I was about to start the sorrowful mysteries this morning and thinking about Jesus' beautiful wounds. His hands, his feet, his side & pierced heart, his shoulder, his head, his scourged back and sides and legs when it dawned on me not one part of his body was untouched from suffering. From his head to his feet -- Oh Jesus save us from lukewarmness.
The Turin Shroud and, even more clearly, the Sudarium of Oviedo that covered His face both show that one of His jaws was grossly swollen from having been struck. What He went through even before He was crucified, the latter estimated as the cruelest of executions. Oh, Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
So many don't truly know the depths of the suffering He endured for us both physically and emotionally. St. Brigid of Sweeden was the first to truly know and tell us all how many physical wounds he suffered and bled for us: St. Bridget of Sweden (also known as Birgitta) was born in Sweden in the 14th century. Her wealthy parents were devout in their Christian faith, and because of this Bridget was brought up with an excellent religious education. It is not surprising, then, that St. Bridget would go on to have mystical experiences during her life. When she was just a child, St. Bridget received a vision of Christ scourged and hanging on the Cross. In sorrow, she asked him who had treated him like this. Christ answered, "They who despise me, and spurn my love for them." From that time on, the young St. Bridget had a great devotion to the Passion of Christ. She went on to marry and have eight children, one of whom was St. Catherine of Sweden. When her husband died, St. Bridget gave herself totally to the religious life. She founded her own religious order, the Order of the Most Holy Savior, more commonly known as the Brigittines, to be devoted in a special way to honor Christ's Passion. During this stage of her life St. Bridget's mystical experiences became more pronounced and frequent, so much so that they were contained in a work that became very popular in the middle ages, called the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden. Her vibrant visions, which became famous, were often consulted by artists to aid them in their depiction of scenes from Sacred Scripture. Out of her special love for Christ's Passion, which she had since childhood, St. Bridget sincerely wanted to know how many times the body of Our Lord was struck during the various scenes of his Passion. She repeatedly prayed about this so that she could honor each one of them. One day Jesus answered her longing and told her, "I received 5480 blows upon My Body. If you wish to honor them in some way, recite fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Marys with the following Prayers, which I Myself shall teach you, for an entire year. When the year is finished, you will have honored each of My Wounds." Jesus then gave St. Bridget 15 prayers to pray every day for a full year, which she would recite along with an Our Father and a Hail Mary for each. Totaled up, these prayers would equal 5475 (this could be understood as all the wounds other than the Five Wounds in his hands, feet, and side, which are more commonly honored separately).
In Luisa Piccarreta's book "The Hours of the Passion" which holds Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, Jesus recounts his interior sufferings. Its almost overwhelming to try to grasp all He suffered both externally and internally.
Was not, perhaps, the worst of His suffering that which He endured for all our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane? Did He not sweat blood for them? When He asked His Father if He could take the cup away from Him, perhaps it was this awareness of all the sins committed by men throughout the ages both in the past and continuing on to our own tjme, which was going through His consciousness and which might have been a greater agony than that which He faced after the Judas kiss?
In The Way of Divine Love the diary of Sister Josefa Menendez Our Lord actually says it--that it was the most intense suffering He had --to take on all the sins of all time and literally become sin before the Father. That the physical suffering was almost a relief. It is very mysterious.
I was watching an account on the Shroud of Turin and an expert commented on the scourge wounds showing on the shroud. He mentioned that the victim to avoid the lashes instinctively turned and so got lashed on the front of the body as well as the back. People very frequently died of the scourging. Sometimes their insides fell out. Also the nails that went through the base of the hand would have touched a nexus of nerves which would have cost excruciating pain. One mystic says Mary told her Jesus cried out the moment the nails went in. But Padre Pio and several other mystics say that it was the shoulder wound was the worst. I have found watching videos on the Turin Shroud a huge help on meditating on the Passion. I must get round to building the Stations on the field out side. Mary had the first Stations ever built at her home in Ephesus.
It is true the Sorrowful Mystery I pay most attention to, the one that makes me sit up straight was the Garden. In my own Spiritual Life it was always the interior trials that were the worst. But then again I never had many physical pains. I think there comes a point when we add things up, have an inner accounting, the bottom line so to speak. I think the bottom line for Jesus was not with Himself, for He was totally innocent. The bottom line for Jesus was mankind itself. Were they worth the trouble? All the sins of the World rolled before His eyes and the bottom line was, Are they worth it? Jesus decided we were.
When I attempt to pray the decade of The Agony in the Garden, I try to remember to remind myself that I was part of the cause of it. Oh, nothing class-leading, but my own little cuts, for which I am responsible.
Padre Pio said that God transcends time. I believe if we wish to be there in prayer we can be. We can actually be there in the Garden with Him. This is why Our Blessed Mother stands at the right hand side of the altar at every Mass. She is there again at the foot of the Cross. One time I was meditating on the Garden and suddenly I became aware of thousands and thousands of people there with me. I understood it was the people who like me down the cneturies had come there in Faith.
It is the same with me. Many years ago I had a vivid dream in which I was handed a rough hewn box and the person handing it to me said " these are the nails that crucified Christ" and I opened it and it was filled with tacks and pins and staples. And I understood immediately that the "small" sins are just as devastating as the large ones. There is no such thing as a little bit of sin.
So do I, but, at best, I feel I need to be purified in Purgatory for a very long time indeed before I am worthy to approach Him. This is the thing, Jesus in some Mysterious way took upon Himself the Atonement for all these incalculable numbers of sins from His past, present and future, although He and the most trivial of sins are completely incompatible. What greater sacrifice offered and trauma endured could there be? It also sets the standard required for us all and reminds us how wonderful are the saints. It also is indicative of God’s Mercy that He should offer the alternative of Purgatory for those of us who need ‘deep-cleaning’ before we could ever be Contemplated as worthy of approaching Him. The abandonment of this doctrine was surely the greatest of the many follies of the Reformation.
And, like the straw that broke the camel’s back, it might well be one of those relatively insignificant sins, not a ‘spectacular’ like a Netanyahu decision to wage genocide on the people of Gaza, that finally killed Our Lord-a little pin-prick might finally have done Him in. We know His Mercy is so great that, if he repents, that final cause of His Death will never hear the accusation. But, perhaps we all should be left eternally contemplating the possibility that it could have been any one of us?
And yet, what hurt Christ the most was the thought of all those who would still reject Him, even after all His suffering and Love to save them. I think we should run to Christ now, as sinful as we are. I believe it comforts Him more for us to throw our arms around His neck and love Him than to stay away out of a sense of shame over our sins.
Meditation on the Passion is so counter intuitive. You would think it might be very negative and depressing. But on the contrary it is a great source of healing and joy.
