“Then the soldiers of the governor taking Jesus into the hall, gathered together unto him the whole band; and stripping him, they put a scarlet cloak about him. And platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. And bowing the knee before him, they mocked him, saying;’ Hail, King of the Jews.’ And spitting upon him, they took the reed, and struck his head.”
After Jesus is flogged, covered in blood, He is taken before the soldiers. He had been charged by the scribes and priests for taking charge of the Jewish nation: “He seduceth the people” (John 7:12), and Rome seeks to display its might by reducing the King of Israel to a tortured mockery. In His Passion, no outrage was omitted, for His body was ripped, His face spat upon and slapped, mockery and abandonment were His drink: “In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 68:22), and your vocation, Theophila, is to love Him in this place, to be the hand He may hold in His darkness, that lovers may stand together in unity. Now, there are multiple spiritual meanings to be accessed in the crowning with thorns: The first is that Jesus suffered horrendously that you may live a life more beautiful than Adam and Eve before the Fall: “And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure” (Genesis 2:15), not by an excess of pleasures, but in the fulness of knowing His love, thus does St. Paul say: “The things that were gain to me, the same I have counted loss for Christ” (Philippians 3:7), for all that occupies the soul that is not Christ, takes away from His presence of love in you: “But one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). Thus, by meditating on the scourges of His body, the scourges on your heart will be healed, and what hinders His love to you will fall before the ocean of His love: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). The scarlet robe is the dignity of martyrdom, in which He shares, for dying for love is the pinnacle of romance: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), The crown of thorns is the agonizing prick of sin upon His most holy conscience, for seeing His people choose venialities over His loving Heart causes this wound, yet, to the one that sins and then is reconciled to Him, their sins become a crown of victory, a sign of the great things that Jesus did for them through grace: “You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good, that he might exalt me, as at present you see, and might save many people” (Genesis 50:20). The reed then is the gentle scepter of His rule, for despite being the source of all might, glory, and grandeur, it is written: “Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert” (Isaias 16:1), that is, a gentle lamb rather than a roaring lion, one that does not rule by force, threat, or punishment, but by the bonds of love, compassion, and kindness: “The bruised reed he shall not break” (Isaias 42:3). This Lamb is sent from Petra, which means “rock,” meaning that He is not spineless in His gentleness, but is strong against fallen angels and worldly powers: “Judge thou, O Lord, them that wrong me: overthrow them that fight against me. Take hold of arms and shield: and rise up to help me” (Psalm 34:1-2), while being kindly and wonderful to you: “Thou hast given me the protection of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath held me up” (Psalm 17:36). Now, they crown Him with thorns who outwardly mock His divine kingship, such as belligerent atheists or those who follow demons: “For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Psalm 95:5), but they smite Him with a reed who think Him to be a demigod, a teacher, or a political figure, particularly when using the words of Sacred Scripture, signified by the reed, to bring the image of Him down from the rightful titles of Most High and That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Imagined: “His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed. My spirit trembled” (Daniel 7:14-15). They spit in His face that reject His presence by grace in Christians: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me” (Matthew 25:45) and in the Holy Eucharist: “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (John 6:54), for He promised” I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matthew 28:20), and to leave the sublime source of all good, and receive it less than as often as possible, is to close the wells of grace: “Wherefore the Palestines envying him, stopped up at that time all the wells, that the servants of his father Abraham had digged, filling them up with earth” (Genesis 26:14-15). Finally, He receives mock adoration from those who attend mass and receive communion without belief in His sacred presence in the Eucharist: “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:29), or that attend and then despise Him in the rest of their lives: “This people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me” (Isaias 29:13). Finally, they remove His own garment and clothe Him with a scarlet and purple robe who downplay the difficulty of the Christian life: “Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought: for the that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sins” (1 Peter 4:1), instead giving room to leniency: “Now it happened one day, that being wearied with burying” sin in the habits of acts of love “he came to his house, and cast himself down by the wall” of relaxation “and slept. And as he was sleeping hot dung out of a swallow’s nest” which is sin coming from the enemy’s stronghold “fell upon his eyes, and he was made blind” (Tobias 2:10-11). All of this, Theophila, is to encourage you to go against the grain in all these ways, to feast on truth: “Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8), letting it adorn your lips as doors plated with gold: “And two doors of olive tree: and he carved upon them figures of cherubims,” which are the wisdom, prayers, and lives of the saints, “and figures of palm trees,” which denote thoughts that stretch into heavenly realities, “and carvings very much projecting,” that is, not hidden within oneself, “and he overlaid them with gold: and he covered both the cherubims and the palm trees, and the other things with gold” (3 Kings 6:32) in reparation for all the sins against truth; to honor your King with fervent prayer and affection for all the hatred He bears in the world today: “Behold thou art fair, my beloved, and comely” (Canticle 1:14); to reverence Him in your neighbor: “Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy, and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience: bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also” (Colossians 3:12-13), and make the reception of Holy Communion as reverent and fiery as it is frequent: “Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you: let the people go forth, and gather what is sufficient for every day: that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law, or not” (Exodus 16:4), appreciating the utter magnificence of what is taking place when God’s body, soul, and divinity reside in your body, soul, and humanity, becoming one even more intricately than the union of lovers, and that all that is good and holy is now in your heart: “And he fed them with the fat of wheat, and filled them with honey out of the rock” (Psalm 80:17); while also making all that you do outside of the mass an act of love for God and others, no matter the cost, for love is the river that then divides into four rivers of virtue: “And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads” (Genesis 2:10), for one gathers wisdom, penance, and active and contemplative virtues from living entirely on love. Thus does David say: “His will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2), both by meditating on the Scriptures and by loving outside of prayer, that you may gather the wisdom of love and practice the art of love in your every deed: “Above all things have love, which is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14). Thus, you will remove the crown of thorns and the garments and reeds of mockery, and move the mind of the Savior from those that detest Him to you, on whom His eyes are lovingly set day and night.