I cannot even imagine the pain inside His Head as the Christ endured such suffering.
The other morning, I woke up with a terrible headache.
Thank goodness this is a rare occurrence for me. But this headache was a terrible one. I felt as though there was a knife inside my head and that my eyes would pop out of my skull.
Thankfully, after some pain relief, my headache was back to normal and manageable, and I was not having to worry about the pain in my head any more for the rest of the day.
But as I was dealing with that terrible pain in my head, I stopped to reflect on the Crown of Thorns. We commemorate the Crowning of Christ with Thorns during His Passion in the Third Sorrowful Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary. And I have always meditated on that mystery as though it was just like all the others. But that day when my head seemed fit to burst from pain I reflected on that incident in the Passion and Death of Christ, and my heart was overcome.
You see, Christ was not just simply crowned with thorns. His head was already sore. He had spent the night without food or water and had been beaten and abused by His tormentors while awaiting judgement.
When He had been arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ had said, “Am I a brigand, that you had to set out to capture me with swords and clubs? I was among you teaching in the Temple day after day and you never laid hands on me. But this is to fulfil the scriptures.” (Matthew 26:55).
You see, Christ was arrested at night as though He were a criminal. In the daytime, in front of the world, nobody touched Him. But at night – in that Garden – He was arrested. And I imagine the tears He must have cried at this hypocrisy and this betrayal. He had done nothing wrong. How His head must have hurt from the emotions He repressed. And how the beatings and torments must have hurt His Holy Head.
And then – after the scourging at the Pillar – a Crown of Thorns was placed upon His head. And those thorns were long and sharp. And they were pushed down onto His Head with wooden bars by those soldiers. They penetrated the skin and the bone in some places. Some accounts by the mystics – like Venerable Maria Agreda (the Medieval Spanish nun and mystics who had visions of Christ’s suffering) – stated that some of those thorns even pierced Christ’s brain.
And I cannot even imagine the fire inside His Head as those thorns were pushed onto it. And coupled with the beatings and the scourging and the spiritual and mental and emotional anguish of His Passion, I cannot even imagine the pain inside His Head as the Christ endured such suffering.
And thinking about that suffering that day, I felt the lessening of my own poor headache in comparison. And it seems to me, that if I just spent a little more time reflecting on the suffering of my God, I would spend a little less time feeling sorry for myself and my own suffering. And that would not be a terrible thing at all…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.