“My soul is sorrowful even to death”, said Jesus to His Apostles, prior to His Passion (Mark 14:34). Many sufferings awaited Jesus, but the heaviest ones were not the horrible physical sufferings that He would endure, but our disinterest in what He was doing for us.
When the famous Mel Gibson film, “The Passion of the Christ” was premiered, there was criticism regarding the excess of violence in the film. And was there violence! The violence perpetrated against the most innocent Jesus. But the horror of what Christ really suffered was much greater than what the film showed.
The model for the filming was the Holy Shroud. And from it, only less than half of the wounds there imprinted were shown. The movie opens with a square in silence that reads:
“He was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity” (Isaiah 53:5).
This opening shows that the horror of the wounds inflicted upon Christ in His Passion, was caused by the horror of our sins.
And what was all this horrible suffering for? Have we really profited from it? It does not seem so, since in 1675 Jesus complained to Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque –and He could probably complain much more today: “I have so much loved you. And what was mot painful in My Passion was your disdain and ingratitude”.
And so, many of these torments and His death could be considered waste, because underestimating the graces of salvation that Christ obtained for us through his death is to waste them. And we waste them when we do not hear the Lord, when we do not want to follow Him, each time we reject Him with our sins, etc…
To take advantage of all these graces of salvation brought about by His Passion, Death and Resurrection means to really follow Him, His teachings, His example, and to follow Him with a faithful and surrendered heart.
Not only that, we also must follow Him in His Cross: embrace our cross, accept burdens, sufferings and tribulations … and not merely carrying the cross with disdain, but embracing it, with devotion and love. In so doing we imitate Christ and console His Heart in this “deadly sorrow”.
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