A Lenten Meditation on Suffering

Dear Jesus, I think one of the most human things that can bring us closer to humanity is suffering — our suffering and your suffering.

    There is for instance, your crowning with thorns; the sheer brutality of it — the heartlessness — the denigration of your spiritual kingship — the mockery — the unparalleled blasphemy against your divine and human dignity.

    At the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, enshrined in a glass case, is a section of the type of vine that was used for your crown. The vine had long thorns that tapered off to points as sharp as a needle.

    The thorns must have been nearly an inch long, perhaps longer. The strip of vine and its thorns looked strong and lithe and resilient as though you could bend and twist them this way and that way without their breaking. It seemed that no matter which way you’d twist or bend them they would spring back to their original state.

    This long, strong, thorny vine is what they twisted into a crown, placed on your head, and then, with the flat of their swords or their spears, thumped a series of blows on it so that the thorns pierced your flesh. Your head, which became black and blue and swollen, oozed with blood which came trickling down your forehead, your cheeks, onto your shoulders and down through your hair to the back of your neck.

    Jesus, when I have something like a small flat bobby pin pressing into my head it brings on a headache. I can’t imagine the terrible, throbbing pain that must have started up and increased with each blow, and then became shooting, stabbing, zigzagging darts throughout your head; like ripping streaks of lightning, splintering and shattering against your skull and brain. Your senses must have reeled from time to time with the intensity of the stabs of pain.

    A headache I know about, Jesus; I’ve had some pips in my day, but never, at its pounding worst, could any headache of mine compare with yours.

    So, I repeat, Jesus, what I said at the beginning of this meditation: I think one of the most human things that can bring us closer to you and your humanity is our own human suffering. We should be so gratefully aware that you voluntarily took on your suffering for us. Oh, what a gift!

    We thank you and we offer you all our sufferings, as a small fragment towards your redemptive sacrifice for all sinners. Amen