by S. Johansing and Monica LCW Columbus, Ohio
By the point in Jesus' life of Palm Sunday, the poison of the Jewish leaders' jealousy and fear had been fanned and cultivated to the point of immense hatred at the murderous level. While self-evident for a long time, the love and mercy of Jesus' most Sacred Heart had to have made Him hold onto a last thread of hope for them.
After all, He did not seek fame for Himself, constantly shushing whoever he healed or set free, in order to move about and teach Truth as far and wide as possible before His end. They had to have seen this. He did not cater to the popular "women of prominence" or even them, nor anyone (such as a highest rabbi or Pharisee) who could have had the power to cast him above them. He had zero interaction with the local and national leaders to undermine them either. He was no real threat at all.
The only threat He was to them was His holiness of life and audacity to speak the Truth to them -- particularly about the hypocrisy of their lives and hearts. To speak what was true -- about God's mercy, love, and especially His humility that even they, lesser than God, chose not to live by in their roles as religious leaders.
Knowing that He most likely will suffer and die a grueling death, He enters Jerusalem as a king, to the uproar and great enthusiasm of the cheering and praising crowds. They even loudly sang songs over him while they put palms down for his donkey to walk upon, as a carpet emitting the highest royalty.
It must have been such music to His ears! He had to have thought for a fleeting moment that maybe, just maybe, He may not have to suffer so greatly on the cross. It must have been the height of His time, that maybe "they DO understand. They might finally get it and see what I am trying to do and that I truly truly do love them. They see and finally KNOW the truth behind my message, the Truth of this new Way, the way of love. Truth itself. They finally do understand I AM. My Kingdom on Earth has truly, truly come and begun. I was to come into the world and fix the mistake made in the fall, but maybe I do not have to go through with that which I know I must do; perhaps My kingdom has begun without this, and I do not have to be exposed to that level of hatred and physical pain."
But ...
It starts slowly, taking Him in the night a few days later. Even though He knew this must be, He had pre-warned His Apostles, even though He had given them His Body and Blood in the first Eucharist, that awareness and exultation of Palm Sunday before must have given Him a tiny glimmer of hope. He still begged His Father at Gethsemane, after the first Eucharist, for this cup to please pass Him by if it could. He would not have asked if He did not think this was possible. His desire was steadfastly to solely do the Will of His beloved Father (who is one with Him), and perhaps this easier path may be His Will, He may have briefly thought. Their praise and adoration still rang out in His head. His sweat was like drops of blood as He pleaded hard for this cup to pass Him by, of what most likely lie ahead, if it was His Will.
Yet He fully submitted, as always, to the most perfect Will of the Father in heaven. Imagine His "fully human" side, once the sequence is put in motion, looking down at His bound hands, ... This time He won't evade a stoning or avoid getting hurled off of a cliff, ...
He could not turn to others for support either, to lean on ... Yes, even His beloved Peter really did do it, completely denied ever having known Him in His hour of greatest need. And He was to be the HEAD of this new Kingdom on Earth. Even though He had told Peter on Holy Thursday that He would do this three times against Him, and even though He told Peter that He will be sifted greatly but He will pray for His strength to encourage His brothers after, the beginning of the Church -- it still had to have grieved Him greatly knowing those moments of Peter's voice nearly swearing vehemently that he knew nothing of Him. Such rejection from someone so close for three years.
Even though He knew all this was to be, what a sinking, sinking feeling it must have been when the sting of the first whip jarred Him, and the rawness of excruciating shredded skin was being further whipped deeply into muscle tissue... He is fully God and fully human. His physical pain no different than our own.
It gets worse and worse without a minute of let-up... the piercing thorns driven into His skull by blows of reeds as dense as hollow baseball bats -- that crown of thorns that continued agitating His skull all day while struggling.
The very people who had jubilantly sang praise of Him five days earlier - praising the one who they had heard so many great things about - now viciously turned on Him, urged on by the ringleader Pharisees and Sadducees. It was not long that the power of suggestive doubt, suspicion, and hate had swayed the crowd, taken root, and grown into hateful and dangerous thoughts against Him. It was crystal clear from the Father: "No, you really DO have to do the whole thing..." And as always, He willfully obeyed when He could have ended the suffering in a flash.
Nudged on they shouted to crucify Him, to release Barabbas, even after seeing how badly He had been scourged. As he passed through them, they screamed into His face, they spit on Him, threw things at Him.
Now He carries on his raw stinging open back a huge, impossibly heavy cross, like concrete blocks, through the city streets and up this insurmountable hill.... with the shrieking screams of the two other prisoners being crucified ahead of Him... the long crude nails being driven through His hands and feet, splitting them open, like a worm with a hook through it, and hanging by His body weight on only His nailed hand and feet wounds ... the humiliating nakedness in front of these women for hours all in front of the malicious crowd.
The most wrenching of all, putting His sweet mother, sobbing at His feet, through indescribable pain and suffering at the sight and experience of His torture -- the sword of swords piercing her heart over and over and over again without mercy, with nothing to ease her pain.
And the feet. How beautiful the feet that walked so far to bear good news, now bearing the force of love... And that unspeakably raw spot at the top, that constantly bore the force of His entire body weight bearing down hard upon it, by gravity, rubbing and agitating this open fleshy tangle of nerves and vessels, especially when He had to push His body upward to take a breath. Excruciating. Stinging.
On the cross you typically died from lack of air. The extended arms put pressure down upon their chest and lungs over time. In order to take a breath, you had to "stand up" high on your feet, lungs higher than arms. Such torture for Christ upon His precious feet! That's why they broke the knees of the other two prisoners so that they could not stand higher to take a breath, and so, would die quickly.
It is one thing to have a nail driven through your hand or foot accidentally, and wait for help to arrive. It is altogether another to have your entire body weight hanging and pulling hard solely from those terribly injured inflamed and raw places of the body for hours, ripping them more all the time.
One Gospel account puts it at SIX hours not three that He hung at those pressure points, that He needed to pull Himself upward every few breaths, at His hands and onto His feet. Unimaginable.
May this also be a time of pondering who we are in the crowd, in different crowds we find ourselves in, toward Christ and His Way of love, of mercy, of peace. May His love and His peace reign in our hearts and in our world for all that He modeled and sacrificed for us; just as Dietrich Bonhoffer and Franz Jaegerstatter sacrificed in refusing to join Hitler's army of hate, greed, and lust for power. Mussolini and Hitler could not have killed the millions that they did without a LOT of help -- it took thousands of Catholic soldiers in both Germany and Italy to massacre millions.
May we, like Christ, be a shining light on a hill, a city set apart, refusing to kill sacred human life as the nonviolent Cross of our Lord and Savior has taught us in word and deed! (See the new movie directed by Mel Gibson, "Hacksaw Ridge").
At an Encounter weekend I recently attended, I explained to a Franciscan of the Renewal who was praying over me on the last day (and had put a relic of St. Padre Pio on my shoulder while ministering to me) that I felt like a punching bag, with hard boxing glove blows from others through Satan in their actions and words, not knowing from which direction they will come from next, to the point of even being denounced as evil. He said, "Do you know what this means?! What an honor this is?! How blessed you truly are .... the few who have had this honor..." I needed that, praise Jesus.
May we trouble ourselves this Lent to read an entire Gospel in a short time (a week or two) to truly and fully put ourselves into the sandals of Christ's most precious feet. May our Shofar (Old Testament horn for rallying all to religious services and to war) be blasted the loudest for Christ the King of Kings and Prince of Peace in this world of great hate, fear, suspicion, and killing. May all of our actions mirror only Christ's and His most holy Apostles and martyrs.
May the loud blasting horn call Christ-followers to a spiritual war -- armed with "the breastplate of righteousness," the "sword of Truth" (the Word made flesh), and with the greatest of all - LOVE - against an Old Testament mentality so prevalent in the Middle East to this day.
This Lent may we also take the priceless time of listening to the voice of the Lord alone, that of our Beloved. Eucharistic Adoration with the actual physical flesh and body of our Lord Jesus Christ in the room is powerful!!
As learned in Theophostic prayer, may we have uncomfortably long wait times, seemingly fruitless wait times in silence, beyond any more words, prayers, expressed internal yearnings or even praise, for that sometimes faint and quick "wisp of smoke," or "still small voice" of God, the manner described in the Old Testament when God speaks to us.
Patrick Reis, at an Encounter weekend, gave a wonderful exercise in hearing the voice of God. He said, "Shut your eyes and say your first and last name in your head.... That is what it is like to hear the voice of God." I have had this happen as well, more clearly and conversationally in addition to that still small voice, but usually in the second or third hour of Eucharistic Adoration. This still small quick manner has happened more often than the other, for me. Always have pen and paper ready - and discern after with prayer, to make sure it is from God.
St. Catharine's just opened up its Thursday Eucharistic Adoration in Lent for 11 hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Praise the name of Jesus for this, and Fr. Dury (and Fr. Lumpe for beginning regular Eucharistic Adoration again). We also have Adore, another newer form of Eucharistic Adoration, on the first Sunday of the month at 6:30 p.m. We will have our 7th one March 5th at St. Catharine's. This is and has been done Franciscans of the Renewal style, which I won't give away! POWERFUL.
We know how this epic story, the greatest love story ever told, of Christ's passion, ends after all the torment and suffering. It ends GLORIOUSLY and extends forever and ever and ever for all of our stories, sprung from the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has truly freed us from death and set captives free, set all of us free by taking our sins upon Himself on that excruciating cross: our sins of the past, present, and future if we plug into the Cross of Christ. We can be freed from pride, lust, greed, hate, wrath, vainglory, suspicion, and all other forms of sin. Praise our King, our Savior and Deliverer, the Prince of Peace, now and forever!!
In this year, 2017, of the 100th anniversary of Fatima, consider reading and undergoing the book, "33 Days to Morning Glory." The beauty of this book is the meditations of others who have done this: St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. John Paul II, St. Maxmillian Kolbe, and St. Louis de Montfort. All of these saints have added pearls of great price to this experience.
While you are supposed to begin it 33 days before an actual Marian feast day (see schedule below), so that it ends on a feast day, if you have done it before, you may want to additionally consider beginning on April 10 -- 33 days before the first apparition of Mary at Fatima, May 13, (1917 was the first time). Mother Mary appeared at Fatima six times, once a month on the 13th for six months. Great miracles in the sky appeared on the last one, witnessed by tens of thousands, October 13, 1917.
If you have never undergone it in the St. Louis de Montfort way - (I have not yet) you may want to undergo this much more rigorous manner involving removing yourself from "the world" for the first 12 days! I plan on trying to this summer when I am off from teaching.
Start of
33-day Plan |
Marian Feast You've Chosen
|
Feast /
Consecration Day |
9 Jan
|
Apparition of the Immaculate
Virgin Mary at Lourdes |
11 Feb
|
20 Feb 1
|
The Annunciation
|
25 Mar
|
13 Jun
|
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
|
16 Jul
|
13 Jul
|
The Assumption
|
15 Aug
|
6 Aug
|
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
|
8 Sep
|
13 Aug
|
Our Lady of Sorrows
|
15 Sep
|
19 Oct
|
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
|
21 Nov
|
5 Nov
|
Immaculate Conception
|
8 Dec
|
9 Nov
|
Our Lady of Guadalupe
|
12 Dec
|
PLEASE PRAY FOR THE CANONIZATION OF DOROTHY DAY AND PETER MAURIN!
