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.
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