MARY, OUR MOTHER

SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY #547

  And straightway in the morning, the chief priests holding a consultation with the ancients and the scribes and the whole council, binding Jesus, led him away and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate asked him: "Art thou the king of the Jews?" But he answering, saith to him: "Thou sayest it." And the chief priests accused him in many things. And Pilate again asked him, saying: "Answerest thou nothing? Behold in how many things they accuse thee." But Jesus still answered nothing: so that Pilate wondered. Now on the festival day he was wont to release unto them one of the prisoners, whomsoever they demanded. And there was one called Barabbas, who was put in prison with some seditious men, who in the sedition had committed murder. And when the multitude was come up, they began to desire that he would do as he had ever done unto them. And Pilate answered them and said: "Will you that I release to you the king of the Jews?" For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him up out of envy. But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas to them. And Pilate again answering, saith to them: "What will you then that I do to the king of the Jews?" But they again cried out: "Crucify him." And Pilate saith to them: "Why, what evil hath he done?" But they cried out the more: "Crucify him." And so Pilate being willing to satisfy the people, released to them Barabbas: and delivered up Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified. (Mark 15:1-15)

"HE SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE." The words of the Apostles Creed do not merely mean that our Blessed Lord suffered during the time that Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, but are meant to show that Pontius Pilate was guilty of our Lord's Passion and Death by his cowardly compliance with the Pharisees' demands.

[From 'A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture' by Bishop Knecht, D.D.]

(1899 Douay-Rheims Bible)