Warning: this is a bit longer, but a good use of time.

I have always made it a practice, beyond the traditional fasting, praying and alms giving, to add something additional to my fast.  This year, I have been doing a reflection on the Passion of the Lord during Lent as the added portion of my Lenten experience. Below is my pondering through the wounds of the Lord and what I have been meditating on. This is what I will do for each day of Holy Week as I prepare for Easter. May it assist you in your preparation for the Holy Triduum.

The Lord’s Supper

The heart of the Lord is very heavy as His love cries out for the redemption of humanity. Personally, He knows that the heart of Judas has hardened and the thought of losing one of His own chosen Apostles causes great agony. Love cries out for the lost, it always desires union, it doesn’t rest until the lost are saved. This has been Jesus’ motivation through his entire public ministry.

Lord:

• Show me the ways I wander off from you.
• Show me how I have closed off my heart.
• Show me what or who I am perusing instead of you.
• Show me the places in my life where you are not enough for me.

The Marriage Vows

During the Lord’s supper, which is the celebration of the Jewish Passover Feast, Jesus introduces new things into the rubrics of the Passover Prayers and movements. The two critical additions that are not a part of the Passover celebration are:

“TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.”

And

“TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT, FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.”

The very last words that Jesus says on the cross before He dies is “It is finished”, which literally means “It is condensates.” The “IT” He is referring to is this moment during the Lord’s Supper when He gives himself to us, when He gives us His Wedding vows for nuptial union. It is at the Lord’s supper when Jesus gives himself to us for our sins. He literally spoke it into existence and then lived it out.

Lord, You gave yourself completely to us and lived out your decision (vows) in your passion. Do I:

• Wish to be married to you forever?
• Give myself to you completely today and at every Mass?
• Believe that you are truly present: in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity?
• Come to every Mass in a state of purity to receive you in the Blessed Sacrament?
• Reaffirm my resolve to live for you since you died for me?

The Garden

The Lord has left the Passover celebration BEFORE He concluded the rite and led His apostles to the garden on Mount of Olives. Jesus takes His closest companions to this place where He must affirm His commitment to suffer for all of us. He looks to them to stand by Him during the beginning of this tumultuous time.

Lord, Help me to see the truth of my relationship with you. Do I:

• Stand by you and try to carry your burden?
• Seek to enter into your suffering so as you lighten your burden?
• Stand for you in public?
• Do I give witness to you before others?
• Seek to defend your Truth or cower when threatened by fear?
• Remain firmly by you in the face of personal rejection or persecution?

The Interrogations

Throughout the three interrogations, Jesus humbly submits His divinity to the authority of the Sanhedrin, Pilot and King Herod. Neither of which have any real authority over Jesus, but His Father has ordained for this to happen and Jesus obeys.

Lord, Shine the light of your love in my heart and reveal to me the times when:

• I deny your divinity by doubting in your ability to sustain my life.
• I arrogantly consider myself your equal by demanding you to prove yourself to me.
• I foolishly assume you to be powerless because you choose not to act in the way I wanted.
• I reject you outright because I can’t understand what you are doing nor who you really are.

The Crown of Thorns

As an attempt to appease the Sanhedrin, Pilot commands that You be scourged. The Soldiers taunt You, spit in Your face, blindfold You, hit You and mock Your kingship with a crown of thorns. Lord, each time You experience the crown of thorns, You make reparations for the vile and evil thoughts of men. You gave us the ability to reason and instead of using this gift to honor You, we use to it for panning and harboring evil.

Lord:

• Make me aware of the pain you experienced by each thorn forced into Your head.
• Make me aware of my evil thoughts that drive that crown into Your head.
• Show me how I mock Your kingship by the way I live my life.
• Forgive me for the times I have considered You my equal instead of my God.

The Selection of Barrabas

The moment of decision comes, but the Heavenly Father ordains that a sinner would be freed and Jesus is condemned to death by Crucifixion. On this day an innocent man is condemned to death because the good people, out of fear, remained silent. As Jesus stands before the crowd, beaten and broken, scanning the faces of those He recognized, taught, and even healed, how painful it was to see that no one would stand for Him.

Oh Jesus:

• Show me the numerous times I remained silent when I should have spoken up.
• Show me when I obeyed my fears rather than your call to give witness to you.
• Show me the many times I put my needs and cares before yours.
• Show me my weakness in giving my life to and for you.

The Scourging

The atonement of Man was not just the death of the Christ, but His suffering as well. As the “cat of nine tails” penetrates the flesh of your shoulders, back, buttocks and hamstrings, Your flesh is beaten and torn into ribbons. By the time the soldiers are done, those parts of Your body are unrecognizable as human.

My Jesus:

• You came to set the captives free, help me to understand the real cost.
• By your stripes we have been healed, help me to claim this fact for my life.
• Help me understand the true depth of Your love that absorbs all evil.
• Teach me how to love like You so that I might join You in this horrific suffering.
• Allow Your love to grow in me such that I desire to take this beating from You, so as to make Your suffering easier.

The Stripping

Like the scourging, You are stripped of Your clothes and laid bear for all to see. The pain of removing the cloth stuck to Your back as Your body struggles to heal itself from the scourging, forces You to relive all that pain again. The shame of Your nakedness is given to cover our shame.

Jesus:

• Help me to see the ways in which You can relate to my shame.
• Help me understand how Your nakedness on the cross covers my nakedness caused by sin.
• Help me to see how Your dishonor restores my honor when I am united to You.
• Help me to grasp how the tremendous love of Your decision to allow them to take Your clothes and hang You naked swallows up the evil done to us by other’s sin.

The Nails

The integrity of Your flesh has already been broken by the cat of nine tails but now, on the cross, a new evil penetrates Your flesh. Only the Roman Empire, who ruled the world by fear, could come up with a means of execution that causes such great suffering to stay alive.

My Love:

• Allow me to reflect on the pain You experienced as the nails penetrated Your palms and the arches of Your feet.
• Do not allow me to turn away, but help me imagine the nail going through my hand and binding it to the cross.
• I need not cut off my right hand when I sin with it, because Your right hand was nailed to the tree. Every sin, where my hands were used, have been atoned by Your loving reception of the nails.
• Give me the grace to imagine the nail going through both feet. Help me to understand the cost of taking each breath while putting all my weight on that one nail.
• Help me to understand all the sins that required my feet. They ways I used my feet to run toward or participate in the sin or walk away from doing what was the right and the good and the true.

The Lance

You come to the end of Your time on the cross. You declare Your thirst and take a sip from a wine-soaked sponge (the fourth time you drink from the cup) that is required to complete the Passover Sacrifice, and You say the final words concluding the real sacrifice – “It is finished!” Then You die and rushed to hell, to snatch the keys away from Satan. Through Your profound death, You have conquered sin and death and freed every soul that truly wants You. The soldier seeing You already dead, stabs Your chest with his lance, revealing the reason why You were already dead while the other two thieves were still alive. Your heart ruptured as the cavity surrounding Your heart filled with water. The pressure became so high that Your heart literally ruptured. You died, my Lord, of a broken heart!

Oh My Jesus:

• Show me the depth of Your love. A love so great that it willingly sought to suffer for love of me.
• As the lance is removed from Your side, water and blood rush out to declare to the world that Your love has conquered sin. Give me the grace to understand the implications of that truth for the rest of my life on earth.
• Forgive me for giving You a reason to suffer and die for me.
• Teach me to love as You love – selflessly.
• Teach me to want to bring people together, to share in Your love.
• Teach me to sacrifice my heart so that the living waters may flow through it like the blood flowed from Yours.

Jesus, we both know that I can’t do any of this without You. Send Your Spirit to teach me how and empower me with the courage and strength to love others in a complete way.

“IT IS FINISHED”

Thank You, Jesus, for loving me so completely!