The sorrowful mysteries begin with the Agony in the Garden.
He went a little ways and fell on his face. He fell on his face. I am imagining
that peculiar collapse of the legs that occurs when we are completely
emotionally overwhelmed, as though everything but our consciousness faints. I
see that now, not earlier. (Sometimes I fear I will use up all the useful and
beautiful thoughts of meditation way too soon, and have nothing further to (God
forgive me, pique my interest)… Nothing further to ‘successfully’ meditate on.
No doubt my mind is in need of mortification. How hollow and fearful that
thought makes me feel. Abandoned, even.
But He fell on his face. There was grass and dirt and stones
and sticks there, with smells and crunchings and grittiness. And perhaps he
wished the earth would just there open up and let him hide, swallow him and
preserve him from the terrible prayer he had to pray next, knowing, as he must
have known, that there was no other way but the Cup. Tim Keller calls the cup
the Cup of justice, reminding us that He took upon Himself the full,
unmitigated weight of the punishment for the sins of the world. And perhaps He pressed
his gentle face to the earth, allowing its solidness to bear the weight of his
body, for just a few minutes, before He would stand and walk and carry himself
all the way to Golgotha.
He fell on his face, and He prayed, “If possible, let this
cup pass from me.” In our translations, the words, “Nevertheless, not my will
but thine be done,” follow immediately. But who knows how long his own words
rang in his ear, how long he strained to hear something from the Father that
would give him hope that there WAS some other way, that there was a ram caught
in the thicket nearby… but no, He was the ram. And so He suffered anew the
crushing reality that it truly was the will of His beloved Father that he
should experience the wrath of God, suffering in so many ways, and die a long,
slow, painful death, completely exposed to the gaze of his enemies, abandoned
in some terrible real way by His very own Father.
The second mystery, the Scourging.
At this point, I find myself filled with delight at my own
writing. And it feels wrong. I want to show this to Don and hear his
affirmation and praise. And that would be a cheap ending to what is not cheap.
And yet I can’t imagine that I will be able to resist the temptation to show
him. Isn’t that sad; God give me strength. I want my meditations to be pleasing
to you; the meditations of my heart. I don’t know what to do with this, Lord,
you must guide me.
What sorrow and pain must have engulfed his heart as he
watched his loved ones choose Barabbas over himself. He knew these people; many, many of their faces were not
strange to him. He had memories of being with them, loving them, comforting
them, teaching them. Healing them, forgiving them, enjoying them, feeding them.
He had seen love on their faces, he had seen their desire for him to BE King.
He had received promises of fidelity from some of them. All gone like the
flower of the grass of the field. Was it even real? Did Jesus feel some sense
of failure, then, as a man would in that situation? If there could have been a
question in his mind about the Cup, then could there not also have been a
question, however small, about the efficacy of his own public ministry? How
many thoughts did he have to chase away, but not before he felt the sting of
their barb?
They chose Barabbas, and he was scourged. Thirty-nine
lashes, marring him beyond recognition, and yet only the beginning of his
sufferings. And as each lash fell, and as his flesh was torn and flung about,
was he thinking of his flesh being broken and given to his people? Did he find
comfort in knowing that this was, indeed, what he had come for? He must have
caught the gazes of some of the people who looked on, some in horror, some in
amusement. Did the pain of the lashes take his mind off of the embarrassment
that had to be part of this experience?
The carrying of the cross came next, an extension of the
scourging in a way. The public humiliation, the gazes following him as he went,
the face changing, a mosaic of sorrow, glee, pain, indifference,
disappointment, terror, horror and despair. And every gaze exceedingly painful
to him, feeling with his own pain, the pain of his loved ones who are sorrowing
beyond sorrow, watching him suffer so. The gaze of the mockers, painful as well
as he is reminded that some never will believe and come to know the truth. It
seems that nowhere could his eyes rest and find any comfort or even momentary
relief from the abyss of emotional and spiritual pain that He was destined to
experience.
St. Veronica – what a blessed refreshment she is for those
of us who must walk the long road with Him in the Rosary and elsewhere. How
many of us hope that we, too, would be brave and in love enough to move toward
him with the intense desire to do something, any small thing that might bring
him comfort… what a pang of bittersweet joy must have pierced His breast upon
her loving approach, what painful burst of love and intense desire to do
something, anything, himself in order to shield and protect her, to reassure
her, to wipe the tears from her face.
Surely this love must have given him a burst of courage, as
well, a sweet and timely reminder of the purpose, the goal of his suffering.
Perhaps he was transported in that moment, to the time when He knew He would be
wiping HER face clean of the marks of sorrow and pain. Perhaps Veronica was
sent from the Father for the express purpose of offering His Son a glimpse of
the eternal comfort. Bless Veronica for her obedience, born of love and
compassion.
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