Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

5th Wednesday in Lent

That God the Lord, the Lord of life could die, is a strange contemplation; . . . but that God would die, is an exaltation of that; but, even of that also, it is a super-exaltation, that God should die, must die; . . . God is the God of revenges; he would not pass over the sin of man unrevenged, unpunished; But then the God of revenges works freely; he punished, he spares whom he will; and would he not spare himself; He would not. . . Love is as strong as death; stronger; it drew in death, that naturally was not welcome.

John Donne: Sermons.

He alone . . . for us to thee both Victor and Victim and therefore Victor because of Victim; for us the thee Priest and Sacrifice; making us to thee of servants sons, by being born of thee, and serving us.

St. Augustine: Confessions.

When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
   And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!

John 19:13-14

  Love is a life, a coupling together the loving and the loved.  For meekness maketh us sweet to God; purity joins us to God; love makes us one with God.  Love is fairhead [beauty] of all virtues.  Love is [the] thing through the which God loves us, and we God, and each one of us other.  Love is [the] desire of the heart, ever thinking to that that it loves; and when it has that it loves, then it joys, and nothing may make it sorry.  Love is yearning between two, with lastingness of thought.  Love is a stirring of the soul, for to love God for himself and all other thing for God; the which love, when it is ordained in God, it does away all inordinate love in anything that is not good. But all deadly sin is inordinate love in a thing that it naught; then love puts out  all deadly sin.  Love is a virtue that is rightest affection of man's soul.  Truth may be without love, but it may naught help without it.  Love is perfection of letters, virtue of prophecy, fruit of truth, help of sacraments, stabling of with and cunning [knowledge], riches of poor men, live of dying men.  See how good love is.

Richard Rolle: The Form of Living.

But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar.

John 13:15

  God impeacheth not Caesar, nor God's due Caesar's right. . . . In the high and heavenly work of the preservation of all our lives, persons, estates, and goods, in safety, peace, and quietness, in this his so great and divine benefit, he hath associated Caesar to himself.

Lancelot Andrewes: Sermon at Whitehall, 15 November 1601.

When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.

Matthew 27:19

  Lead us not into temptation. . . . Power is given against us in two modes: either for punishment when we sin or for glory when we are proved. . . . But when we ask that we may not come into temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and weakness in that we thus ask, lest any should insolently vaunt himself, lest any should proudly and arrogantly assume anything to himself, lest any should take to himself the glory either of confession or suffering as his own.

St. Cyprian: On the Lord's Prayer.

4th Tuesday in Lent

Into myself I went, and with the eyes of my soul (such as it was) I discovered over the same eye of my soul, over my mind, the unchangeable light of the Lord . . . He that knows what truth is, knows what that light is; and he that knows it, knows eternity.  Charity knows it.  O eternal Truth! and true Charity! and dear Eternity! Thou art my God, to thee do I sigh day and night.  Thee when first I saw, thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was something which I might see; and that as yet I was not the man to see it.  And thou didst beat back the infirmity of my own sight, darting thy beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trembled both with love and horror: and I perceived myself to be far off from thee in the region of utter unlikeness, as if I heard this voice of thine from on high: I am the food of strong men, grow apace, and thou shalt feed on me; nor shalt thou convert me like common food into thy substance, but thou shalt be changed into me.

St. Augustine: Confessions.

And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.

John 19:9