Third Week in Lent, Friday. The Scourging of our Lord at the Pillar

PRAYER.

Take, O Lord, and receive. Third Week in Lent.—Friday.

The Scourging of our Lord at the Pillar. Pilate took JESUS and scourged Him.—S. JOHN XIX.

I. PRELUDE.

Let us enter the Prætorium, and see our Saviour already fastened to the Pillar, awaiting with perfect submission the cruel torment He is about to endure on account of our sins.

II. PRELUDE.

O Divine Jesus, what a profound mystery we now meditate! Give to us a right understanding of it, that we may gather therefrom courage to suffer for Thee.

I. POINT.

The submission of Jesus to His Father's Will.

The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. In contemplating this terrible scene of the Flagellation, our attention should be arrested, not by the inhuman crowd who came for the gratifying of their barbarous love of cruelty, nor by the brutal men who were there to tear with their scourges the Sacred Flesh of the Saviour, but by that Adorable Victim, Who in expiation of our sins, acquiesced calmly in the judgment pronounced, that His Body should be thus tortured. We see Him standing there, no murmur escaping His Lips; His aspect betokening perfect resignation to the will of His Heavenly Father, to Whose decree He submitted with entire respect. O my Father—He seems to say—I am ready to receive these strokes of Thy Divine Justice. I give My Body into the hands of these men to be torn with scourges, but it is because Thou hast so ordained. How generous, how unparalleled is the loving obedience of Jesus! Are we submissive as He to the commands of God? do we accept afflictions with humility and courage for love of Him, and for our sanctification? Thy heroic virtues, O Saviour Jesus, should inspire us with an ardent desire of copying them—of being bound to the Pillar with Thee by the cords of love and obedience. Thus, by being united to Thee in suffering, may we receive strength from this mystical union, and accept with resignation whatever punishment Thy Justice may inflict.

II. POINT.

Our sensuality has been the cause of the Scourging of Jesus.

We ourselves have inflicted on our Saviour this terrible punishment, by our sins of sensuality.—How can we be so insensible to the tortures He endured during the Flagellation as ever to allow our unmortified senses to have dominion over us? They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh. —Our Dear Lord is stripped of His garments, and His Pure and Sacred Body is beaten with whips and rods. His Precious Blood flows, and as the strokes are given with redoubled fury, the Flesh is torn away:—still the scourging continues, until some one standing near, believing that He will die too soon if it be continued, cuts the cords which bind Him, and Jesus falls, bathed in His own Blood. What a scene of heart-rending cruelty! In what detestation does God hold the sins which scourged His Son! How incomprehensible is His Charity! Let us look upon His Wounds as fountains, whence flow, continually, streams of grace. How thankless should we be if we wounded Him afresh by any unfaithfulness to that grace, which is all-sufficient to enable one to lead a life, not only of Christian mortification, but of angelic purity.

COLLOQUY.

My Saviour, grant that by the merits of Thy cruel Scourging, by the Wounds thereby inflicted on thy Sacred Body, I may be delivered from all tendencies to sensuality. For love of Thee may I hate all that caused Thee so much suffering, and keeping my senses under the control of Thy holy law, prove my gratitude to Thee for having called me to the practice of daily mortification, and of angelical purity.

RESOLUTION.

For love of Jesus, and to resemble Him, I will mortify my senses, and practise some definite act of mortification every day.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.

He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for our sins.

PRAYER.

Soul of Christ.