The Second Sorrowful Mystery: The Scourging at the Pillar

 



Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy by His own people and by 

the authority of His own religion; the elders, the high priests and 

scribes.

 

He had performed many miracles and raised people from the dead,

during all the time that He preached to the people, the mistrust, 

the suspicion and not least: the jealousy, that this aroused by those 

in power, provoked them to persecute Him. 

They tried many times to trap Him, but as Jesus was always aware

of what was going on in other people, He escaped, until the moment

already pre-determined, when He let Himself voluntarily be captured 

by the enemy, to undergo torture before He was to die an agonizing

death on the Cross. 

 

The Jews, sticklers of the Law, knew that they had to have a specific 

charge against Him, so it was His claim that He was One with 

The Father they chose to nail Him on. 

They said it was blasphemous.

So although He had done things that no-one else could possible do, 

as they were outside the limits of what a man can do by his own 

human nature, they were so challenged and threatened by His 

Supernatural nature that they "needed" to kill Him: Jesus Christ; 

true God and true Man.

 

Many of us are a bit the same; we look at a person, or even 

ourselves, and we see only our limits, our faults, our sins, and 

we are desolate because of it.

 

That is, unless we pray, and unless we believe. 

If we believe in Him who is both God and Man, 

who became Man for the sole purpose to save us, to reconcile 

humanity to Himself after the fall of Adam, 

Adam who was the first Christ before the fall, to put us on the 

road to holiness so we can have eternal life in Him, even when 

we are living this earthly life. 

Faith. Active lively Faith.

 

The Hope that that produces captures our heart to the extent that 

our own experiences of cruelty, lies, abuse of power, slanderous 

allegations carried out against us, sometimes by those who hold 

positions in the Church, loses their power to crush and defeat us.

 

We are limited for sure, but He who lives in us, has no limit, 

He is unlimited; eternal. 

It is a question of letting Him act in us. In order for that to 

happen,we have to let go of our way of clinging on to earthly 

life, of wanting to "save ourselves", our refusal to accept pain 

and hardship;we need to unite ourselves with Our Lord and 

Saviour in His sufferings endured for us. 

He did not resist, revolt, hide from it, neither must we. 

This must become more and more present in our daily lives; 

even small "pains" like boredom can in this way become fruitful.

We must renew our way of thinking, the way we do things, 

our approach to things.

But the courage to fully enter into the reality of our life situation 

when we are afraid, when people let us down, when nobody is 

able or willing to help us,

to feel our pain fully, and in those moments too to trust in God;

this is what is asked of us.

 

And to go further, to even thank God for the particular pain, 

situation or difficulty, and being willing to suffer it in union 

with Jesus; God, as an offering, 

this is what will sanctify us.  


In this way we can never lose, we are always victorious. 

Not necessarily in the eyes of the world, but in God, who is in us.

 

Fruit of the Mystery: 

The mortification of the body and the senses. Our daily obligations.

May the grace of this Mystery come into our soul. 


 

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