Shakespeare knew it

How much more would Shakespeare have written if he had a typewriter? Thirty-seven, extant, credited plays, and the other poetry, of verbally dense work are studded with a myriad of gems. There are so many famous quotations, and beyond that many important insights of thought that are overlooked in the vast bounty.

In this one sentence, that has not been memorised by millions, Shakespeare destroys a baseline argument of the busheviks and the condoners of torture:

PORTIA: Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak anything. — The Merchant of Venice III. ii. 33-4.

Perhaps, every person literate in english should be familiar with about a dozen plays of Shakespeare. He is meant to be read out loud. Film adaptations of his plays are not all that common, but some of them are excellent, and can be viewed while having the text near by.

Some versions can compare to each other, film to film, film to print, and less at hand--live version to film, print or another live performance. As You Like It was filmed in 1936 and 2006. Elisabeth Bergner and Bryce Dallas Howard played Rosalind. Leon Quartermaine and Kevin Kline played Jacques. Bergner was a european german, and even though, she clearly pronounced each word, one could hear the teutonic tone from a distance, while Howard was brilliant and quite fetching. Quartermaine spoke the seven ages of man speech, in, virtually, the same tone, emotion and rhythm as I did off the page. It was almost unison, i was vainly impressed. Kline played the role far more lackadaisical.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935 was a delight, and one highlight was the hilarity of James Cagney as Bottom turning into an ass. Kline played the part in 1999. There are several fine, and great, actors appeared on film in Shakespeare. The wonderful part is, that, one can see the performances again and again. Richard Burton’s live performances on stage are not so recoverable for another look and listen. Film on disc is a great service.

But, back to the rack, the elizabethan english employed the rack and other forms of torture, and Shakespeare was fully aware. He had relatives tortured and killed. He himself was occasionally imperiled. Come Rack! Come Rope! (1912), a novel by Robert Hugh Benson, was written concerning that late elizabethan and early stuart time. Men could be broken to say anything true, imagined or fantastic; or for the pleasure of the torturers.

The apt question

Some friendly teachers, that I have had, make the statement, “There are no stupid questions”, a very broad statement, that may be true in spirit, but untrue in fact. Some questions are asinine, and that insults that beast, when they have no relation to the matter, or even worse, when they are provocatively dishonest. Yet, other questions are precisely perfect. Those go beyond clarification, they frame a resolution appropriately, or especially when they completely destroy the argument before it. Now, those questions that are provocatively dishonest, wish to be that which they are not.

Recently, a public television programme on episodes of indian history was shown. The particular episode was on cherokee resettlement. North Georgia was going to be ethnically cleansed of the red man. A discussion amongst the indians, themselves, was re-enacted. They were to be resettled on similar lands to the west of the Mississippi. One indian asked if those lands are as good as ours, why are they empty? He asked the vital question. There was no rationale, no evidence and no true argument to answer it. The question was devastatingly true.

This sort of question answered and ended the entire line of thought. I remember, hearing more than once, the argument that tries to defuse Jesus, when Jesus says:

Et íterum dico vobis : Facílius est cámelum per forámen acus transíre, quam dívitem intráre in regnum cælórum.
And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew xix. 24.

Facílius est cámelum per forámen acus transíre, quam dívitem intráre in regnum Dei.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. — Mark x. 25.

facílius est enim cámelum per forámen acus transíre quam dívitem intráre in regnum Dei.
For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. — Luke xviii. 25.

They tell of a gate in the wall called the camel’s eye, or the needle, or something. Yes, the existence of such a thing would change the OBVIOUS meaning of the word of Jesus. BUT, it would have to have existed at the time of Jesus’ speaking, and certainly it did not, nor did anyone mention such a ‘convenient’ gate for centuries (perhaps until the twentieth). Shakespeare makes an allusion in Richard II, but not in the way of a gospel revisionist of the american prosperity school of capital mammon. I have not found which writer, or speaker, invented this tale of the crawling camel, but in different versions the gate is in Damascus, or another syrian city, or Jerusalem, or Joffa. Sometimes an ancient, but only mediæval ancient, entrance is alluded to. Sometimes there is a statement that points to a late mediæval or early modern writer, but not that the writer is speaking to that interpretation. But, all in all, no real gate has ever existed that gives credence to the supposition, and the crawling camel is still more dubious.

Now, such a supposition would be devastating, but challenging that supposition by devastating fact, totally negates it. Now, there is another view, which states, in aramaic the word for rope was similar to camel, and even that does not change the meaning. There are other semitic sources (talmud, koran, proverbs) that have a camel, or elephant, travel the needle that are similar to the example given by Christ. Perhaps, Jesus meant what he said.

So, when such a false story is given, there is not often, allowed or allotted, the response so as to suggest the statement stands. So a teacher, or presenter, can be opened to be steered to the truth, or resistant, so as to continue course. There are good questions, there are stupid questions and there are bad questions.

La Pucelle, Sainte Jeanne d’Arc

Thérèse de Lisieux portraying Jeanne d’Arc

Many are the images of this french teenager. She, that saved France from the anglais, and was so treacherously, dastardly, wickedly and cruelly martyred by her captors. Two centuries later, even Shakespeare blasphemed her. But again and again, she inspired France.

We have always lived in a biased world. It is nearing six hundred years from time she walked the world. One can say, that, it was just an episode of mediæval dynastic war, perhaps a bit more interesting than most, but apparently, immediately after her initial public appearance, her presence was real celebrity. Quickly, the english were unnerved, apoplectic and desperate. Agincourt was not in the distant past. Most of non-burgundian France was either occupied by [or in proximately pending] the english. France would be as Poland in the century prior the first world war. The french nation would exist, but the state gone. France was desperate

Even in doing the most un-christian, and anti-christian acts, people thought in christian terms. The english had a remarkable reversal. Either God, or the devil conspired against England, and the agent was Jeanne. The english needed to demonize Jeanne, otherwise they were damned.

Charles VII, the french king, who owed his crown to Jeanne was despicably aloof and negligent. The burgundians, who captured Jeanne, were avaricious. Jeane was sold by the burgundians to the english, for the price of king, a king’s ransom, ₤ 10,000.

The trial and conditions under which she was held were illegal and criminal, and everyone, whom, brought this up was either, ignored, dismissed, dispatched and endangered. The english wanted her tried as a witch, no evidence was available. She was to be tried as an heretic. Her persecutor in charge was Peter (no longer Pierre) Cauchon, the bishop driven from Beauvais, and desirous of Rouen, a lackey of Cardinal Winchester. Cauchon had not jurisdiction, but ambition. Winchester was the wealthiest, and most powerful, man in England. He was uncle to the regents of England, and the occupied possessions in France. Jeanne had no chance to survive. Michelet wrote, “Never were the Jews filled with such hatred against Jesus as the English against the Maid.” The english wanted her shamed, recanting and burnt.
an idealised martial statue

“Jeanne’s mission was on the surface warlike, but it really had the effect of ending a century of war, and her love and charity were so broad, that they could only be matched by Him who prayed for His murderers.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, who translated a french biography of our heroine in 1924.

People have found in Jehanne, or presented, what they want. She is used for noble purposes, and base. She is loved and respected; and she is used to promote inanities. There have come out theories concerning her as varied as the causes of dinosaur extinction. Do not be so gullible to run with the next one that appears in the press.

Some great writers have fell in love with her: Schiller, Shaw, Twain. One of the best silent films ever made was that on her trial, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer (1928). It was on her trial testimony, which the original is extant, that her strength, spirit and sanctity was shown. All the marvel and gallantry of her campaigns for France were not central. In her interrogations, she was caught by the church militant, the visible church, and she maintained that the church triumphant, the invisible church smiled on her. She was soldier and martyr. Her martyrdom trial confirmed her sanctity.

Michelet ends with:

A secretary of the king of England, as he returned, said aloud, “We are lost, we have burnt a saint.” ⚜⚜⚜

Sainte Jeanne
*Domremy ............1412
†Rouen..................1431
rehabilitated ..........1456
cause introduced 1869; Actor Causae: Félix A.P. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orléans
nulla osta...............1894
declared venerable 1904
beatified................1908
canonised..............1920

Saint Valentine

Valens was the name of one, and Valentinian was the name of three roman emperors. A root word, valere, is latin for: to be strong, the adjective, valentissimus. It was a popular source of names in the late western empire. There were three saints Valentine martyred on 14 February. The one noted for to-day may have been he, that was beheaded, on the Via Flaminia, on 14 February 270?, when Claudius the Goth reigned. He has been demoted since 1969, that is not a denial, but an admission, that, his story is now scarce, and because of scarcity, may be oddly used and abused.

The associations we now have with the day came in the time of Chaucer*, the late 14th century, and it lingered on in english culture and literature. Shakespeare has Ophelia sing in Hamlet IV.v. 48-51:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.

But in the thoroughly, orthodox tradition, eroticism has nothing to do with Valentine. Valentine is not Eros or Cupid. The love of Valentine† was agape. The same love of Christ, that, Christ had for man, and mankind; the love we are enjoined to have for each other. It is a fine, and of course, valiant name...why, my own father’s father was a Valentin.

Since writing this, I have attended mass to-day. The priest, before mass, said he would like to be the first to wish us a Happy Cyril & Methodius Day, and went on to say the calendar has changed, and the day is primarily commemorated to the two brothers, that evangelised the slavs. He went on to mention, that, the last pope (who wrote an encyclical epistle, Slavorum Apostoli, in 1985), and the current have wanted the unification of the east and west, and this is a fitting prayer on this day.

I have seen the BBC write on to-day, yesterday, that Valentine is not the right patron for the heart lonely, but Saint Raphaël. The archangel Raphaël brought Sarah and Tobias together. There was an error to their writing, what they referred to ‘as legend’ is Scripture.
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* For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make,
― lines 309-10. The Parliament of Fowles c.1380.

Holy Family and Holy Innocents

To-day is both, the Feast of the Holy Family and the day of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents. Jesus, Mary and Joseph first in Bethlehem, and then the flight to Egypt, and then Nazareth; but before a normal, happy settled family life, they had to escape Herod; the male infants and toddlers did not. It is well, for us, to remember all those whom have died, and continue to die, as the military propagandists would christen as ‘collateral damage’, those casually destroyed, either as unintended objects, whom are impediments or anonymous bystanders, or just unimportant trivialities to some greater end.

Currently both, National Geographic and Biblical Archaeology Review, had stories on Herod.* His tomb was found in the spring of 2007. Herod the ruler, builder, tyrant and child killer. He will be always be remembered for his extra-ordinary wickedness. In theatrical acting, it is in portraying extremes of character, that the temptation to an over abundance of exuberance may fall in play; this does not always make for a good performance. Shakespeare has Hamlet coach actors not to overdo a part to excess, it causes ridiculousness.

...I would have such
a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods
Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Now, Shakespeare was a recusant, some of his relatives were more public. He was born at a time, when the old religion was in eclipse, but not without hope and prospects of full return. All the old customs were not, yet, extinguished in the whole of England. As a child, he still was able to see some of the mediæval, mystery plays performed in cathedral and market towns. He would have seen an overzealous Herod perform.

Herod, the king of the jews, was very jealous of his position, and very unconcerned with the lives of others. He killed even some of his own children. It could be perilous for any judaen subject, at any time. Now contrast this with the sweet and peaceful condition of the Holy Family. In this world there is great variation from one extreme to another.
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* In 2002, the University of Maryland’s Clinical Pathologic Conference diagnosed the cause of death of a famous, but anonymous to the participants, historical individual. The symptoms led to a call of “chronic kidney disease complicated by Fournier’s gangrene ”. Now, this extremely, gruesome and repulsive condition was caused by venereal disease. The blood thirsty Herod was also a lecher.

God commands compassion

Consider the Sunday mass readings for the 30th week of ordinary time. A positive of the new mass is the additional reading. In most of the old masses, there was an epistle and a Gospel; in the new mass, the first reading is, usually, from the Old Testament. To-day, it is a wonderful one:

"You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans. "If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate. — Exodus xxii. 20-26. NAB

Advenam non contristabis, neque affliges eum: advenæ enim et ipsi fuistis in terra Ægypti. Viduæ et pupillo non nocebitis. Si læseritis eos, vociferabuntur ad me, et ego audiam clamorem eorum: et indignabitur furor meus, percutiamque vos gladio, et erunt uxores vestræ viduæ, et filii vestri pupilli. Si pecuniam mutuam dederis populo meo pauperi qui habitat tecum, non urgebis eum quasi exactor, nec usuris opprimes. Si pignus a proximo tuo acceperis vestimentum, ante solis occasum reddes ei. Ipsum enim est solum, quo operitur, indumentum carnis ejus, nec habet aliud in quo dormiat: si clamaverit ad me, exaudiam eum, quia misericors sum. — Exodus xxii. 21-27.

Thou shalt not molest a stranger*, nor afflict him: for yourselves also were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not hurt a widow or an orphan. If you hurt them, they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry: And my rage shall be enkindled, and I will strike you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor, that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner, nor oppress them with usuries.† If thou take of thy neighbour a garment in pledge, thou shalt give it him again before sunset. For that same is the only thing wherewith he is covered, the clothing of his body, neither hath he any other to sleep in: if he cry to me, I will hear him, because I am compassionate. — Exodus xxii. 21-27. DRC

What would a darwinistic, capitalist of the american, so called, Republican party, or a xenophobe, or a calvinist make of this? Would his ears be shut? How many candidates for office consider these words of God as religious values to campaign on?

God considers the alien, the widow, the orphan, the poor and hates their oppressors, and the usurer also. He promises to hear the plea of the stranger, the pauper, the homeless and abandoned. God commands us to be like Himself; compassionate.

The Scriptures mention four such victims of sin, whose condition cries to heaven, for justice. The first was Abel’s murder, fratricidal killing. The second was the sin of Sodom. Here is the third instance. The fourth is the laborer robbed of wages by his employer. The second pair, are social and economic issues, where the transgressors prey on the weak.

All these acts share a similarity of evil. Those who sin, in these manners, do not love their neighbor. And this leads to the day’s Gospel:

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." — Matthew xx. 34-40. NAB

God command us to exercise charity!
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*The exegist Dom Antoine Augustin Calmet points out, that, the ancient celts put to death the murderer of a stranger, while a murderer of a non-stranger was removed from the community.
† Cato the Censor equated usury with murder. Aquinas saw usury as charging twice, for the item and the use of the item. It is charging for time, time is not for sale. Dante places the usurer, in the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell, with sodomites and blasphemers. Shakespeare has Shylock say about Antonio, Merchant of Venice, in act I, scene iii:

I hate him for he is a Christian,
But more for that in low simplicity
He lends out money gratis and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest.

This election there is an Issue 5, in Ohio, which will retain recent legislation, which among other points, limits usury to 28%. A well financed campaign, by the strip mall loan sharks, wants this repealed. Some of their false arguments, are that this is against freedom, and individual choice and would put people out of work. If it is defeated, the rate can be 14 times greater. Some of their allies are: Ohio Chamber of Commerce, Ohio Christian Alliance, National Taxpayers Union.

Thomas More and William Shakespeare

“a man of the most tender and delicate conscience that the world saw since Augustine ”— John Donne
“He was the person of the greatest virtue these islands ever produced.”— Jonathan Swift
“Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years’ time.” — G. K. Chesterton
“the best friend the poor ever had” — Sir Thomas More, William Shakespeare et allia
“More is a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.” — Robert Whittington in 1520

DON PEDRO
The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK
Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.

— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, I. i.

One joke is particularly puzzling. If Benedick ever does fall in love, laugh his friends, he will sign a letter on "the sixth of July." Benedick is stung. "Mock not, mock not," he reproves, "ere you flout old ends any further, examine your consciences." Like the language of the liturgy, July 6 meant nothing to Protestants at the time, and nothing either to modern textual commentators. But to Elizabethan Catholics it was a highly significant date. It was on July 6 that Henry VIII executed Sir Thomas More, his former chancellor, for refusing to acknowledge the monarch as the supreme head of the church in England. More had become the model for "recusant" English Catholics, ready to face destitution, imprisonment, exile, or death for their religion. The significance of the date was deepened for Catholics when the young Edward VI, Henry VIII's fervently Protestant son, also died on July 6--clearly a judgment on his heretic father. This is why Benedick puts a stop to the banter. His friends have gone too far. Mock not old ends he says--the deaths of Thomas More and Edward are not a laughing matter--and his parting shot "examine your consciences" is a reminder of the case of conscience which drove More to the scaffold. From this moment on, Benedick's behavior--and the hidden identity of Beatrice--would have been of consuming interest to dissident audiences. — Clare Asquith, Shadowplay

Shakespeare does not write nonsense. He always says something, you may not understand it, but he is imparting information, albeit, sometimes, in obscured references. The sixth of July must refer to something! Shakespeare had worked on a play about Thomas More. In his hand survives the lines, that, a censor warned him of consequences. Art was political, and not less so in the elisabethan police state. The poet saints Campion and Southwell were horribly executed, Marlowe was assassinated and others were also silenced. Shakespeare was adept at veiling and surviving. So what in english history, before 1600 would an audience note about that day? Shakespeare came from a family of recusants. The recusants were quite aware of the 6th of July.

A tragedy, Sir Thomas More, was written by a team of playwrights in 1592. One of the group, was our friend from Stratford. The play was not known to have been performed. The censor wrote on the manuscript, “Perform this scene at your peril.” Shakespeare is ‘Hand D’ in the autograph. His contribution includes More, as London sheriff, in quieting the anti-foreign mob*, in the riot of 1517. Thomas More was a dangerous topic in Elisabethan England.

For centuries, english catholics held the 6th of July for Thomas More. When Saint Thomas More was officially canonised by Rome in 1935, his day was shared with Saint John Fisher, whom was also martyred by Henry, on the 22nd of June, the day Fisher was executed. Either day commemorates.

Robert Bolt’s play and the subsequent movie, A Man for All Seasons, paints a marvelous and heroic portrait of More. A man of conscience, a living embodiment of its exemplar, a man whose opinion was necessary to legitimatise government policy. Other such individuals, Fisher, Reynolds, Webster, Hale, Houghton, Middlemore, Exmew, Newdigate, Forest met cruel torments and hideous executions. This is why More is a patron of conscience for the edification and benefit of all who would touch on the law, its advocates, legislators, counselors and statesmen. He would not consent, when refusal meant death. He was a man, whom “No” meant “No”. He would not assent to error mandated by the state.

An interesting note, the bolsheviks, after they seized Russia, had Thomas More’s name inscribed on a monument, in Aleksandrovskij Garden, Moskva. Was it in regard to his Utopia ? or his conscience?
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*If one accepts Shakespeare’s catholic code, the foreign merchants being attacked can be identified with Catholic missionaries, whom were ministering to the faithful.

The last word with Shakespeare

Tempest Epilogue―Prospero’s Prayer
Spoken by Prospero (the actor – Will Shakespeare’s last appearance, last word)

Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint: now, ’tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon’d the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

Loreena McKennit edits this and sings it with a haunting and lovely tune.

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,

[Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;] skipped

But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,

[Which was to please] twice Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

Purgatory, a concept that bothered and continues to bother protestants, the soul’s or humanity’s eschatological dilemma must be alluded in this. After this, Shakespeare retired to exile in Stratford, away from London. A fair question is why was this his last statement? He appears on stage alone, the play is ended. There is a recurring metaphor for Shakespeare that the actor on the stage is all men in their own lives. We all must recognize that the word ‘indulgence’ was a politically/religiously loaded term, c.1612, after the Age of Faith and before the Age of Enlightenment. Here the actor is concerned for the fate of his soul and he begs for intercessory prayer, if not that, what else could it refer to? He is asking for mercy of Mercy, God in the person of Jesus. The divine arbiter of justice, who grants pardon and who had been pierced and is still being pierced.

George Abbot was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, he had strong ‘puritan’ leanings and disapproved of both theatre and catholicks. James I was no friend to catholics, and this was after the Guy Fawkes hysteria. Shakespeare was not free to be a publick figure, yet he needed to speak, when it was perilous to do so. He spoke on multiple layers and not everyone receives every reference. Then as to-day, non-catholics are tone deaf to catholic words and misunderstand catholic concepts.

The english were still using the Julian calendar. William Shakespeare died on Saint George’s Day (and may have been born on that patronal feast of the english), 23 April 1616 (O.S.) (3 May N.S.). His public life was forced to end with this play, and though, not truly an elderly man, he had less than a handful of years left. His mind was considering the last years and the last four things. I believe, he says this in his last speech. He was a catholic. People knew he died as a ‘papist’. The sentiments of this last word fit catholic belief, theology and devotion.

Recently (1993), the Sunday immediately after the Resurrection has been named for the Divine Mercy*. The icon of this has two streams of light, red and white, emanating from the heart of Jesus. Our Lord grants mercy for our sins, and pardons our faults.

An older devotion is that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It became fixed in the 17th century, but had existed for centuries before. The Sacred Heart is pierced by a crown of thorns and His heart bleeds for us.

Jesus at the end of His life is in torment, yet He prays for us, His fellow men. He asks for their forgiveness. He hears the confession of the penitent thief and promises him paradise. The last of the Seven Words of Jesus on the cross is said to his Father, Our Father:

et clamans voce magna Jesus ait Pater in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum et hæc dicens exspiravit

And Jesus crying out with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And saying this, he gave up the ghost.― Luke xxiii. 46.

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*In the vision granted to Saint Faustina *1905,†1938, Jesus says to her,

“I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy.”

Of course, this is centuries after Shakespeare, but it is of the same spirit and spirituality. Catholicism has the same flavor in the first century as the twenty first.