Would you suffer torture, degradation and death for a dog?

Not just your beloved dog (or cat for that matter) but, say, an aged, diseased, mangy cur that may only have weeks to live; or, a mincing toy poodle or a raging rottweiler?
Could you suffer beatings and floggings and ultimate cold blooded execution to save all dogs?

The proposition is one that was first aired many years ago by that great man, Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He was attempting (and by his own admittance it was a very poor comparison) to give us some kind of feeling for how demeaning it was for Almighty God to allow His Son to become Man and then suffer for all men.

This dog is called Peter, he has a bark.
I leave the rest to you!

So back to the dogs. Imagine that you had the power to transform yourself into a canine so that you were both man and dog. It would be pretty humiliating for a start to put a human intelligence into a frame of skin and fur that likes to sniff around lamposts and chase cats small animals and whose idea of utter bliss it is to consume glutinous dogfood followed by long sleeps in front of a fire.
Could you really endure having to pant like a pair of electric bellows when you were hot, conduct your ablutions in public and then there would be the hallitosis problem....?

Just how humbling would it be to have to trot around like a dog?

Then, of course, your role as man dog would be to train all other dogs how to behave and how to respond to commands and you would correct all the silly established programmes that had existed up until you arrived on the scene.

You would become unpopular, except for a small pack that you have assessed as being of the right material to receive your special attention.

Eventually, you would be arraigned before a hotchpotch selection of mongrels only to find yourself judged by these inferiors and then sentenced to death by the vilest means possible. Before then you have to face up to the whips and cords of unbridled savagery.

Finally, you die for the pi dogs, the show varieties, the working dogs, the curs, mongrels, lap dogs and the Dobermans.

It is a long way down for man to place his intelligence within a dog but it is an infinitesimally long way down for God Almighty to place his own Supreme Intelligence into the mind and matter of man. And then to see His beloved Son treated like dirt and worse and finally crucified.

The miracle of the crucifixion is that God so loves the world He has not wrought punishment upon us all.

Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.

Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt dignae:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.