Woman of Faith: The Crowning with Thorns
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
Would it be possible to turn our back on our King if we daily meditated on the Rosary? Would it be likely that anyone who with Mary contemplates the Ecce Homo would continue in sin?
Woman of Faith
Behold the Man!
Ecce Homo! Jesus, crowned with thorns, a reed-scepter thrust in his bound hands, clothed with the centurion’s scarlet cloak glued to every bleeding wound is mockingly displayed to the mob. And Pilate, deriding both Jesus and the Jewish people, cries out; “What shall I do with your King?”
The Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom, our God in a fully human way, is put on display as the world’s fool! The Creator is mocked by His creatures. Infinite Love is scorned by His own. The crowd shouts back the horrendous rejection of its Savior; “We have no King but Caesar”! “Then what shall I do with your King”? demands the Roman Procurator. And the mob responds in words which make the cosmos tremble; “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!”
Each One of Us Bearing Responsibility
Listen attentively to the cries of the crowd. Can you hear your voice shouting with them; “Away with Him, He is not our King!”? A Roman Procurator, a motley element of Jewish leadership which is considered debased by the people – are they the cause of Jesus’ death? Scripture says, “He was wounded for our transgressions; He has borne our sins and carried our sorrows”. The tiny group of the world’s population which cried out for Jesus’ death on that first Good Friday were representatives of the universe – each one of us – bearing responsibility for the death of the Lord.
How often have we not cried out; “We have no King but Caesar”? And “Caesar” is our own way, our own pleasure, even though it may entail the rejection of the radical demands of the Gospel. How often have we vetoed the Kingship of Christ by being afraid to proclaim the truth of the Catholic faith with bold clarity? How often have we found excuses for the betrayal of our faith – and therefore of Jesus by appealing to the so- called American custom of “compromise”? And whenever we water down our witness to the Gospel by the way we live, by the way we speak, by the way we teach or preach, are we not shouting; “Away with Him, we have no King but Caesar!”? With Saint Paul, we must admit that we have crucified the Lord of Glory!
Confronting Our Own Deep-seated Sinfulness
The enormity of our sins, of our betrayal of Our King, Jesus the Lord, is seen with such awesome clarity in the third sorrowful mystery, The Crowning with Thorns. The danger is that we constantly go back to the time of Pilate and with somewhat unconscious self-righteousness, damn all those who rejected the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Rosary is not meant to be an indictment against Pilate or the small band of renegade Jewish leaders! It rather confronts us with our own deep- seated sinfulness. Through the intercession of Mary, the Mother of the thorn-crowned King, we plead for mercy, pardon, forgiveness. And even more – we beg the strength to remain ever faithful to the Lord of All, the King whom the ‘”world” still mocks so ferociously by its “democratic permissiveness.”
Would it be possible to turn our backs on our King if we daily meditated on the Rosary? Is it likely that anyone who with Mary contemplates the Ecce Homo would continue in sin? Would someone who prays the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary deride the teachings of the Body of Christ, the Church? Hardly! In fact, to gaze daily on the mystery of The Crowning with Thorns is to find strength to live the Good News to the hilt, to refuse all compromise of our faith, no matter the jibes and mockery of the “world,” to be faithful – no matter the cost – to Christ the King and to His body, the church.
If We Meditate Daily, Would We Continue to Sin?
It is only with this conviction of the responsibility of all peoples – each one of us – that we should enter into this tremendous mystery Eternal Wisdom made the Fool.
Madonna and Child: painter Elisabetta Sirani: 1663
Elisabetta took over the studio of her father Giovanni Sirani in 1654-1655. This painting resides in the National Museum of Woman Arts in Washington, DC.
Would it be possible to turn our backs on our King if we daily meditated on the Rosary? Is it likely that anyone who with Mary contemplates the Ecce Homo would continue in sin? Would someone who prays the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary deride the teachings of the Body of Christ, the Church? Hardly! In fact, to gaze daily on the mystery of The Crowning with Thorns is to find strength to live the Good News to the hilt, to refuse all compromise of our faith, no matter the jibes and mockery of the “world,” to be faithful – no matter the cost – to Christ the King and to His body, the church.
The is the ninth of a series of articles on the Mysteries of the Rosary.
Return to The Queen: Articles
“And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the praetorium); and they called together the whole battalion.
They clothed him in a purple cloak, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on him. And they began to salute him, ’Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they struck his head with a reed, and spat upon him, md they knelt down in homage to him. When they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him“. (Mk 15:16-20).
Enduring Beyond Imagination
There are many inscriptions of the reigning Caesar crowned with a mighty diadem with shining spikes protruding from it to signify power, awe, majesty (much like our own Statue of Liberty). When Jesus was thrown to the wishes of a large crowd of soldiers, the beatings and incredible insults he endured are beyond our imagination. He – our Eternal and Incarnate God, Enfleshed Infinite Love – is made the butt of torture and diabolical blasphemies. It is, the hour of Satan, the hour of darkness.
And Infinite Incarnate Light must endure the depths of pitch-black darkness of human depravity in order to rescue us from its grip. Scripture stresses one of the worst aspects of this darkest night of the human race; the mocking of Jesus as if he were a King. The thorns will imitate the spiked crown of Caesar; the reed, his scepter; the soldier’s cloak, Caesar’s royal garment. Carved into the stones of the soldiers’ barracks are traces of games, like blind-man’s bluff. And who better to be the target of these games than the one who is claimed to “King” of the Jews?
Saint Louis de Montfort sings a dirge on this third sorrowful mystery describing Jesus, slapped, whipped, spit upon, abused, His eyes bound with a dirty rag. “Prophesy to us” the soldiers cry mockingly; ‘Who is it who struck you”? He who reigns over all, the Lord of earth and sky, is so ironically mocked as King!
Behold the Man
But the derision of Jesus as the King goes to even further extremes according to Luke. Herod is in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. Pilate, perhaps thinking that he could get rid of all responsibility in this case, sends the beaten, tortured, thorn-crowned Jesus to Herod. After all, is not Herod in charge of Galilee? And is not Jesus a Galilean?
Herod welcomes the opportunity to see Jesus who has been acclaimed by so many of the simple people, especially the outcasts, the sinners. And as Herod – who had murdered John the Baptizer – demands some sign from this “wonder-worker”, Jesus remains totally silent. “Like a sheep he is led to the slaughter, he opened not his mouth”. In angry jest, Herod has the clothes torn from Jesus’ bleeding body, and puts upon him a white garment. Eternal Wisdom mocked as the Fool!
When Jesus is returned to Pilate, the Roman Procurator decides to rid himself completely of this man Jesus and hand him over to the crowds. The representative of Caesar condemns to death the King of Kings.
Etched forever in the conscience of humankind is the picture of the Ecce Homo. A condemnation of this “world”? Yes, but even more so, a sign of the infinite Love who is God, “For us and for our salvation,” He is crowned with thorns, mocked, derided, so that we may rise out of our sinful folly into the life of Eternal and Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus the Lord!
