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| Author Susan Fox |
by Susan Fox
“To the sprinkled blood
that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.” (Heb 12:24)
So we learn in Hebrews that the
Blood of Jesus Christ is mightier than that of the first martyr of Genesis -- the
innocent Abel, victim of Cain’s envy and fratricide.
For though Abel still speaks
from the dead, yet he is dust and to dust he shall return. Not so Christ. “Earth does not cover over the blood of our Redeemer,
for every sinner, as he drinks the blood that is the price of his redemption,
offers praise and thanksgiving, and to the best of his power makes that blood
known to all around him.” (From Reflections on Job by Pope St. Gregory the Great)
And what does the Blood of
Christ say? Life!
He begs for life for His persecutors! “The blood of Jesus calls out more eloquently than Abel’s,
for the blood of Abel asked for the death of Cain, the fratricide, while the
blood of the Lord has asked for, and obtained, life for his persecutors.” ( St. Gregory the Great)
“Is it possible to offer,
or even to imagine, a purer kind of prayer than that which shows mercy to one’s
torturer’s by making intercession for them?” the Holy Pope Gregory added. Yet
His persecutors will no longer spare the lives of their unborn children, nor
their own lives. Cowards, they fear
suffering so they ask doctors to bear the burden of their murders.
Yet the Precious
Blood still speaks from the cross, “Father, forgive them
for they know not what they do!” More than ever that applies to the hurt inflicted on
innocent people today.
But I have
to laugh. It is Lent, and the Islamic State, which has kidnapped whole families,
murdered people brutally by burning and beheading, is now threatening to kill Pope
Francis. His response? In summary, that’s up to God. But I pray it won’t hurt.
In his
prayer to God, Pope Francis said, “I ask you just one favor: that it doesn't
hurt because I am a big wimp when it comes to physical pain.” Me too, Holy
Father, I’m a wimp.
Was that
not Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? “Father,
if You are willing, remove this cup from Me.” Any sane, sensible person would pray
that.
But the
Mighty Message of the Precious Blood in the Garden is: “Father, not My will,
but Yours be done.” Hmm. He echoes His Mother: “Be it done to me according to Your Word.”
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"Don't lay a hand on the boy!" the angel said.
"Do not hurt him in any way, |
The “cup”
did pass Isaac, carrying his heavy burden of wood up Mount Moriah, apparently
unaware that his father, Abraham, planned to sacrifice him when they arrived at
the top. For -- as a test -- God had
asked Abraham to take his son, his “only son, whom you
love,” and offer
him as a burnt offering to God.
Abraham
obeyed, and on the way up the mountain, Isaac poignantly reminds his father,
that they have the wood and the fire, “but where
is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
“God Himself shall
provide the lamb for the sacrifice,” Abraham unknowingly prophesizes. Hark! Do you hear the Voice
of the Holy Spirit? Slicing through time 2,000 years later, God Himself did
indeed provide the Lamb for the sacrifice. Isaac was spared on Mount Moriah,
and a ram offered in his stead. Abraham had so completely offered his son in
his heart, that he received him back like one raised from the dead. (Heb 11:19)
But Jesus was truly, thoroughly and completely sacrificed
on Mount Moriah. “For God so loved the world He sent His only Son.” On the third day, His Father, mother
and His friends received Him back –literally raised from the dead.
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"Behold! The Lamb of God Who takes away the
sins of the world." |
It was a
literal fulfillment of Abraham’s offering of Isaac, "On the mount of the Lord it [the final offering for sin]
will be provided." (Gen 22:14)
Dear God,
in Jesus’ case I know it hurt.
Meditating
on the Passion of Christ is a means of overcoming sin and growing in holiness.
The priest who says Mass for us daily at the Augustine Institute in Denver
advises us to say only the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary during Lent. Woe,
my least favorite mysteries.
But for
incentive consider the fact that of the 12 apostles, only John the Beloved was
present at the foot of the cross during the crucifixion. But ALL the apostles
(save Judas the Betrayer) were painfully martyred -- except John. He died of natural causes.
So over the
centuries since Christ died, it has been very popular to meditate on the
sufferings of Christ. It is said Our Lady herself walked back over the ground
Christ covered during his final hours meditating on His Passion and Death. I
have been told on good authority that we only know a small percentage of what He
suffered.
But I also
know not to ask God about the rest unless I am prepared to experience it myself.
Rwandan teenager Segatashya of Kibeho
taught me that.
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| Segatashya of Kibeho |
He had a
series of visions of Jesus starting in the summer of 1982 when a beautiful
voice said to him, “You there, my child! If you are given a message to deliver
to the world, will you deliver it?” Sure he would. He wanted to deliver that
message, according to “The Boy who met
Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho” by Immaculee Ilibagiza.
What is so
unusual about Segatashya is that he was literally that little pagan boy from
Africa that we American Catholic kids always prayed for in the '50s and ‘60s.
He couldn’t read even up to the day he died in the Rwandan genocide that killed
more than a million innocent people in 100 days in 1994. It was a genocide he
had witnessed 10 years before in a vision from His Friend, Jesus.
He wasn’t
educated, having spent his childhood raising beans living in dire poverty. Yet
he could accurately quote Scripture from memory, and knew Catholic prayers. But
the Church uncovered evidence that nobody taught him anything about
Christianity except Jesus Himself.
During the early
‘80s, Segatashya was allowed to ask Jesus anything and he shared the answers
with the world from the heart of beautiful Africa.
He was a
very curious boy. So, of course, he asked Jesus about the suffering He endured
while on earth. The answers are reported in the findings of an official
Commission of Enquiry conducted by the Roman Catholic Church.
Jesus
answered Segatashya telling him of His sufferings recorded in the Bible: the
beatings, carrying his own cross, the whipping, the crown of thorns, the way
they nailed his hands and his feet, stuck a spear in his side. But there were
15 other tortures He suffered that people don’t know about. But Segatashya wanted to know them.
What happened next in Segatashya's relationship with Christ is similar to what happened to St. Paul right after his conversion. When Ananias was sent to St. Paul to baptize him, the Lord said, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake." (Acts 9:15-16)
“Of course,
I wanted to know every pain that the Lord endured for us because he did it for
our salvation, so I asked him to tell me what they were,” Segatashya said,
adding, “In retrospect, that was a big mistake on my part.”
Jesus sent
his mother Mary to answer Segatashya’s questions about his unknown sufferings.
She appeared to the joyful boy, ascertained he really wanted to know. “Before I
had a chance to finish the sentence, I fell to the ground and felt like someone
was smashing my body with clubs and iron rods. I shouted out in pain. There was
darkness all around me; I was traveling through a landscape of pure suffering.
I tried to stand up – but a great crushing weight kept knocking me back to the
ground, as though boulders were being dropped on me from a great height.”
The curious
boy begged Mary to stop answering his question, but “my eyes swelled shut. I
felt like my spine had snapped in two and my leg bones had been splintered.”
“It seemed
the battering would never end, but after my face smashed against the floor for
the 15th time, whatever power had me in its grip released me,” he
reported, adding “I lay on my back aching so bad I could barely breathe. I was
sure my rib cage had been crushed and my lungs ripped open.”
Our Lady
appeared and eased his suffering instantly, “My poor child,” she said
soothingly. “I was always here to take away your pain. Now you know some of the suffering my son endured to
take away the sins of the world.” **
So that’s
why this wimp blogger won’t ask Our Lord about His suffering. However, I have
picked up some information incidentally along the way without asking.
In fact
when I was 11 years old, I quite innocently attended a Catholic Discussion Group
led by the Legion of Mary. The topic was the sufferings of Christ according to
a book written in the year of my birth, 1953, “A Doctor at Calvary: The Passion
of Our Lord Jesus Christ As Described by a Surgeon” by Pierre Barbet, M.D. Dr.
Barbet studied the Holy Shroud of Turin to gather his medical evidence for the
crucifixion. It’s advertised this way: “What the gospels don’t reveal about
Christ’s suffering, science does.”
That Catholic
discussion was 50 years ago, and I still remember it! Christ, whose feet were
nailed to the cross, couldn’t breathe unless he used his legs to push His Body
up. So for the entire three hours He hung on the cross, He stayed alive by struggling,
suffocating and pushing up on the nails imprisoning His feet to the cross.
The Blood from
the Feet of Christ speaks mightily to every single one of us: “I willed to die
for you. I wanted to take away your sin -- even before you were born!”
Do you know
those two great commandments? Love the Lord your God with your whole heart,
soul, strength and being, and your neighbor as yourself? We always focus on ourselves
-- how we must love God and neighbor, but how often do we put on God’s glasses
and look at ourselves?
Evidence of
His Death on the cross demonstrates He loved each and every one of us passionately
with His Whole Heart, His Whole Soul, His Whole Being and with His WHOLE
STRENGTH.
“Even now,
years later, it's hard to be confronted with the Passion narratives without the
thought of Christ as a doomed patient who suffered a fate worse than death
before finally dying in one of the worst ways imaginable. I'm amazed he
had the presence of mind even to recite psalms as he did. If he had been
taken down from the cross and brought into my Operating Room for resuscitation,
I don't know if we could have saved him,” she wrote, explaining in medical
terms that He suffered fluid loss, low electrolytes, and he was “hypoxic
(deadly lack of oxygen in the blood) and hypercarbic (high carbon dioxide) from
the slow suffocation caused by hanging on the cross.”
“To be honest,
I can get distracted identifying with what I imagine to have happened to him.
The excruciating agony of nails being hammered through bone. The
muscles cramps. The claustrophobic sense of panic at being pinned to something
in an uncomfortable position. The unrelenting pain of head wounds, scourge
wounds, bruises from beatings. The asphyxia. I can't get past these
very physical, physiologic things.”
The
physical sufferings are only a small part of Jesus’ Passion. Consider the shock
of the people watching the crucifixion. They had witnessed Him raise the dead,
heal the sick, forgive sins, and expel demons. Now He did nothing to defend
Himself.
The envious
chief priests, scribes and elders gloated over His sufferings. They taunted
Him: “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is
the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe
in Him. He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He
said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matt
27:42-43) Even the
criminals taunted Him: “One of the criminals
who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, ‘Are You not the
Christ? Save Yourself and us!’" (Luke 23:39)
Excruciating
Humility is the response of the Precious Blood in that moment. The Lamb of God was
silent in the face of such persecution. He let the insults go unanswered.
There is so
much more. Christ’s Blood speaks
courageously in silence during the scourging.
In the Garden, it encouraged His apostles to pray so they would withstand the
coming temptations. It poured from His Head while the soldiers crowned Him with
thorns. He, the True King of all Nations, was regally silent when His Kingship
was mocked. The Blood was kind, working miracles as He met grieving people
while carrying His cross. The Precious Blood was generous giving His own mother
to mankind from the cross.
The Blood withstood
the arrogance of Pilate, admonishing him in the midst of his pride: “So Pilate said to Him, "You do not speak to me? Do
You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to
crucify You?" Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over Me,
unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to
you has the greater sin." (John 19:10-11)
A priest
friend of mine one night looked up at the cross and saw Christ actually present
suffering on the cross. Strangely, Christ was smiling, the priest said. “Is
that you Lord?” he asked with a painful squint.
“Yes, it’s
Me.”
“Why are
you smiling, Lord?”
“I’m
smiling because I’m happy I died for you,” Christ simply told the priest.
It is the same
message found in the physical evidence of the crucifixion. It is the same message Early
Christians shared in their eyewitness accounts of these events recorded in Holy
Scripture.
But the
Blood of our Redemption still speaks. Now it is never silent. To make
sure He was dead after the crucifixion, they pieced His side with a spear, “And immediately blood and water came out.” (John 19:34)
And a New Birth
took place.
The Church,
the Precious Bride of Christ, was born from His Side. Just as God took a rib
from Adam to make Eve, so Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection created the New
Eve, the Church destined to be living mother to God’s children until the end of
time.
"O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You!" (Prayer from the Chaplet of Divine Mercy)
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The red and white rays from the side of
Jesus, Divine Mercy, represent the
life-giving Blood of the Eucharist
and the waters of Baptism |
The Living Blood
from the side of Christ flows into the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, of
which all the faithful may partake, Baptism once for all sin, and Eucharist daily
to strengthen us in the journey. “The blood that is
drunk, the blood of redemption, is itself the cry of our Redeemer,” Pope Saint Gregory said.
Then there
are the cool white robes we get to wear in the next life after we survive the
tribulation. Strangely, they are washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and made white.
(Rev. 7:14)
Who knew?
Tide is not necessary, only the Blood of Christ.
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Christ, Our High Priest,
makes atonement for our sins |
“But you
have come to Christ, the true high priest. Through his blood he has made God
turn to you in mercy and has reconciled you with the Father. You must not think
simply of ordinary blood but you must learn to recognize instead the blood of
the Word. Listen to him as he tells you: This is my blood, which will be shed for you for
the forgiveness of sins. (From a homily on Leviticus by Origen)
**Lest
you think Our Lord and Our Lady were mean to the teenager Segatashya of Kibeho, they were actually kind. He was being
prepared for one of the most difficult apostolates I’ve ever read about. His message was rejected, he was subjected to beatings, prison, he witnessed atrocities and demonic attacks. Plus he knew
he would be killed at a young age in the Rwandan Genocide, and I’m sure he
faced that with courage and trust in Our Lord, happy and joyful to be seeing
his Friend at last.
Did you enjoy this piece? Maybe you would like a Lenten poem by Susan Fox on "The Beloved." It refers to the Beloved Son of God, Jesus Christ.
