THE
FIVE
SORROWFUL
MYSTERIES


“Come down off that cross
if you are God’s Son!”
Matthew 27:40

1

THE AGONY
IN THE GARDEN

Jesus came to the entrance of the garden,
hesitated and then walked in.

Right now,
Jesus had an overpowering need to pray.

He needed time,
time to be with his Father,
for strength, strength to do his will.

He walked deeper and deeper into the garden,
into the agony,
into the garden of Fear.

And there on the table of fear
was the chalice of pain,
the cup of death.

It was easy to drink the cup of wine at supper,
but now to drink this cup of sorrows,
this cup of suffering,
knowing the end was near,
this was the agony in the garden.

The wine tonight in the upper room tasted good.

It should have; it was with friends.

But tomorrow, the wine will turn to vinegar.

It will have the sour taste of betrayal.

Right now he needed friends, not enemies,
wine not vinegar.

He needed the presence of Peter, James and John
as he was about to climb the mountain of disfiguration.

They were exhilarated
when they climbed the mountain of transfiguration.

Could they not watch one hour with him?

He hoped Judas was far away.

Jesus fell down,
falling deeper into prayer,
deeper into the agony.

Fear filled his night.

Sounds of hammers, hatred, spit,
filled the cup in front of him.
“Father, if it is possible,
let this cup pass me by,
but not my will,
but your will be done.”

Jesus, you are facing,
you are making the major decision of your life.

Yes or no?

Acceptance or rejection?

The hard or easy side of life?

“Why do things have to be this way Father?”

A garden is for walking in the cool of the evening.
A garden is for delights,
to eat only the good fruit,
to avoid the tree of evil,
the bitter fruit of life.

These moments
were like the moments of temptation in the desert,
the wanting and the not wanting to do the Father’s will.

Suddenly,
while his friends slept
Jesus heard the footsteps of betrayal behind his back,
and quickly he grabbed the cup before him.

“Yes, Father, I have come to do your will.”

2

THE SCOURGING
AT THE PILLAR

Jesus is arrested, stripped and beaten.
Blood begins to flow down his back.
Prison brutality.

The Lamb stands there silently
before being led to the slaughterhouse.

Why this extra cruelty?

Why does the human heart have this extra cavity of evil,
this extra beat of brutality?

Salt in the wounds.
Kicking a person when they are down.
Stabbing the already dead (in the back).
Rubbing it in.

Not just betrayed by Judas,
but kissed by him,
and in the very act of betrayal.

Not just whipped by soldiers,
but mocked by them as they hit him.

Why are people like this? Why?

Jesus’ back slashed like a tire, cut,
and the soldiers continued
with their nervous laughter called evil.

Why do people seem to treat religious
and political prisoners worse?

Who are the people down through the years
who have had to face the same tortures
that Jesus had to face?

Did Jesus’ death make any difference?

Does each person give pain differently?

Does evil and cruelty spill over
onto how a person treats a wife,
or husband, or child,
or the people one bumps into in the market place,
or in traffic on the way home from hurting a someone?

Does each cruel lash of the whip
effect the one who does the whipping,
the one who does the laughing,
the one who gives the orders?

Lord, have mercy on us in our cruelty?

3

THE CROWNING
WITH THORNS

Next the soldiers decided
to become even nastier.

Was it because
they wanted to impress each other
with their “bravery”?

Was it because of their anger
of being stationed in Jerusalem,
far away from home?

Was it because
this was the way they wanted to treat all Jews?

To have fun at the expense of another.

To treat another person as a thing,
an abortion of one’s own feelings,
to cease to be human during moments of cruelty.

By now Jesus was dazed
by those bullets of cruelty shot into him.

To cause even further pain
because he was a Jew,
because he talked of a kingdom,
they said,
“Let’s make him the King of the Jews.”

They grabbed a scarlet cloak
and wrapped it around his scarlet body.

Did they do this
to shield their eyes
from the cuts on Jesus’ back,
the graffiti of hatred?

Then someone thought up the idea
of a crown of thorns.

Like a spoiled child,
this cruel one went up
and placed it gingerly on Jesus’ head.

“We mustn’t hurt the king,
mustn’t we,”
was his crack
as he stepped back laughing at his own joke.

“What about his scepter?”“Every king has a scepter?”

Someone then grabbed a reed
and stuck it in Jesus’ hand.

“Now there’s a king for you.”

One by one each soldier came up
laughing and genuflecting before Jesus,
“All hail king of the Jews.”

Suddenly the ugliness
of what they were doing hit them
and they had to hide.

Quickly, they began to look
for even crueler masks to wear.

They grabbed the mask of spit.

They began to hit his head violently with the reed.

Why? Is there a point in cruelty
when a person realizes
that the other person is a person?

Is there a point of torture
when the torturer realizes
he is actually torturing parts of himself –
the better parts?

Is there a point of no return?

Is there a moment
in the heat of anger or cruelty or war,
when a person realizes
he has let his nerves become barbed wire,
fencing in the God of love within him?

Did the crown of thorns,
the horror of that night pierce
or cut into any of those soldiers?

Can brutality lead to love?

Can the beast become a beauty?

Can a person change?

Is there redemption?

Is there resurrection for the dead?

4

THE CARRYING
OF THE CROSS

Jesus is made to carry his cross.

The Roman soldiers lined up the three men
whose turn it was to die that day.

Death row. Death march. The death of Christ.

He predicted it,
“If anyone wishes to come after me,
he must deny his very self,
take up his cross
and begin to follow in my footsteps.”

The soldiers swung open the gate
and shoved the three criminals out to the narrow street,
the narrow WAY of the cross that leads to Calvary.

Like a sheep
he was being led to the slaughter.

On both sides of the WAY
a fence of people watched, amazed, dazed, dumb,
completely unaware of who it was
who was really going by.

Jesus just hoped that the little children
wouldn’t see what was happening.

Man being dragged by man to death.
(Taller people block out kids view)

The universal crime that has existed
since the time of Cain:
brother killing brother,
hatred feeding hatred,
jealousy eating jealously,
the sin of Cain
letting evil flood one’s head
and drown love and the conscience within.

Hail Mary.

Jesus sees his mother along the way.

Sorrow.
Horror.
A sword pierces Jesus heart
as his eyes meet hers.

He falls.

Women cry.

Lugging this stupid piece of wood.

How ridiculous can people be
in the way they treat each other?

Jesus stumbles on,
through the heat,
through the cold, through hell.

He’s making a path through the world,
through the desert,
leaving a path for us to follow,
the WAY of the cross.

And then Jesus sees Calvary,
that hill, that Hell,
that had been overshadowing his life
for all these years.

Father, we finally made it.
Into your hands, I commend my spirit.

5

THE DEATH
ON THE CROSS

Jesus hangs there high above the world,
pleading for all people
for all time
to love one another.
“Greater love than this no one has
that he lay down his life for his friends”

Jesus hangs there begging us
with arms outstretched,
pinned back,
to forgive one another,
every time someone hurts us,
every time someone crucifies us.

Eat hatred.
Drink mistakes.
Bear with one another.

Yet the world rejects
that message of the cross as stupid.

The world rejects
what the world is waiting for.

And so to keep Jesus out of our lives,
they killed Jesus,
outside the city,
in a place they could avoid.

He hangs there on that cross
high above the crowd,
high above the altar,
high above the churches,
casting a shadow on the world.

“We adore you O Christ
and we bless you
because by your holy cross
you have redeemed the world.”

Crosses.
Road crosses.
Paths cross.
Love crosses.

The possibility of love or despair.

My way going against your way - the cross.

The inability to get along with each other - the cross.

Yet we wear them around our neck,
and pin them on bedroom walls,
and often they become as meaningless
as a book of matches.

I have come to cast fire on the earth.

Jesus forgave us
for we do not know what we are doing.

Mary does.

She kneels there beneath the cross,
beneath the tree.

Present with Jesus till the end.
She feels everything –
the blood,
the crude remarks from the crowd,
and then the last words of love
that flowed from his lips.

She knows that somehow
all this has a reason,
that it’s all part of the Father’s plan.

Somehow this crucifixion
is the answer to evil.

Somehow this cross
is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
hatred and love.

Like Mary,
all of us must leave the city
and climb to the top of this hill
and sit under this tree
and eat of the fruit of this tree
and eat of the it as Mary did.

The new Eve offers us
the fruit of it to eat.
It’s Christ.

Christ through this sacrifice gives of himself to eat.
Blessed is the fruit of you womb, Jesus.

THE
FIVE
GLORIOUS
MYSTERIES

“On their way down the mountain,
he urged them not to tell anyone
what they had seen
until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
They seized upon those words,
and discussed them among themselves
what this ‘rising from the dead’ could mean.”
Mark 9: 9-10