Paul Thigpen - The Passion: Reflections on the Suffering and Death of Jesus Christ

M y first crucifix, a gift from my aunt, was made of white plaster, about a foot long. I was rather young, and the novelty of it fascinated me; I had seen such images only from a distance. I examined it carefully, running my fingers over each detail of the wounds, nails, and thorns.

It was beautiful. But before long I concluded that it was much too clean. Pulling out my box of water- colors, I painted it, with bloody reds and purples dominating the whole. All in white, it seemed, the Figure had looked like a ghost. Now, with livid flesh, He looked at last like a Man, if a suffering One.

Since that time, the sacred image of Christ on the Cross has met me and challenged me countless times in church, on the walls at home, and in the homes of friends. Like millions of Christians through the ages, after years of familiarity, I still find myself strangely drawn to the crucifix, to reflect on the agony portrayed there. And the images I find the most honest, I also find the most compelling: I mean the kind of dark, grisly crucifix so beloved in Latin culture, and so unsettling to our own.

Why unsettling? I once heard a religion teacher in a parochial school complain about the crucifix. She insisted that the sight of a dying Human Being on an instrument of torture simply shouldnt be tolerated in a school or even a church. Too negative, she said, too messy, too bloody, too disturbing. Think of the children!

I do think of the children. And when I do, I also think of the broken, bloody world they inhabit, the same world into which their Savior came as a Child, the same world that nailed Him to that Cross. I remember that they were born in blood, they may well die in blood, and in the meantime, they will no doubt see a great deal more of blood.

The question is not whether our children, and we ourselves, will be confronted with blood. Life itself is crimson-stained. The question is this: What kind of meaning will we find in the blood? Will we learn that life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11)? Will we know that forgiveness, healing, and grace are in the blood? Or will we believe the lies of our time that blood is a mere commodity, cheap entertainment, or the never-quite-satisfied taste of revenge?

The crucifix has much to teach us about the true meaning of blood, if we will only pay attention. A great deal of traditional Christian prayer and meditation has been precisely the attempt to pay that kind of attention. Such prayer dwells on the passion of Jesus Christ as prophesied and foreshadowed in the Old Testament; preached and remembered in the four Gospels; interpreted and lived in the rest of the New Testament.

THE POWER OF THE PASSION

The Passion is an immense thing, a supernatural and divine thing, and thus a dangerous thing. Understood, appreciated, and embraced for its own sakegenuinely, if never fullyit has the power to overthrow us and, overthrowing, to save us. Misunderstood, dismissed, or manipulated for a diabolical agenda, it still has the power to overthrow us and, overthrowing, to damn us.

The history of the Church provides ample illustrations of both kinds of encounter with the Passion. The Apostle Paul so deeply entered its depths that he bore on his body the marks of Jesus (Galatians 6:17). Yet he also wrote in tears of those he called enemies of the cross of Christ (Philippians 3:17)Christians who confused and abused the message of Christs suffering, death, and resurrection.

The horrible pogroms against Jews across the centuries display perhaps most starkly the hellish outcome when people attempt to harness the power of the Passion for selfish causes. Some Christians heard the sacred story and twisted it into a summons to vengeance against the Christ killers, refusing to recognize that they had to include themselves in that wretched category. For them, the blood of Christ was not a costly and humbling invitation to goodness, but rather a convenient and explosive excuse for evil.

Nevertheless, there were men and women in every generation who hid themselves deeply in the precious wounds of Jesus and found there the bloody womb for a new birth. The Spanish Franciscan Maria (Coronel) of Agreda and the German Augustinian Anne Catherine Emmerich were two such Christians. Excerpts from Scripture and from the works of these two women form the basis for the forty reflections on Our Lords passion presented here.

MARIA OF AGREDA (16021665)

Maria Coronel entered the convent in Agreda, Castile, as a teenager, and took the name Maria de Jesus. By the age of twenty-fiveover her protestsshe was made abbess and, except for three years, remained the superior there for the rest of her life. During the time of her administration, the convent became one of the most fervent in all Spain, and she died with a reputation for great holiness. The cause for her canonization was introduced in 1762 by the Congregation of Rites at the request of the Court of Spain.

Maria is chiefly known, however, for writing a book entitled The Mystical City of God: A Divine History of the Virgin Mother of God. Though the text focuses on the life of Mary, her life is intimately intertwined with that of her Son. So the volume in part attempts to take us up close to the events of Our Lords passion.

The Mystical City