Lenten Post 4 – Devotion to the Passion of Christ

A forebear of mine, a Catholic priest called Richard Torkington, was made the Rector of the local Parish by the Lord of the Manor, a man called Thomas Boleyn, who had a famous daughter called Ann! But Richard will be known for something more important than that, for he made a diary of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land just before the Protestant Reformation began in 1517. Henceforth, he would have a special devotion to the Passion of Christ.

St Francis of Assisi also went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was particularly devoted to the Passion of Christ so that his subsequent blindness was put down to the endless weeping for what the man he called Brother Jesus endured for our salvation. His illustrious son, St Bonaventure, who was perhaps the greatest spiritual writer of the thirteenth century, implored his readers to dwell continually on the Passion and death of Christ in prayer. It is not surprising then that the Stations of the Cross are still celebrated daily in Jerusalem by the Franciscan guardians of the Holy Land. However, this profound devotion is not the special prerogative of a particular religious order but of the whole Catholic Church.

Christ’s Passion and Death

It would be a mistake to relegate this deeply moving devotion to Lent alone, as it can take us to the heart and soul of Christ’s love for us as we gaze at fourteen terrible moments in his life when he gave his all for us. If it is not possible to do this in church, then do it at home either by physically moving from one station to another or by poring over the different scriptural accounts of Christ’s Passion and death. Imagine that you are there, gazing at the person who loves you more deeply than any other. Then, you will begin to pray, not in long sentences, but in short, pithy phrases as the situation demands.

I will not give examples from my own or others’ prayers because these expressions of love are so deeply and uniquely personal that privacy forbids it. I have, however, always used the prayer that our Parish priest prayed at the end of each station because what it expressed coincided with my own feelings:

I love you Jesus, my love, above all things. I repent with my whole heart for having offended you; never permit me to be separated from you again, grant that I may love you always, then do with me what you will.

In practising the Stations of the Cross or meditating on Christ’s Passion and death, we automatically find that our expressions of love and devotion become shorter and shorter, almost in direct proportion to the power of the feelings and emotions that rise up from within us. As in all loving words, they give way to a deep contemplative stillness when the full reality of love, or rather of being loved, begins to take hold. Christ’s love for us does the same, gradually becoming ever more engrossing, ever more enthralling, and ultimately life-changing.

The Love of Our Life

If we make this love the ongoing love of our life, it will lead us to the fullness of love, or the infinite love that God has prepared for us as our final destiny. How can infinite love be expressed in human words and actions? In short, it cannot. But the love we see expressed in the Stations of the Cross as Christ stutters and staggers in pain and agony to the place of his final humiliating death on the Cross is as close as human words and actions can come to it. Just as I have described before in this spiritual journey, the love generated in meditation must be purified before we can not only express our love for Christ in human emotions and feelings but also be united with him now in his Risen Glory. Therefore, both the love that is identified with the will as well as the love that is felt in our human emotions must be purified.

A Deep Purification

Common sense should tell us that a deep purification must occur before we can be united with God’s love as embodied in Jesus Christ. If this purification is completed in this life, as in many of the lives of the saints, then purgatory in the next will be superfluous. Contrary to the belief of the ancient Gnostics and Neoplatonists and their ‘Catholic’ descendants today, preparation for union with God includes the whole of our human personality. In other words, it does not just mean the purification of our spiritual selves, of our love, or our wills, but our bodies, too, together with the human feelings and emotions through which we express our love.

The One with whom we are to be united still has a body, albeit a mystical body, but a body, nevertheless, that has been transformed and transfigured by glory. That is why our bodies must be purified together with our human feelings and emotions. During the purification, these human emotions are dormant but not dead. After purification, they are reawakened and brought back to life, free of the evil inclinations that originally disfigured them. This reawakening enables us to be united with Christ like never before.

Transforming Union

This profound union finds its completion in this life in what the great mystics call the Mystical Marriage or the transforming union. That is why St Francis of Assisi’s tears were even more abundant after his purification than before. Because then, his human response to the sufferings of Brother Jesus was far more profoundly human than before, when having been purified, they returned to him, freed from anything that could sully their purity. That is why they were more vibrant, more expressive, and more active than ever before. This new realness impelled him to pray to share in Christ’s sufferings, and God granted him the privilege of receiving the stigmata to do so. But he also prayed to experience the love that impelled Christ to give his all for us, too.

This prayer was also granted and was to be seen in moments of ecstatic bliss and otherworldly joy that endeared him to all. They saw in him what they aspired to become—the complete human being that inspired the medieval world to call St Francis ‘The Second Christ’. Purification must include not just our hearts and minds but our bodies, too, including our human feelings and emotions, because it is only in this way that we can experience the love of God in, with, and through the physical but glorified body of Jesus Christ in this world and in the next and to all eternity. The mystery of the Transfiguration not only shows what would become of Christ and his human body after his Resurrection but what will happen to ours too when united with his.

Please continue to follow my free course on Prayer during this Lent on essentialistpress.com