Thursday, March 8, 2018

The Mind-Blowing Passion of Christ


Today, I’m thinking of the Passion of Our Lord and how it all unfolded, beginning with his Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.  After instituting the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, Jesus and the apostles went out and entered the Garden.  But before they went very far, Jesus asked that he proceed alone with Peter, James, and John.  In St. Matthew’s account, he “began to feel sorrow and distress.”  He asked the three to stop while he proceeded forward “a little.”  He “fell prostrate in prayer, saying “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will but as you will.”  He knew what was about to happen to him, and the human nature side of him shone through.  It was to be unbearably painful for him and he knew it.

Before too long, Judas arrived with a large crowd armed with swords and clubs.  He was arrested and ultimately led to the court of Pontius Pilate where he was sentenced to death.  Then the painful suffering began in earnest.  We make a big deal out of his “scourging at the pillar,” identifying it as one of the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary.  I say this because it is barely mentioned in the Scriptures.  St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s gospels calmly mentioned it in passing:  “… after he had him (Jesus) scourged ….”  St. Luke’s description is similar:  “Therefore, I shall have him flogged and then release him.”  It is the same in St. John’s gospel:  “Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.”  No mention is made of a pillar.  When I meditate on mystery, I am mindful of the movie “The Passion of the Christ” in which the scourging or flogging was a very big deal.  Jesus was tied to a pillar to keep him standing upright and then thoroughly thrashed with whips with hooks on the tips so that it would open some serious wounds.  And, as I recall, there was considerable blood loss.  I’ve heard that the movie was based on the account of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (1714-1824), a German Augustinian nun, who claimed to have had visions of Our Lord’s passion and death.

We also make a big deal of “the Crowning with Thorns,” another sorrowful mystery of the rosary.  Once again, we have limited coverage of this in the Scriptures.  St John gives the most detail:  “And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!”  According to St. Matthew and St. Mark, this was followed by intense mockery.  I can imagine the soldiers sneering and laughing as they made a joke out of his claim of being a king.  And I think of the pain, with thorns digging into his head and his precious blood streaming down his face.  And all of this after the wounds from the scourging also caused him to bleed profusely. 

When the wine is transubstantiated into his blood at Mass, I always think of his passion and his blood being spilled all over the place.  He asked us to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and we do, in the form of bread and wine at Mass.  Many people think that we Catholics are nuts to believe that we actually eat his flesh and drink his blood in this way.  But, I think about what Christ’s passion and death did for us.  I am then completely at peace with it, and even awed!  What an incredibly intimate encounter we have in this Eucharist at Mass!  Not only did his horrible death on Calvary cleanse us from our sins, but his command to remember him in this way is nothing short of mind-blowing. 

My prayer for today has to be one of gratitude:  Lord, thank you so much for your holy church, for your passion and death, and for this extraordinary sacrament.  Amen.

No comments:

Post a Comment