Week three: Getting to know Jesus Christ - Day 6
The crucifixion. Jesus, the King. Jesus, the LOVE
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
O Holy Spirit, inspire me. God’s love, engulf me. Holy Mary, my Mother, guide me in the right ways, look at me, and together with Jesus, bless me. Keep me from all evil, from all delusions and all threats. Mary, The Spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtain for me the grace of getting to know Jesus Christ, encountering Him in the mystery of the crucifixion and discovering that the Lord comes to me in the experience of the cross and suffering, and thanks to His triumph over the death, He gives us a share in His Resurrection. Amen!
The Word of God
“Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home” (Jn 19:25‒27).
Meditation
It is Good Friday. It’s almost 3 p.m. Jesus is dying on the cross. The Lord gives His life for us. In a moment, the sky will be torn apart. At the foot of the cross, there are Jesus’ loved ones: Mary Day 6 195 with women who accompanied Jesus on the way and John the Apostle. Who believes that in this tormented Jesus, whose Body is one big wound, there lives God? Who believes that God in His great love, “He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us?” (Rm 8:32). Mary does! Therefore, she stands at the foot of the cross. And she points at Jesus as the Lord and King who—although all persecutors and executioners believe Him to be unable to do anything—may do everything! Crucified, He is King of kings and Lord of lords!
On the cross, Jesus is struggling. He is tempted: “Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross’” (Matt 27:39‒40). He’s dying. But Jesus’ agony (the Greek word agon means struggle, contest) starts already in the Gethsemane (the Hebrew name for the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives means a place for pressing oil). There, our Lord experiences trepidation and anguish. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14:36). The dramatic prayer of Jesus reveals that Christ has two natures overlapping: the human one and the divine one. The human says: I want to live! (“remove this cup from me”), yet God is ready to give His life for mankind (“yet, not what I want, but what you want”).
The Carthusian monks use to say: “Crux stat, dum volvitur orbis” (Latin: The cross stands while the world revolves). How accurate and wise! Everything may change, yet there is one constant in spiritual life. It’s called LOVE. God’s love towards people which is most fully revealed in Christ’s cross. St. John wrote: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” 196 WEEK THREE: GETTING TO KNOW JESUS CHRIST (Jn 3:17‒18). God doesn’t assess or accuse. The Lord protects and saves. And He is doing it continuously. Because “LOVE never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). Our life is in the shade of Love, in the shade of the Crucified. Father of the Church expressed that truth, stating that human life is sub crucis sacramento—under the sacrament of the cross.
Let’s look at Mary. She is persistently standing at the feet of the cross. Maybe she recalls Simeon’s prophecy about the sword piercing her soul. And suddenly she hears her Son’s words: “Woman, here is your son” (Jn 19:26). Then looking at John the Apostle: “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:27). And the disciple accepts Mary as His Mother. What a beautiful scene! We often see in Mary the path to Jesus. After all, Mary, through the mystery of Divine Motherhood, gives us Jesus. Therefore, we are led through Mary to Jesus (Latin: Per Mariam a Iesum). But at the Cross, Jesus gives us Mary. So this is a reverse way— we are led through Jesus to Mary (Latin: Per Iesum ad Mariam). An intermediary between heaven and earth gives us Mary and asks us to accept her as Mother and the most beautiful example of life!
The apostle beloved by Jesus takes Mary into his own home. He adopts Marian modus vivendi (Latin: a way of living)—a way of looking and listening, learning and comprehending, valuing and empathising. Hence, Miriam of Nazareth becomes for John and every Jesus’ disciple a model of:
– Faith: In the Bible, there is repeated four times the sentence: “The righteous live by their faith” (cf. Ha 2:4; Rm 1:17; Ga 3:11; Hebr 10:38). Only thanks to the faith, Mary survived it and didn’t die. She stands on strong feet of faith. She is standing, not fainting. She is standing and looking at the Crucified. Fathers of the Church over the ages were convinced that even on Calvary, Mary believed that death wouldn’t definitely end the earthly life of Jesus and that the Lord would rise from death!
– Hope: For her entire life, Mary had a deep confidence that God’s plan would be fulfilled. She expressed it during the Annunciation when she eagerly answered: Fiat! It can be translated: “I want it so much that it will be according to what God wants!”
– Love: All life of Miriam of Nazareth is woven from the love for God and other people. She gives the most beautiful description of her life when she sings the hymn of love to the Creator, her gratitude for all God’s works—Magnificat! “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Lk 1:46).
On Calvary, Jesus appears in the sign (the sacrament) of the cross, which expresses:
– Infinite LOVE of God: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1).
– God’s reign over the world (the Kingdom of God): “Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’” (Jn 19:19). Thus, the cross becomes the throne of Jesus the King.
– Lord’s victory over all evil: “erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col 2:14‒15).
Our life is in the shade of the cross. In the close proximity of the Crucified. Therefore, St. Paul writes: “For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well” (Phil 1:29) and “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:19‒20). These powerful words outline the perspective of experiencing every suffering in proximity and contact with the Crucified Jesus.
Spiritual reading
“Jesus Christ our Saviour, true God and true Man, ought to be the last end of all our other devotions, else they are false and delusive. Jesus Christ is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of all things. We labour not, as the Apostle says, except to render every man perfect in Jesus Christ; because it is in Him alone that the whole plenitude of the Divinity dwells, together with all the other plenitudes of graces, virtues, and perfections; because it is in Him alone that we have been blessed with all spiritual benediction; and because He is our only Master, who has to teach us; our only Lord, on whom we ought to depend; our only Head, to whom we must belong; our only Model, to whom we should conform ourselves; our only Physician, who can heal us; our only Shepherd, who can feed us; our only Way, who can lead us; our only Truth, who can make us grow; our only Life, who can animate us; and our only All in all things, who can suffice us. There has been no other name given under heaven, except the name of Jesus, by which we can be saved. (…) By Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, we can do all things; we can render all honour and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost; we can become perfect ourselves, and be to our neighbour a good odour of eternal life.
If, then, we establish the solid devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only to establish more perfectly the devotion to Jesus Christ, and to put forward an easy and secure means for finding Jesus Christ. If devotion to our Lady removed us from Jesus Christ, we should have to reject it as an illusion of the devil; but on the contrary, so far from this being the case, there is nothing which makes devotion to our Lady more necessary for us, as I have already shown, and will show still further hereafter, than that it is the means of finding Jesus Christ perfectly, of loving Him tenderly, and of serving Him faithfully.”
St. Louis de Montfort, A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 61‒62
Homework
Through the Heart of Mary I will consecrate to God all my crosses, sufferings and torments to draw the power from Christ.
Prayer of consecration
I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours, O most loving Christ, through Mary, Your most holy Mother. Amen!