The Scourging At The Pillar

Fruit Of The Mystery: Purity

The following meditations are provided to assist you while praying the Holy Rosary. It is offered in a format where a question is posed to lead the meditation and then is followed by an answer below it.  It may be more helpful to grow in your meditation skills if you try to contemplate the question while praying this decade of the Rosary, and view the possible answer upon completing the prayers for the Mystery.

The meditations below offer possible answers to questions regarding these Mysteries.  Because the Wisdom of God is infinite, there are limitless insights that one may gain from meditating repeatedly upon the questions surrounding these Mysteries.  There are no wrong or right answers when praying the Holy Rosary in this way.  We are simply seeking to be inspired in our understanding of who Jesus is and how much He loves us, as the Holy Spirit gently guides us through reflective prayer.

For many reasons it may be difficult to engage our minds to enter into meditating on the Mysteries at hand.  An alternative option is to simply meditate upon the meaning of the core prayers of the Holy Rosary as you are praying them.  You may find these reflections on the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be prayers to be helpful during these times.


The Scourging

1.  Why does Jesus choose to endure such brutal violence to every part of His body?  

We learn from Sacred Scripture that not one part of His body was spared from punishment.  In Jesus’ great love for us, He willingly accepts these sufferings to repair for every kind of sin we fall into.  Through the spit in His eyes, Jesus repairs for our evil gazes and lustful looks; with the punches to His mouth, Jesus repairs for our vile language, gossip, and judgments we make on others; by being tied to the pillar, Jesus repairs for the bondage of our physical sins; as Jesus is stripped naked during the scourging, He repairs for those sins of pride we commit when we try to cover our sins; the lashes which covered His precious body repaired for all of the abuses and neglect we inflict upon our souls through our lustful sins in our bodies.  This is what the Scriptures mean when they say “By His stripes we have been healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)  

Peer Pressure

1.  Why does Pontius Pilate condemn Jesus to death if He is not guilty? 

Pontius Pilate carries the tremendous burden of being the one who must pass judgment on Jesus.  Though he could not find any fault in Him, He subjects Jesus to the most cruel scourging, and eventual death on the Cross.  Although he would like to have released Jesus, he falls prey to cowardice and fears of what others in authority might think of him. Do we ever cause Jesus pain and suffering from the decisions that we make out of fear of what others in this world may think of us? 

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

1.  How was Jesus able to survive such violent physical assaults?

When we consider the brutality and violence that Jesus suffered in His scourging, we begin to get a glimpse of the strength and courage that gave life to His Most Sacred Heart.  Through the raging fire of perfect charity that burned within His Heart, Jesus is able to survive these lethal assaults that would have killed any other man.  In His unquenchable desire for the salvation of all souls, Jesus could not be beaten down; He may have fallen or been knocked down, but He always rose again out of love for us.  No man took His life from Him- in His own power Jesus offered it to the Father on the Cross when He exclaimed, “Into Your hands, I commend My Spirit.”  Jesus literally gave His life to the Father as an offering of love for us. 

2.  To what can we compare the pains that Jesus suffered as a result of the scourging?

During the scourging Jesus was not only struck by wooden sticks, but also with whips with metal balls at the ends that deeply bruised even His bones, and whips with hooks that literally tore the flesh from His body and exposed His ribs.  If we consider the extreme pain that we experience when the light touch of a tee shirt grazes our sun-burned shoulders, we can only imagine the unbearable pain borne after the scourging from His cloak wearing against His flesh which was torn away from His body.  Now imagine the pain He must have experienced when His garments, which would have adhered to His bloody wounds, were stripped off during the crowning with thorns and later as they nailed Him to the Cross.  We must consider that this was all borne with the greatest love and affection so that we might obtain the grace needed to make our hearts pure like His.

The Passion

1.  How does the Passion remain present throughout time?

In God’s infinite love for His children, He unites us to His beloved Son.  In this way, with Christ as the head, the Church becomes the mystical Body of Christ.  And as the members of His mystical Body continue to suffer on His behalf in time, the Passion continues to be repeated in the Church.  As Christ did with His Mother Mary through His Passion, we are called to remain united with them in prayer, in silence and in suffering during these most difficult hours.  If we bear all things patiently and persevere with them in love, our suffering and sacrifices can be used to draw down graces for our own sanctification, and the salvation of souls.

Purity

1.  How is Jesus calling us to become more pure through the scourging at the pillar?

The fruit of this mystery is purity.  The Passion of Christ is offered to us to strengthen us in our weaknesses.  And the scourging at the pillar was offered to the Father by Jesus to strengthen us specifically when we commit sins against purity in our bodies.  We gain strength from this Mystery by considering what Jesus endured to deliver us from such sins.  Here our innocent and Holy Lord was judged guilty in a most disturbing way by Pilate, the chief priests, the elders, the crowd chanting for His Crucifixion.  He was judged guilty of our sins.  Barabbas, the unjust one who represents each of us, was set free from the burdens of his sins, as Jesus was condemned to death.   Jesus is then led to the pillar for scourging. In reparation for acts of our immodesty with our bodies, He is stripped naked before the crowd, including His most Holy Mother Mary. Jesus was beaten so badly at the pillar that His body appeared as a single bloody wound.  The violence and the bloodshed were seemingly endless.  Each time we choose to continue in the lustful sins of our bodies, we add another stripe to the lacerations inflicted upon our Lord.  It is by meditating upon these wounds that we are moved to repentance, and become healed from such sins.

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