VIII. The Crowning with Thorns - Mary's Protestations

O sweetest Mother! is your heart not yet broken by the doleful emotions resulting from the scourging of your Son? Retire from the awful scene of His dolors. Suffice it to follow in spirit the horrible drama which can only end by His infamous death on the cross. Your heart will have suffered more than the heart of any other mother if it confines itself to meditate in solitude on the oracles now almost accomplished, and which, alas! you know too well. O Mother of tender compassion, come away!

But She will not; She will see Him again when the soldiers, after having loaded Him with insults, clothe Him as a mock-king and crown Him with thorns, thus presenting Him to the people. At a distance Mary witnesses the horrible scene expressed in the immortal words, Ecce Homo - "Behold the Man." It is the word of Pilate. It is taken up with cruel derision by the crowd. Not a word of pity is heard. On the contrary, shouts full of contempt and anger fill the air. O His grief-stricken Mother! How She must suffer! Every thorn that pierces the head of Her Son pierces Her heart; every blasphemous word She hears grossly insults Her love, The thorns She accepts with resignation, but She repels the blasphemies by acts of profound and sublime adoration.

O my Jesus! She would say, true King of Wisdom! true Solomon indeed, you have called me and I am come, like the daughter of Sion, to behold the diadem with which your cruel step-mother, the Jewish Synagogue, has encircled your brow. She endeavors to turn into mockery your eternal royalty; but in spite of her jealous fury, in spite of your deep humiliations, you will always be King of angels and of men; King of all true Israelites; King of the entire world; King of my heart. More than ever do I believe in the words of the angel who, in the name of the Eternal Father, promised you the throne of David your father and a kingdom that shall have no end. Ave Rex! - Hail, O King!

These are the protestations of His holy Mother. Let us unite in- them with our whole heart. If grinding care and bitter anguish and deep disgrace should be our lot, let us accept them joyfully as the thorns of our lives, sent us by the hand of God. But above all things let us protest with all the force of our Christian love against the blasphemies which insult our divine Master Jesus Christ. In this our day there seems to be no obstacle to the blasphemies of impious men; no fear of God, no human law, no revolt of public opinion. We see them shamelessly spread abroad in our daily papers, which a morbid curiosity literally devours. It is one of the greatest sins of the day. Yet our rulers and our law-makers of whom repression is demanded tell us they see in it no crime. No crime! O my Saviour, to treat Thee as Thou wert treated by Thy executioners at the time of Thy Passion! No crime publicly to insult the supreme majesty of God, when the reputation of the most obscure, or even of the meanest, of men is protected by human law! What a sad reversal of all order! What an infamy! Let us never, through indifference or insensibility, be accomplices of the scandalous indulgence of which modern rulers and legislators are guilty when they refuse to avenge the outraged honor of God. And in order to atone, as far as we can, for the public blasphemies that daily offend the divine Majesty, let us, with our holy Mother, protest against them by heartfelt and profound acts of adoration. Let us say to Jesus, our holy Saviour: "Listen, O Lord! to the strong cry of our faith and of our love rising high above the contempt and injuries of a senseless multitude! Hail, O King! Ave Rex! Hail! In our eyes humiliation takes nothing from Thy glory. To us Thou wilt always be the Word of God, the splendor of His glory, the' mirror of His eternal perfections, the gift of His infinite love, our own heavenly King. We will ever be Thy humble and faithful subjects, so much the more respectful and submissive as Thou hast been more grievously offended."

Let us not content ourselves even with this general protestation, but every time we hear or read of a blasphemy offered to God let us answer bywords of adoration and praise: "May the name of the Lord be blessed from henceforth, now and for ever." (Psalm 112.) "To the King of ages, immortal and invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17)

May Jesus, our King, put into our hearts and on our lips as many words of praise and benediction as there are words of malediction on the lips of the impious.