Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle: "The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus Are the Occasion of the Death of Jesus"

 

I have written much about and translated much from Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629).  The text below is one of his Works of Piety; it is fitting for Lazarus Saturday and the preamble to Holy Week.  It is part of a series of texts by Bérulle on the Passion, which I hope to publish as an ebook in the next few days.

EDIT: This ebook, "On the Passion of Christ," has been released, and is available here.

OP LXII

The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus Are the Occasion of the Death of Jesus

Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle

If life must die, it ought to be as an effect of life.  Jesus, then, leaves the desert of Ephraim, comes to Judea, seeks out the dead Lazarus, in order that life might battle death on a closed field, as it were, and wages, in Bethany and at the gates of Jerusalem, a particular combat, which vividly represents that grand combat that would took place a few days later, on the mount of Calvary, between life and universal death; in which the death, not of a body, but of souls and bodies, the death not of a man, but of a world, the death of the universe, would be vanquished by life dying on the Cross: Ero mors tua, O mors [I will be your death, O death] (Hos 13:14)!  This is the design of the Son of God, reserving this miracle of life and death for the end of His days, at the gates of Jerusalem, and in order to serve as the reason for His death, so that He would die through an effect of life, and also so to serve as an exemplar for His universal combat against death on the Cross.  For He had to raise us above the use of senses in this subject, and to make us contemplate there the design of the Son of God coming to death, and willing, as if along the way, to meet death in Lazarus, and to vanquish it and make it die through this triumph of life over death, in the person of Lazarus; death, irritated by this combat, irritates all the children of death and arouses them against Jesus: collegerunt ergo pontifices et Pharisæi concilium [therefore the chief priests and Pharisees gathered a council] and, further down, ab illo ergo die cogitaverunt ut interficerent eum [from that day, therefore, they thought about how to slay him] (Jn 11:47, 53).  It seems that this is the last of His miracles for the living, as if He willed, from that time forth, to imprison His power in the shadow of death, in order to draw it into combat, aroused by this miracle.  

Jesus, then, having retired into His desert with His apostles, was warned by those holy ladies, Martha and Magdalene, of the state of Lazarus.  And they sent message to Him through an express courier: Ecce quem amas infirmatur [Behold, him whom You love is sick] (Jn 11:3): a short letter, but substantial; a letter worthy of them who write it, and of Him to Whom it is written; a letter worthy, too, of him for whom it was written, for it bears that beautiful name, ecce quem amas [Behold, him whom You love]; an honorable quality, and the most honorable there could be upon earth, to be loved by Jesus, and according to a witness as worthy as that of these holy ladies, who think, who speak, who breathe naught but Jesus and His love.  But it seems that the Son of God is not touched by this message, and thinks neither of them nor of Lazarus, nor of the love with which He honors this poor sick man, and all this holy family; for He remains two days yet after this news (cf. Jn 11:6), as if there were nothing to do in Judea with regard to this matter; and yet this was to be one of the greatest subjects of life, and a chief-work of His power, going towards death, and He hides His design and His thought under the shadow of a forgetfulness, which buries Lazarus in the shadow of death, and strikes those holy ladies with sorrow and sadness.  But Jesus keeps vigil while He sleeps, and works while He rests, for the souls that belong to Him, and He wants to exercise these holy souls, raised to so high a degree of love and perfection, through this apparent forgetfulness.  For it is His custom to thus exercise these perfect souls, so to serve as a model for others, who will, later on, be exercised in these ways of rigor, of forgetfulness, and of abandonment by God.  Instead, then, of warning others at the beginning of their affliction, He lets them sink in order to succor them more, and, in them, He begins this way of rigor, in order to later succor them more worthily, more highly, and more perfectly.

Source: Oeuvres Complêtes de de Bérulle, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1856), 1038-1039.

Translation ©2025 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.