The Crown of Thorns.

[odhiambo]

The Crown of Thorns.
I have always assumed that when the Roman Soldiers made their crown of thorns with which to mock Jesus, they pressed it down His Head so that the thorns pierced His’ scalp. I imagine the rivulets of blood streaming down all around His Sacred Head from multiple thorn pricks.
Recently however, I learnt that this was not the case. According to the CA Bible, the whole purporse of the “crown” was mockery, not torture, so the crown was placed to resemble a “Hellinistic radiant crown”.

[Shin]

Why would that book necessarily have the right answer?

If it's the one using the NAB that would be another strike against it.

[Shin]

'The soldiers of the Roman Governor, after having scourged my Son at the pillar, adapted a Crown of Thorns to His adorable Head, and, pressed it with such violence that Blood was made to gush so copiously from it as to cover His eyes, fill His ears and imbrue all His beard.'

The Blessed Virgin Mary, 'The Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden'

[odhiambo]

'The soldiers of the Roman Governor, after having scourged my Son at the pillar, adapted a Crown of Thorns to His adorable Head, and, pressed it with such violence that Blood was made to gush so copiously from it as to cover His eyes, fill His ears and imbrue all His beard.'

The Blessed Virgin Mary, 'The Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden'

Thank you Shin!

[Shin]

Your past meditations were correct after all!  

[odhiambo]

Your past meditations were correct after all!  

I am happy they were.
 Now, with the quote you've posted, I see that our Lady gave us an even clearer picture of how Jesus looked after the crowning.
I feel like throwing away the CA Bible, save for the fact that it is still the Bible.

[odhiambo]

'And, as St. Laurence Justinian says, with St. Peter Damian, the thorns were so long that they penetrated even to the brain: "The thorns perforating the brain."'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

I do not mean to be disbelieving but could there be a mistake in this quote? It seems unlikely that thorns, no matter how sharp, would bore through the skull to reach the brain and that the Lord would still be in a position to walk to His crucifixion.

[Shin]

[Shin]

I typed into a search engine some particulars and came up with the filing of a recent court case on the government website for the State of Illinois.

A.D. v. Forest Preserve Dist. of Kane Co., No. 2-99-0645
2nd District, 13 June 2000

JUSTICE McLAREN delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant, The Forest Preserve District of Kane County, Illinois, appeals from a judgment entered upon a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff, A.D., a minor, by his parent, guardian, and next friend, J.D., finding the defendant liable for injuries sustained by the plaintiff when he ran into a tree located in the defendant's forest preserve. The defendant appeals the trial court's denial of its motions for a directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict. We reverse.

The following facts are taken from the record. On May 22, 1996, the plaintiff, who was eight years old, went to the Oakhurst Forest Preserve (owned by the defendant, a local public entity) with his classmates. The plaintiff was injured when he ran into a honey locust tree while playing tag. J.D., the plaintiff's guardian and next friend, filed a complaint alleging that the defendant was willful and wanton in allowing the continued growth of a thorny honey locust tree in a recreational part of the forest preserve. The plaintiff sought recovery for pain and suffering, disfigurement, loss of normal life, and medical expenses. The complaint alleged that the plaintiff had assigned his rights of recovery of medical expenses to his mother, J.D.

Subsequently, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint removing the allegation regarding the assignment of J.D.'s right to recover medical expenses. The plaintiff then filed a second amended complaint containing two counts. Count I alleged that the defendant was willful and wanton in allowing the continued growth of a thorny honey locust tree in a recreational part of the forest preserve. Count II sought recovery of the plaintiff's medical expenses. The plaintiff then amended his original complaint and attached a document assigning J.D.'s rights to recover medical expenses to her son, the plaintiff.

The following evidence was heard at the trial. The plaintiff testified that, as he was playing tag with his friends, he ran backwards, quickly turned around, and ran face first into a honey locust tree. A thorn from the tree penetrated his sternum bone and lodged in his chest near his heart. The thorn was later surgically removed from the plaintiff's chest.

Jeff Perez, an Oakhurst Forest Preserve forest ranger employed by the defendant, testified that the honey locust tree at issue had long sharp thorns and it was not the type of tree that a person can lean a hand against or brace his back upon without injury. Perez knew of the tree and its thorny condition. Perez lived at the forest preserve and had regularly mowed the grass in the area of the tree for six to seven years before the incident. The tree was the only one of its kind in that area of the forest preserve. It was located in an area of the forest preserve where people would picnic and generally recreate.

. . .

If you look up the honey locust tree it is an example of how some thorns can grow. Although that particular tree is North American, it's not alone in growing thorns of that kind. Here is a picture of that tree.

(Sorry, but you are not allowed to access the gallery)

[Shin]

'And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a skull).' [Mark 15:22]

'And, as St. Laurence Justinian says, with St. Peter Damian, the thorns were so long that they penetrated even to the brain: "The thorns perforating the brain." While the gentle Lamb let himself be tormented according to their will, without speaking a word, without crying out, but compressing his eyes together through the anguish, he frequently breathed forth, at that time, bitter sighs, as is the wont of one undergoing a torture which has brought him to the point of death, according as was revealed to the Blessed Agatha of the Cross: " He very often closed his eyes, and uttered piercing sighs, like those of one about to die." * So great was the quantity of the blood which flowed from the wounds upon his sacred head, that upon his face there was no appearance of any other color save that of blood, according to the revelation of St. Bridget: " So many streams of blood rushing down over his face, and filling his hair, and eyes, and beard, he seemed to be nothing but one mass of blood." ' And St. Bonaventure adds, that the beautiful face of the Lord was no longer seen, but it appeared rather the face of a man who had been scarified: " Then might be seen no longer the face of the Lord Jesus, but that of a man who had undergone excoriation."'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, 'The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ'

'Not content with having horribly torn the flesh of the sacred body of Jesus Christ with the scourging, these barbarous servants, instigated by devtlsand by the Jews, wished to treat him as a mock king, and put upon his back a ragged scarlet robe to imitate a royal mantle, a reed in his hand byway of sceptre, and on his head a bundle of thorns plaited together instead of a crown: and in order that this crown might be not only for a mockery, but also cause him great pain, with that same reed (as St. Matthew says, And they took the reed and struck His head)' they struck the thorns till they pierced far into His head ; insomuch that the thorns, as says St. Peter Damian, penetrated to the very brain, and so copious was the blood which flowed from the wounds that, as it was revealed to St. Bridget, it filled the beard, the eyes, and all the hair of Jesus Christ This torment of the crowning was very painful to him, and was also the longest, since the pain of it was prolonged even till his death: and every time that the crown on his head came to be touched, the torture was always renewed.

Ah, ungrateful thorns, what are you doing? Is it thus that you torment your Creator? But what thorns? my soul! it was thou, with thy depraved consenting to sin, who didst wound the head of thy Lord.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, 'The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ'

'What man would have believed that those thorns of His crown should have pierced through His skull into His brain? Yet so it was. Again, who would have thought that the bones of a man should have been drawn asunder and disjointed? And yet so the Prophet David saith: "They numbered all my bones."'

St. Catherine of Siena
["She also declared that the pains which our Lord endured for our redemption were so great, that it would have been impossible for any man to endure the same without dying a thousand times."]


'Mourn for your transgressions, for you have sinned against God, who for love of you became incarnate; you have insulted a God, who in His excessive love of you was born in a manger; you have insulted a God, who even in His childhood wept tears of blood for you; you have insulted a God, who for your sake lived in misery and obscurity under the humble roof of a carpenter; you have outraged a God, who for love of you spent many a weary day announcing that holy doctrine without which you could not be saved; you have insulted a God, who has deigned to bequeath Himself to you in the adorable sacrament of the Eucharist; you have insulted a God, who agonized in a bloody sweat for you; you have insulted a God, who meekly allowed Himself to be manacled, dragged, and reviled for love of you; you have insulted a God, who patiently bore the strokes, the phlegm, and the brutality of the impious Jews, for love of you; you have insulted a God, who allowed Himself to be fastened to the column, and lashed by the cruel scourgers for love of you; you have insulted a God, who did not refuse to be crowned with brain-piercing thorns for love of you; you have insulted a God, who suffered Himself to be clothed as a mock king, and made an object of scorn and jest for love of you; you have insulted a God who bore the heavy weight of an ignominious cross for love of you; you have insulted a God whose hands and feet were transpierced with rude nails for love of you; you have insulted a God, who breathed out his last sigh nailed on a gibbet for love of you; you have insulted a God, who suffered His adorable lips to be moistened with vinegar and gall for love of you; you have insulted a God, who in the excess of His love bequeathed His immaculate Mother to you that she might be your Mother, and you her grateful child; you have insulted a God, who died and was laid in the sepulchre for love of you, who suffered His side to be pierced by the soldier's lance for love of you; you have insulted a God—a God who by His own power arose again to life, and now is enthroned at the right hand of His eternal Father in Heaven, whither He invites you. In a word, you have insulted Jesus Christ, who ransomed you with the shedding of His blood; you have insulted your Prince, your Life, the Physician of your soul; you have insulted a God, who has sought, alas how vainly! for your love, in order to shower blessings on you here, and everlasting blessings in eternity; you have insulted a God, whose love of you has known no limit. My soul, my wretched soul! why hast thou acted thus? . . . My God, my love, my life, my hope ! I love Thee with all the powers of my heart and soul; and I detest my sins because they alienate me from Thee. At the tribunal of penance, which Thou hast instituted, I will confess all my transgressions, firmly resolved, with the aid of Thy grace, never to offend Thee more!'

St. Leonard of Port Maurice, 'The Hidden Treasure or the Immense Excellence of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass'

[Shin]

I found these in response to your question -- This will mean more material for the meditations! Deo gratias et Mariae semper Virgini!

[Shin]

So too, if you wish to read about how greatly some of the saints have suffered in following the Way of the Cross, there is a book or two about St. Lydwine of Schiedam on Saints' Books.

Of her sufferings one reads in J.K. Huymans work:

'But the moment arrived when all these palliatives became useless, for the entire body of the patient was alive. Besides these ulcers in which colonies of worms fed without destroying them, a tumour appeared on the shoulder and putrified. This was the dreaded plague of the Middle Ages, the fire of the burning ill, which attacked the right arm and consumed the flesh to the bone. The nerves all twisted and broke, except one which retained the arm and prevented it from becoming detached from the trunk. It was from now onwards impossible for Lydwine to turn herself to this side, and only her left arm remained free to raise her head, which was also attacked. Violent neuralgic pains assailed her, which bored into her temples like a gimlet and beat like a mallet with constant blows on her skull. Her forehead was cleft from the roots of the hair to the centre of the nose; her chin dropped under the lower lip, and her mouth swelled; her right eye was extinguished, and the other became so tender that the least light caused it to bleed. She suffered also from violent toothache, which raged sometimes for weeks and rendered her half mad; and finally, after a quinsy, which suffocated her, she lost blood through the mouth, ears, and nose, with such profusion that the bed was running with it.

Those who stood by wondered how such a quantity of blood could flow from a body so completely exhausted, and poor Lydwine tried to smile. "Say," she murmured, "you who have been in the world longer than I, whence can that sap come which in spring swells the vine, so black and bare in winter?"

St. Lywdine's sufferings began when she was only aged 15, and she lived to the age of 53 undergoing them.

[odhiambo]

"Blessed are those who have not see and yet have believed"
John 20:29
Thank you Shin.
I do not know why I was doubting. I feel quite sorry for me!

[Shin]

Haha ah, poor odhiambo I was feeling sorry for you too! Good came of it! These fine quotes to add to the Rosary meditations, and perhaps one describing the Passion step by bloody step. All thanks to you!

I didn't know about this either until you brought it up so I am grateful too! Thankfully with the library I have I can just type in a search term and search all the books on my computer of all the writings there for answers.

 

[Shin]

Now our meditations on the Passion will be better!

[odhiambo]

Now our meditations on the Passion will be better!

Indeed they will! I had also come across "The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ"  by St. Alphonsus de Liguori while trying to find out from where the quote came.
I don't suppose you could find a way to include the picture of Jesus mocked in the meditation for the Third Sorrowful Mystery, could you please?