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Writer's pictureSarah Raad

Shudder

“He turned His face once toward His Mother, who was standing overcome with grief.” (Blessed Anne Emmerich).

The Scourging of Christ (Francesco Bassano)

I have been reflecting on the Passion and Death of Christ.


There are so many accounts of what that Passion and Death looked and felt like. It has been the source of Christian meditation for several thousand years – since the actual Death of Christ on the Cross, over two thousand years ago…


In her account of the Passion and Death of Christ – as revealed through private revelations, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich wrote (and her words were recorded in the Dolorous Passion and Death of Christ at pages 218-219)…


“Jesus trembled and shuddered as He stood before the pillar, and took off His garments as quickly as He could, but His hands were bloody and swollen. The only return He made when His brutal executioners struck and abused Him was to pray for them in the most touching manner: He turned His face once toward His Mother, who was standing overcome with grief; this look quite unnerved her: she fainted, and would have fallen, had not the holy women who were there supported her. Jesus put His arms around the pillar, and when His hands were thus raised, the archers fastened them to the iron ring which was at the top of the pillar; they then dragged His arms to such a height that His feet, which were tightly bound to the base of the pillar, scarcely touched the ground. Thus was the Holy of Holies violently stretched, without a particle of clothing, on a pillar used for the punishment of criminals; and then did two furious ruffians who were thirsting for His blood begin in the most barbarous manner to scourge His sacred body from head to foot.”


And I have been reflecting on that account of the scene that we commemorate in the Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary, because it is in that account that we hear about the Blessed Virgin Mary.


I have been considering her faint. I have been wondering what she felt in the moments before she fell. I have fainted a few times in the past. Mostly though, I have fainted because my blood pressure was too low. However, in the case of the Blessed Virgin, she fainted because the vision she was witnessing was so terrible, so awful, so utterly horrific, that her body involuntarily responded to shut that vision – that experience – out.


In front of her eyes was the desecration of God Himself – the Being that she loved with perfection…


And there He was – desecrated…

And she did not call out. She did not demand that they stop. She did not tell Him to come down from there. Because her love was perfect and perfect love does not make it harder for the object of that love to do what needs to be done. They make it easier. So, the Blessed Virgin did everything in her power to make things easier for her Beloved – and with perfect love – she held her grief inside and did not cry out to Him…


And I have been thinking about that today. Because I never try to make the sacrifice of my Beloved any easier… And when I see the example of the Blessed Virgin before me, I have to bow my head in shame and wonder why…


For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.


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