ARTICLE IV
HE SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE; HE WAS CRUCIFIED, DIED AND WAS BURIED.
Jesus, wherever He passed through, was doing good.
Nevertheless, He had great enemies
As there are now, there were then three kinds of people: the good, the wicked not obstinate, and the wicked obstinate.
The good loved Jesus
The wicked, who were not obstinate, when they heard His divine word, were converted.
But the stubborn bad ones hated Jesus very much, and wanted to put Him to death.
On one occasion, the Jews took up stones to throw at Jesus, who said to them:
Many good works have I done unto you; for which of them would ye kill Me?
Several times they tried to take Jesus' life, and He disappeared.
But the time came when Jesus allowed them to take Him prisoner.
Jesus was scourged, crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross.
Pontius Pilate was the wicked judge who pronounced the death sentence against Jesus.
He knew that Jesus was innocent; nevertheless, to please the Jews, he pronounced the most unjust of sentences.
Jesus was nailed to the Cross at noon and died at three o'clock in the afternoon, the Friday before Easter.
Jesus Christ willed to die the death of the Cross, to free us from sin and eternal death.
We incur sin and eternal death because of the disobedience of our first father Adam, in whom we all sinned.
Jesus died on the Cross to save us.
When Jesus died, the sun was darkened, the earth shook, the stones split, and many bodies of saints, who had died, were resurrected.
Jesus really suffered and died as a man.
As God, He could neither suffer nor die.
Jesus, from the Cross, taught us to abhor sin and its cause.
The cause of sin is the inordinate love of men, riches and pleasures.
Jesus did not need to suffer so much to save us.
Any act of Jesus was of infinite value, and was enough to save the whole world, and even a thousand worlds.
Jesus wanted to suffer so much, so that we would understand:
1º How serious sin is.
2º The immense love that He has for us
3º How much our soul is worth, because to save it, Jesus wanted to shed all His blood and give His life in the midst of the most atrocious torments.
Each one must think: Jesus died to save me. What must I do to correspond to the love of Jesus and save my soul?
Jesus died to save all men; but in such a way He died for all, as if He died for only one.
The merits of the passion and death of Jesus Christ will not profit all, because many do not do what is necessary for the application of these merits.
St. Augustine says: He who created you without you will not save you without you, that is, without your cooperation.
ARTICLE V
HE DESCENDED INTO HELLS; ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD.
111. By hell, to which Jesus Christ descended after His death, is not meant the place of the damned, but the limbo where the just were.
He descended into hell: it means that when Jesus died, His holy soul went to the limbo of the just or Abraham's bosom.
112. The limbo of the just, or Abraham's bosom, was the place where, until our redemption, went the souls of those who died in the grace of God, and after being entirely purified, and the same to which Jesus Christ descended.
Jesus went to look for those holy souls, to take them with Him to heaven.
No man could enter heaven before Jesus Christ.
113. Jesus Christ descended into the limbo of the just with the soul united to the divinity.
114. The body of Jesus Christ remained united with the divinity itself.
Jesus Christ remained in limbo, consoling those souls, all the time that His body was in the tomb.
He did not want to rise again immediately after death, but wanted to wait until the third day, in order to manifest even to the evidence that he had truly died.
Jesus Christ rose on the third day after his death, rejoining his glorious body and soul, never to die again.
The resurrection took place at dawn on Sunday.
Jesus was resurrected forty days on earth, to confirm His disciples in the faith, to whom He appeared many times, speaking to them of the kingdom of God.
ARTICLE VI
HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN; HE IS AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER.
Jesus Christ ascended into heaven by His own power.
Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after His resurrection.
The ascension to heaven took place on Mount Olivet, in the presence of Mary Most Holy and the disciples.
117. To be at the right hand of God the Father is to have equal glory with Him as God, and greater glory than any other as man.
Jesus ascended into heaven:
1º To have possession of the kingdom which He conquered by His death.
2º To prepare for us thrones of glory
3º To be our Mediator and Advocate before the Eternal Father.
Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, in the form of tongues of fire.
The Holy Spirit changed the Apostles from ignorant men into very wise men, and from imperfect into full of holiness.
The Apostles preached the Gospel everywhere, the Lord confirming their doctrine with miracles. They sealed with their blood the doctrine they preached.
Jesus, as God, is everywhere.
As man, He is only in heaven and in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.