The Five Sorrowful Mysteries are my favorites of the Twenty Mysteries of the Rosary. I think it is because they make sense of the suffering we encounter in our life in this world. Love all of the Mysteries but they are my anchor. The Sorrowful Mysteries are as follows.
1) The Anguish of Jesus in the Garden
This mystery is a very special one to me. There was one point in my career when I was in my mid 30s with a wife and 4 kids when my anxiety with work was so great that I didn't feel I could face another 30 years of it. I was sitting on the bathroom floor at 2 am, contemplating suicide, feeling very alone. And Jesus spoke to me and said, "I know how you feel." Surprised I responded, "You do?!" And He said, "Yes, remember in the Garden of Gethsemane when I was in such anguish (anxiety, fear) that I sweat great drops like blood?" And amazed, I said, "Oh yeah, wow, I guess You really do know how I feel." And hope returned to me and I am still here walking with Jesus. I was no longer alone. Jesus knows how we feel and we can come to Him with our anger and fears and struggles.
When I am praying this mystery, I bring my anxiety and distress along with those of others and offer them up to Jesus and I ask that He will be with us and help us with them.
2) The Scourging of Jesus at the Pillar
Lately, it has been being impressed upon me that this mystery includes Jesus taking our anger at God upon Himself. All of us are angry at and resentful of God at different points in our lives. He often simply doesn't do things our way! And so I picture the soldiers symbolically but literally whipping him in our fury. And we whip Him still when we vent our anger on "one of the least of these, His brethren".
But there is also hope in this mystery, I think. Because Jesus became the focal point in our anger at God and He took that anger upon Himself, paradoxically, it brings healing and reconciliation with God to us. By His stripes we are healed as it says in Isaiah 53:5. It also means that Jesus knows how we feel when we are enduring the rage of others towards us.
When I am praying this mystery, I pray for all who may be the recipients of such anger that Jesus would be with us and help us to respond in patient love as He did.
3) The Crowning of Jesus with Thorns
Matthew 27 NABRE
27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him. 28 They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him. 29 Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 They spat upon him and took the reed and kept striking him on the head. 31 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him.
The next step after punishing God in our anger, now that we have Him in our power (so we think), in our sadistic leisure, we can turn to mockery. This mockery did not end even when Jesus was on the cross. And we participate in this mockery in our treatment of others when we trample their dignity and when we scoff at the Gospel. As Stuart Townend says in his hymn, How Deep The Father's Love For Us, "Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers."
But even when we are the ones being mocked, Jesus is there with us. And I pray for all who are being mocked and belittled.
4) The Carrying of His Cross by Jesus
In this mystery, we see Jesus being made to carry the means of His own execution through the streets of Jerusalem, a rough heavy beam, even though he has already been flogged and crowned with thorns. The streets are lined with people, some mocking, some grieving, some rejoicing. Some reach out to Him to wipe His face and comfort Him. In the Stations of the Cross, there are St. Veronica and Mary, His mother.
When I am meditating on this long endurance, this long struggle of Jesus, I am often led to pray for those I know who are struggling with long serious illnesses or difficult situations, their crosses. I ask Jesus to give them faith, hope and love to see them through the storm and to bring them through to the other side.
When we entrust ourselves into His care and offer up our suffering to Him, trusting in His goodness and compassion and that He knows what it is like, then He can turn those times into something beautiful.
5) The Crucifixion of Jesus on the Cross
