The Crucifixion

Fruit Of The Mystery: Perseverance

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.

Perseverance

1.  Who displays perseverance during the Crucifixion?

Certainly Jesus displayed much courage and perseverance through His entire Passion up to this point.  It was only out of His supernatural love for us, and His desire to redeem us through His death on the Cross, that He was able to survive unheard of punishments and tortures that would have killed any other man much earlier on.  The fruit of this Mystery, which is perseverance, can be applied to many others as well.  Consider God, the Father, who persevered while witnessing the brutal violence inflicted upon His Son, or His Blessed Mother Mary who endured the cruel tortures of the Passion almost as much as He did as she helplessly witnessed it first hand.

2.  Why does Jesus choose to persevere through so much pain and suffering?

Truly as God, Jesus could have said, “It is finished” at any point in His Passion.  For even if one drop of His Precious Blood was shed on our behalf, it would have been a pure enough sacrifice to save an infinite number of souls.  Yet Jesus chose to endure so much more cruelty and suffering.  In His great love for mankind, Jesus chose to suffer more than any human ever would so that He could offer compassion and empathize with any individual’s worst pain and suffering.  By persevering perfectly until the end, He would be able to unite our weaknesses and despair with His triumph and make it a perfect offering to Our Father.  Jesus loves us and perseveres with us until the very end in all of our trials, that together with Him we may claim victory and say, “It is finished.”

God’s Love for Us

1.  Why does Jesus cry out “Father why have You forsaken Me?”

When Jesus is near death He cries out, “Father why have You forsaken Me?” out of utter love for us.  Here He lets us know the abandonment He felt in His Humanity, so He could comfort, console and love us in anything we would ever have to endure in our humanity. This is also a final cry for souls; Jesus is allowing us to see the pain and abandonment He feels in knowing that despite the infinite sacrifice He has offered on this Cross, there will still be souls that are lost because they refuse to accept His forgiveness or acknowledge His great love for them.  This is why Jesus follows this cry with the words “I Thirst.”  Jesus was reinforcing His great thirst and desire for the salvation of all souls.   Finally, we are offered an insight into the great love that He has for His Mother, as He looks into her eyes and sees the unimaginable pain she has suffered in enduring His Passion, and knows the trials that are ahead of her as He must now return to the Father and leave her behind to guide and become the Mother of His Church.

2.  Why was Jesus taken down from the Cross and placed in His Mother’s arms?

Jesus does everything out of love for us, always.  This was the case even when He was taken down from the Cross.  Jesus was placed in His Mother’s arms lifeless- dead to all things physically in the end.  In some ways this tragic scene must have brought Mary back to Bethlehem when Jesus was an infant, completely dependent in her arms.  In both cases it was a sign of great love which brought about consolation: at death it was a time to allow His Mother to grieve Him, and at birth it offered Our Blessed Mother a chance to rejoice in the Glory of God the Father for bringing the Savior into this world.  In either case there was no reward in it for Jesus, other than to utterly pour out His love for us.

3.  What are some of Jesus’ concerns for His Mother as He dies upon the Cross?

Some obvious concerns would be her physical and financial welfare, as she would now be left to fend for herself without a husband or children in a male dominated culture.  Not only would she be left without immediate family for support, but worse yet the impact of the horrifying memories of what she was witnessing in the Passion of her Son would be emotionally devastating.  In the realm of spiritual warfare, the Jews were manipulated by the evil one to commit unheard of crimes against the innocent Son of God in an attempt to prevent Him from saving souls and establishing the Kingdom of His Father’s love.  Now that Jesus had conquered sin and death, and the devil’s time to reign on earth would be very short, what would the evil one stop at to try to kill the Mother of the Church who would be responsible for guiding and supporting those who would impact the salvation of billions of souls to come.  Though these questions may have crossed Jesus’ mind in His Humanity, ultimately in His Divinity He knew that His Father’s faithfulness and love for all of His creation would overcome all possible worldly concerns or evil.

4.  Why is Jesus buried in another man’s tomb? 

Jesus leaves this world in the same way that He enters it- showing His great love for the things of God alone. When He was born in Bethlehem, it was in extreme poverty among the animals as He was placed in a manger.  And when He died, He was laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.  He rejected all worldly possessions on this earth, even a place to be laid in when His life was over, to lead by example and teach us how to detach from the love of material gain and cleave to God alone.

Suffering

1.  What do we learn from Jesus about how to endure our sufferings?

Jesus kept His eyes focused on the present moment.  If while suffering the scourging at the pillar Jesus’ mind was worrying about carrying a tremendously heavy cross for two miles, it would have made the scourging seemingly unbearable.  If while carrying the Cross Jesus was preoccupied with the nails they were going to drive into Him, He would have missed the opportunities to experience the love of His Mother as she came to encourage Him, Veronica as she offered her veil to wipe His Sacred Face, or the Daughters of Jerusalem who were lamenting Him.  When we suffer, we must remain in the present moment to allow God’s love to see us through.  Also, we learn from the few words that Jesus spoke during His Passion, that we must not pity ourselves, but always focus on loving God and His Will for us, and love for others.  Like Jesus, when our hearts remain transfixed upon glorifying God in all that we do, we become fueled with the fire of Divine Love to overcome all obstacles in our lives with His strength and grace, as our sufferings become one with His for the salvation of souls.

3.  What was the point in whipping Jesus not only at the scourging at the pillar, but even as He carried His Cross until He reached Calvary?

Though Jesus was beaten to the point where He was barley able to stand, the soldiers continued to whip His precious body throughout the entire Passion.  This inhumane practice was carried out to try to keep Jesus moving along the Way of the Cross until He reached Calvary.  In their frustration the soldiers were being used as tools to inflict evil, yet the suffering that was incurred by Jesus served a practical purpose.  In His struggle to remain alive and carry out His mission for the salvation of mankind, the bite of the whip actually kept Jesus conscious until He was crucified.  Though we may also experience evil at the hands of others, we must remember that the distasteful means through which we are sometimes assisted to accomplish what we are called to do on earth is necessary to protect us and see us through to a greater purpose.

4.  Was the Passion only a time of suffering?

When we read through Luke’s account of the Passion we learn that this was also a time of healing.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, we see in the midst of the physical battle that had broken out to capture Jesus, He heals the ear of the high priest’s servant which had been cut off by Peter.  We also see an emotional healing occur later in the morning when the enmity between Herod and Pontius Pilate had been healed.  These are two simple examples of the beginning of the countless amounts of physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological healings that would occur in the ages to come as a result of the suffering and sacrifices of Our Lord. 

Practical Lessons

1.  Why did blood and water flow from the side of Jesus?

When Jesus was pierced with the lance, blood and water flowed from His side.  Understandably blood would issue forth from a wound, but why water?  From a spiritual point, this was very symbolic of the Baptism that Christ offers to us.  By His Precious Blood, we have been saved and made pure from our sins; and by the water which gushes forth from His side, we are offered the living waters of the Holy Spirit that washes us clean from even original sin and restores our relationship to God.  From a purely biological standpoint, anytime the skin is ruptured and blood vessels are broken, blood will issue forth from the wound.  Considering that the lance actually pierced His Sacred Heart, which pumps the blood through the body, we understand why the volume of blood was heavy. So why did water flow from His side? When we examine the cause of death in crucifixion we learn it is asphyxiation; here one dies because of the fluid which builds up in the lungs and prevents them from breathing.  As the lance must pass through the lungs of Jesus to pierce His Sacred Heart, there is an outpouring of all this water which had filled His lungs.  Hence we see both blood and water flowing from the side of Jesus.

Surely it was a sign of disapproval from the Father for all of the heinous crimes that were committed on this day, but it also served a practical purpose in the conversion of the pagan sinners who were present.  The Romans up to this point had not known much about the Son of God.  Their beliefs were centered on pagan gods, and the most powerful to them was Apollo- the god of the sun.  By having the sun disappear at what is supposed to be the brightest part of the day, the Romans were able to identify the power of the True God, who had authority even over the workings of the sun.  As Jesus’ death was surrounded by the earthquake and other natural and supernatural phenomena, the Roman soldiers at the foot of the Cross come to conversion as they exclaim, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” 

3.  Why does Jesus allow Himself to be stripped naked once again?

Before He is crucified, Jesus makes a final offering of love to the Father on behalf of mankind.  He has offered every part of His Humanity up to this point and is now prepared to give His life.  His final attachment to this world is the very clothes that cover His body.  As He is stripped bare, nothing else remains for Him to give except for His sufferings to come on the Cross, and His final breaths.

4.  Why is it significant that Jesus tells the good thief upon his conversion that he will be with Him this day in Paradise, as opposed to saying in Heaven?

Every word that Jesus speaks is a particular lesson for us.  This is the only time in the Gospels that we hear Jesus refer to eternity as Paradise; this is important in that it reminds us of what He is accomplishing as He is dying on the Cross.  Because of Adam’s disobedience, humanity was cast out of the Paradise of Eden where they dwelt with God and all of His creation.  This day, Jesus would redeem the world and open the gates of the heavenly Paradise where we are all called to dwell with God forever.

Jesus Makes All Things New

1.  How does Jesus transform the Cross from a negative image to a positive one?

Mary and the Early Church

1. Mother, love My followers as your very own sons and daughters- with the same unimaginable love she had for Him as she watched Him die on the Cross.  2. My followers, take My Mother as your own, and love her like I have loved her- with every ounce of pure and holy love our Father permits to pour out of our hearts.

Mary’s response to her Son’s last dying request became her command; as she reigns now in splendor with Jesus, she continues to love each and every one of us as Jesus’ brothers and sisters, with the love she has for her Son.  We cannot imagine how much love she has for each of us personally, as she continues to obey her Son’s command with a most perfect and adorable love for us.  Not only is it our duty to love, defend, and honor our Mother because Jesus asked us to, but as we become increasingly open to receiving her tender and limitless motherly love, our hearts naturally return it to her with grateful affection.

2.  Why is Jesus’ beloved disciple, John the Evangelist, represented by an eagle in Church tradition?

The last thing Jesus does to establish His Church before dying on the Cross is to request that the future members of the Body of Christ, which is represented by ‘the disciple,’ take Mary as our very own Mother.  Like the beloved disciple John, who represents each believer, we are to receive Mary into our ‘homes’; a better translation from the original Greek would be to take Mary into our ‘innermost dwelling,’ or our hearts.  Undoubtedly John not only receives the Sorrowful Mother into his heart, but he also literally takes Mary into his own home from that hour on.  This is evidenced in the Divine nature of his writings in Sacred Scripture, which include the Gospel of John, the three Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation.  Because of the Divine insights in his writings, which soar to the heights of Heaven, John is often represented by an eagle in Church tradition.  The wisdom revealed in his writings is inspired, of course by the Holy Spirit, and is a result of spending time with Mary, the one who understood the mysteries of Jesus and His teachings more intimately than anyone on earth. 

3.  What was Mary’s role in the Passion?

Though everyone abandoned Jesus, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane, Our Most Sorrowful Mother never left Him.  Knowing that His mission on earth was to offer His life on the Cross for our sins, her role in the Passion was to help her Son to die.  Mary’s faithful presence beside Him, especially as she stood beneath Him at the foot of the Cross, must have been a great source of comfort and consolation for Jesus as everyone else abandoned Him.  In each part of this Sorrowful journey, through the Blessed Mother’s prayers, silence, gazes, touches, presence, actions and love she helped her Son to die.  As she takes us for her sons and daughters, she is here with us helping us to die to our selfish ways and will be beside us to help us at the hour of our physical death.  

Every last detail of Scripture holds an infinite amount of treasure and is placed precisely by God’s inspiration to reveal something to us.  A perfect example is the question mentioned above.  We know several things about Simon the Cyrenian from Scripture, including the fact that he helped Jesus carry His Cross and thus winds up inevitably at the Crucifixion.  Before Jesus takes His last breath, Simon witnesses Christ’s command to take Mary as our Mother.  We also learn through Scripture that Simon's children, Alexander and Rufus, come to follow the footsteps of Christ in Faith.  Simon teaches his children to obey the command of Christ and take Mary as their very own Mother.  As the beloved disciple John must have had to leave Mary to preach the Gospel, Rufus must have been blessed to watch over Mother Mary.  This is why Paul addresses Rufus as being chosen in the Lord in Romans 16:13 ("Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his Mother and mine."). Because Paul is from Tarsus and Rufus is from Cyrene, it becomes apparent in this passage that the apostle Paul readily accepts this tradition of taking Mary as his own Mother as well.

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