやそうと努めてくださる御身に、すべてをおまかせしない者があるであろうか。深い感謝の心を抱かない者があるであろうか。
償い あなたの霊魂が過去においてわずらったことのある種々の病、また、現在および将来においてかかるかもしれない多くの病について、まじめに、また真剣に、その数、その重さ、その恐ろしさなどを考えてみよう。
心の中に絶えず燃えている邪欲のほのおは、すべての悪の根源である。あなたはその中に生きている。世間、あなたの呼吸する空気、その他すべての感覚的被造物は、内部の邪欲に呼応して、その忌まわしい火をそそりたてる。だから、もしもほんとうに、あなた自身の腐敗と弱さとをあなたが知ったなら、あなたはどれほど自分を怖れ、同時にどんなに全幅の信頼をもって、慈悲深い医師に信頼することであろうか。
ところが実際はこれに反して、私たちは彼を無視し、彼から遠ざかろうと努めている。私たちは真の医師よりも、にせの医師を好んで、創造主に求めなければならないものを被造物に求めている。ちょうど福音書の中に描かれている血漏の婦人のように、全信頼をむなしいものに傾けつくして、しかも病はだんだんと重なってゆくのである。
慈悲深いまことの医師は、私たちのこの狂態を見て、み心を痛められるのである。ああ、いつ私たちは愚かな抵抗をやめ、信頼して彼を迎え、主よりも被造物を愛好するような無礼と侮辱とを改めるのであろうか。
あなたはまた、自分だけでなく、他の愚かな人々のためにも償いをささげなければならない。彼らは自分の病のために、天主である医師をあなどるだけでなく、彼を憎み嫌い、彼の治療の効果を否定し、単に言葉だけでなく、時には暴力をふるってさえ、彼を他の霊的の病人のかたわらから追い払うのである。聖アウグスチヌノは、これらの人々を、天主である医師を十字架にかけた刑吏と同じように憎まねばならないものであるといったが、まさにそのとおりである。
しかしながら主は常に慈悲深く、常に親切で、名誉が傷つけられることも、また生命が危害に会うこともすべてこれを意とせず、愛と忍耐とをもって人々の憎悪に打ち勝とうとして、自分を避ける人々のために祈り、彼らによって尊い御血が流されることがあっても、その御血を彼らの救霊のために天父にささげ、彼らのごうまんがくじけ、かたくなな心が和らげられることを願われるのである。主は縛られ、むちうたれ、ののしられ、あざけられ、十字架につけられ、冒瀆されても、ご自身が彼らをいやすためにあまくだった医師であるというひとことしか考えておられない。
ああいかに不思議な忍耐、献身、けんそん、並びに愛の模範であろうか。私たちはこれをまことにさとってはじめて、愛のいけにえなるいとも愛すべき医師に尊敬と柔順とを誓い、その傷つけられた御稜威にふさわしい償いをなし、み心のお望みになる御慰めをささげることができるのである。
祈願 福音書中で、あわれな病人、盲、つんぼ、不具者などが、その病をいやされるために主に叫んだ熱烈な祈りを、あなた自身のために繰り返すがよい。彼らの祈りは必ず聞き入れられた。あるいはすぐその場で、あるいはもっと不思議な方法で少しのちに。……このことはあなたの信頼を深めるはずである。
生まれつきの盲は『主よ、われをして見えしめたまえ』といった。エリコの盲は『われをあわれれみ給え、ダヴィドの子イエズスよ』と叫んだ。カナアンの女は『わが娘は悪魔に苦しめらる』『子犬もその主の食卓より落つるパンくずを食するにあらずや』と祈った。悪魔につかれた子どもの父は主のみ前にひざまずいて、『主よ、わが子をあわれみたまえ、彼は悪魔につかれて激しく苦しめらる』と嘆いた。十人のらい病人は主の御姿を見かけるとすぐに、遠方から手をあげて、『イエズスよ、よき師よ、われらをあわれみたまえ』と願った。これらの祈りをみな、あなた自身の祈りとするがよい。
もし不信の友だちが、ごうまんと性急との心から、あなたの祈りを妨げるようなことがあるなら、エリコの盲のように、もっと声高く、もっと熱心に叫ばなければならない。だがあなたの祈りは同時に、『主よ、わがしもべ病めり、されどわれは主のわが家の下に入りたもうにたえず、ただひとことをのたまわば彼はいえん』といった百夫長の祈りのようにけんそんでなければならない。
最後に、ミサ聖祭中、司祭が聖体を拝領するときに『主イエズス・キリスト、われは主の御肉と御血とを受くるにたえざれども、願わくはこの聖体拝領が、わが審判と宣告とにならずして、主の御あわれみにより、かえってわが霊魂と肉身との守護といやしとにならんことを』 Perceptio Corporis et Sanguinis tui, Domine Jesu Christe, quod ego indignus sumere prcesumo, non mihi proveniat ad judicium et condemnationem, sed pro tua pietate prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis et ad medelam percipiendam. との祈りの言葉を教会といっしょに唱えるがよい。
実行 私たちの苦痛と傷と病とを、聖櫃中においでになる医師に語り、またその薬である聖体を拝領しよう。
X. Jesus in the Sacrament is the Physician of Souls.
I. Adoration.
Adore, with a deep sense of your incurable infirmity, amidst the exhaustion into which the innumerable maladies of your body and soul plunge you — adore with an urgent desire, with the cry of an ardent prayer and of a humble confidence that you will be listened to by the most kind, the most powerful Jesus, under the title of " Physician," which He has willed to take, in which He glories, and the functions of which He has exercised since He came upon earth, formerly in His mortal life and now in His Eucharist.
" It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick:" Nan egent qui sani sunt medico, sed qui male habent (Luke v. 15.) And He is the Physician of human nature, of the soul and of the body, of the whole universe and of all times!
Oh! how sick the world was and in what need it stood of a powerful and wise physician! How sick it still is and how necessary it is that the heavenly Physician, who has undertaken to cure it, should not abandon it but continue towards it His assiduous care.
Since the day when the first man ate of the forbidden fruit, poison entered into the veins of humanity, deranged its organism, corrupted its blood, rendered it weak, easily susceptible to evil, incapable of being ever radically cured, always exposed to the most terrible accidents, to the most complicated maladies, to the most dreadful results.
This poison of the mind and the body circulates in the will, in the intellect, in all the faculties, all the passions, where sin has extended its ravages, infecting, disorganizing, corrupting, paralyzing, leading to death and to decomposition, for which there is no remedy. The nature of the sicknesses of the soul would take still longer time to define than even those of the body, which are already incredible. Saint Augustine has well said, " For the great patient who lay stretched out over the whole earth, a great doctor was necessary : " Magnus de coelo venit medicus quia magnus per totum orbem terrce jacebat cegrotus. (Serm. 9. de Verb. Dom.)
He came and set Himself to attend and to cure. In Himself, first of all, as in its vital principle and in its essential organ, He cured the whole of humanity ; by the contact and the personal union of His divinity with the soul and the body which He assumed He constituted a humanity wholly healthy, living, and perfect ; and of this humanity He made a vivifying principle, a powerful antidote, which cures and restores all men who are inoculated with it. It is thus that Isaias speaks : De livore ejus sanati sumus.
He inoculates this restorative virus by means of His words, which cure the intellect, by His goodness and His love, which make their hearts revive, by His Sacraments, which penetrate into souls and make His virtues, His dispositions, His life circulate in them. He even cures our bodies, formerly by means of the miracles which restored them to health, and now in assuaging their pangs by Communion, and placing in them the pledge of a glorious resurrection.
Honor the physician, says the Holy Spirit, for it is the Almighty who has created Him in His mercy to cure us : Honor a medicum propter necessitatem ; etenim ilium creavit Altissimus, a Deo est omnis medela. (Ecclus. xxxviii.)
Honor then, adore in Jesus, the knowledge and the perfect wisdom of the physician, for He is acquainted by His knowledge and by His experience with all our
ills and all their remedies; honor, adore in Him the indefatigable devotedness which no wound repels, which no sick man, however rebellious and ungrateful he may be, can ever weary; honor Him and confide to Him your cure, but obey all His prescriptions with scrupulous fidelity, and abandon yourself to His goodness, to His power, to His wisdom, without ever entertaining any doubts with regard to Him.
II. Thanksgiving.
We cannot recall to mind, without being touched by it and grateful for it, the goodness, the sweetness, the patience, the earnestness with which Jesus, the Physician of souls and of bodies, applied Himself to cure them during His life.
He visited the sick, He called them to Him, He allowed them to surround Him, He always had a multitude of them with Him: Magna multitudo languentium ; and He cured them all: Et curabantur omnes. Sometimes by a word, sometimes by a touch, approaching the sick man, bending down over him and giving him, with health of the body, a kind word of encouragement, and often even faith, conversion, and peace of soul.
To those who were suffering from moral maladies, worse than those of the body, to the afflicted, to the discouraged, to all who weep, He gave His promise to cure them, to raise them up, to renew them, asking them for nothing except to come to Him, to believe in His heart and confidently to cast therein their troubles and their burdens : Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis . . . et ego reficiam vos. He does more now, or if you prefer it, He extends His curative action and exercises it in a manner in which His love shines forth still more brightly. He comes to each particular soul, He visits it and penetrates into it, that He may take account of all the wounds, of all the discomforts, of all the sources of its sufferings. He visits all, penetrates everywhere, to cure all. He comes in person and His visit is prolonged; He stays near the patient, He dwells with him, He applies the remedy. All His remedies are enclosed in one single remedy, which is marvellous; it is Himself, yes, His divinity and His humanity, His soul and His body, His blood and His heart, His virtues and His merits; of all these He has made a remedy, a balm of life and of immortality: Panis pharmacum immortalitatis est, mortis antidotum, medicamentum purgans vitia et omnia pellens mala (S. Ign. Antioch.), and He applies it to the soul, to the heart, to the faculties, to the passions. He returns every day, because He is devoted and assiduous; and each day He applies with the same gentleness, the same condescension, the divine remedy which encloses all virtues, all efficacy.
Oh ! how sweet is the remedy, how easy to take is the beverage! The Holy Spirit has well said, "The heavenly Physician has made remedies full of sweetness, a perfumed oil, and He will never weary of attending us : " In his curans mitigabit dolorem, et unguentarius faciet pigmenta suavitatis, et unctiones conficiet sanitatis, et non consummabuntur opera ejus. (Ecclus. xxxviii.) The cure is slow, is not very manifest, often counteracted and delayed by the imprudence and the disobedience of the patient; it does not signify! He is never rebuffed, and He returns with the same tender solicitude; He will do so down to the end, to the very last day of the patient's life.
Oh! charitable and sweet Physician! Who would not have confidence in Him, and who would not thank Him gratefully, for never being weary of curing us.
III. Reparation.
Endeavor to see without subterfuge, without illusion, the number, the gravity, the horrible nature of the maladies of which your soul has already felt the mortal attacks, and by which it is always threatened.
Sensuality is the fire always burning in the very centre of your being, the always purulent source; the medium in which you live, the air which you breathe, the whole sensible creation acts from the exterior upon this internal fire. Oh, if you could but thoroughly comprehend your corruption and your weakness, how you would despise yourself, and with what absolute and humble confidence you would have recourse to the most merciful Physician!
Instead of that, we keep far away from Him, we despise His remedies; we prefer to have recourse to false physicians, and to seek from the creature what the Creator alone can give us. But, like the woman in the Gospel who had an issue of blood, we spend the resources of our confidence, and our state is continually aggravated: Erogaverat in medicos omnem substantia™ suatn.
Ah, let us cease from this insane resistance which occasions us so many evils, and gives so much pain to our charitable Physician ; let us give our confidence to Him who deserves it, and do not let us inflict on Him the shame of always preferring the creature to Him. Fili, in tua infirtnitate, ne despicias teipsum ; da locum medico, etenim ilium Dominus creavit; et non discedat a te t quia opera ejus sunt necessaria. (Ecclus.)
The reparation would not be complete, if you did not deplore the folly and the fury of those who are not content with not having their mortal maladies attended to by the divine Physician, but pursue Him with their hatred, outrage Him, shower furious blows upon Him, chase Him away from sick brethren, denying His skill and the efficacy of His remedies, covering Him with ridicule, and even hindering Him by violence from approaching them. Saint Augustine has stigmatized them by including them in the same anathema with the executioners who crucified their Physician, come down from heaven to cure them: Homines desperate degrotabant, et ipsa cegritudine qua mentes perdiderant, etiam medicum ccedebant, quin et occidebant.
But, always charitable, always good, taking little account of His honor, or even of His life, dwelling only upon triumphing over hatred by His love and by His patience, He continues to pray for the men who repel Him, and when they cruelly shed His blood, He offers it for their salvation; He makes it flow down upon their heads that it may melt their pride and soften the hardness of their heart: file autem, etiam cum occideretur, medicuserat: vapulabat et curabat ; patiebatur phrceneticum nec deserebat aegrotum; bound, chained, struck at, mocked, crucified, profaned, He remembers only one thing: that He is their physician, and that He desires to cure them : Tenebatur, alligabatur, percutiebatur, irridebatur, suspendebatur, et medicus erat!
Ohl how these prodigies of love, of devotedness, of patience and of humanity, need to be understood, that the gentle Physician, the victim of His charity, may receive in the respect, the obedience, the fidelity, and the eagerness of His children, the compensations due to His dignity, the consolations desired by His heart.
IV. Prayer.
Love to repeat, whilst appropriating them to yourselves, the prayers, the appeals, the redoubled supplications, the cries of anguish and of suffering, which the poor sick patients and the poor afflicted people send up to the heavenly Physician to obtain their cure; and remember, in order to sustain your confidence, that they were always attended to, if not immediately, at least later on, and more marvellously then, that they might be consoled.
Say with the man who was born blind: "Lord, make me to see!" With the two blind men of Jericho, "Have pity on me, Jesus, son of David!" Cry out with the Chanaan woman: " My daughter is tormented with the demon!" And again, "Lord, help me, do not refuse me the crumbs on which the dogs feed beneath their masters' tables!" With the poor father of the boy possessed by the devil, and who, going down on his knees, exclaimed: " Lord, have pity oh my son, who is possessed by the evil spirit, who afflicts him terribly!" With the ten lepers, who, as soon as they perceived Him from afar, raised their voices and cried out: "Jesus, good Master, have pity on us! "
If pride, impatience, discouragement of shortsighted friends, wish to dissuade you from continuing your prayers, go on like the blind man of Jericho, crying louder and more perseveringly ! Let your prayer, though it be ardent and earnest, be also humble, like that of the centurion: "Lord, my son is paralyzed and suffers horrible tortures. I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter into my house, speak only one word and he will be cured."
Lastly, say with the Church, with the priest who every day repeats it at the very moment when he communicates, the beautiful prayer addressed to the allpowerful Physician: 44 Let not the participation of Thy Body and Blood, Lord Jesus Christ, which 1, though unworthy, presume to receive, tend to my judgment and condemnation, but through Thy mercy may it be a safeguard and remedy both of soul and body: " Perceptio Corporis et Sanguinis tui, Domine Jesu Christe, quod ego indignus sumere prcesumo, non mihi proveniat ad judicium et condemnationem, sed pro tua pietate prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis et ad medelam percipiendam.
Practice.
To speak of our pains, our wounds, and our ills to the divine Physician of the tabernacle, and often to receive the Communion under the form of a remedy.
