I. Consider, my soul, how the executioners, tired with beating the Savior, perceiving nothing else to tear in His body, detached Him from the pillar all dropping blood.

     Look at thy Jesus furiously torn, His whole body become an immense wound, going about for His clothes, that the soldiers had when undressing Him, maliciously and cruelly thrown here and there. He is obliged to run through the Praetorium and to suffer on His way the mocking and insolence of those unworthy men, who added insult to cruelty. He bears their injuries, as He had borne their blows, with an invincible sweetness, modesty and patience, and having at last found His clothes, He put them on again. Although He was in such a state as to move the hardest hearts to compassion, those inhuman wolves were not moved; nay to torment Him still more, they invented a kind of torture unknown till then, and that was never repeated even in the most barbarous martyrdoms. 

     There is the effect produced by sin in the soul, that commits it with effrontery and pleasure. A sin committed leaves after it the desire of committing others. Even when one is tired of sinning, he is not, however, satiated with it; and though he is no longer able to commit sins, he does not quit the sinful will.

     One of the greatest illusions of sinners is to believe that they will deliver themselves from temptation by satisfying it. Committing a sin only increases in us our propensity to evil, because according to St. Gregory's remark (XXV Moral. 12), the sin which is not destroyed by penance, drags us with its weight to another sin.  The soul that sinning loses God's grace, loses likewise the strength of resisting the occasions of sinning; and our body is less capable of restraining its appetites when it has once tasted the pleasure of following them. 

     Hence, those executioners having abandoned themselves to the liberty they had of tormenting Jesus Christ lost all human feeling. They fatigue without being able to satisfy themselves, being in their wickedness like the spirits of Hell, and in their cruelty like wild beasts. The Jews had charged Jesus Christ with having wished to make himself a king, and call himself the king of the Jews. Now having beaten Him and rendered Him infamous, they expose Him, as a derisive king, to the taunts of the people. 

     Enter, my soul, the courtyard of the Praetorium: unite thyself to Mary who, as a faithful companion of the sorrows and insults of her Jesus, is in the midst of this furious mob, and hears their cries and blasphemies. Ask her for the grace of understanding this Mystery and profiting by it, and partly alleviate her pain.

     They take off again Jesus' clothes already stuck to the recent wounds of scourging; His blood begins to flow again from every side. They put in Him a worn out purple mantle, weave a crown with long thorns furnished with hard sharp points, and they put it on His head: and that it may not fall, they drive it with the blows of a stick. The thorns penetrate every side, some enter the forehead and temples, and go out again near the eyes; others, as St. Bernard says, pierce the nerves and penetrate the veins of the head, whence the blood mixed with His sacred brains is abundantly spread on His face, neck, and His whole person, and they cause Him such great pains, that He would have died, unless His Divine virtue had sustained Him till the death of the cross. His pains continued to He died. What pain! Should a single thorn be driven into anyone's head, what would become of him? And certainly, St. Anselm assures us that the venerable head of Christ beautiful and delicate above the sons of men, was pierced by more than a thousand punctures.

     Go forth, ye daughters of Sion, and see the true Solomon in the diadem, wherewith His mother crowned Him on the day of the joy of His heart. Surely He hath loved us, He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows.

 

     II. If thou hast ever suffered violent headaches, stop for a moment and consider how sensible this pain was to thy Savoir among the others He was suffering. The only thought of it terrifies us! And what would have moved compassion, what, could not have been seen without horror in the vilest animals, only served to excite the cruel laughing and injuries of those barbarous hearts. And Jesus suffers to be lead, undressed, crowned, as they wished, without uttering one word, without opposing the least resistance, with a super human patience: closing His eyes through His extreme pain, He offers His martyrdom to His Everlasting Father. Here too the word of Isaiah the prophet was accomplished: I have given my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me.

     Jesus' eyes were not blindfolded here, as at the house of Caiphas: here He saw the insulting homage that they did him, He saw the blows that were being prepared for Him, and He did not avoid them. When they took the reed out of His hand, He gave it up; when they gave it Him again, He took it again. He suffered all in silence, with an unchangeable patience. And bowing their knee before Him, they mocked Him saying: Hail, king of the Jews. And they gave Him blows... and they took the reed and struck His head: and they spit upon Him, and bowing their knees before Him, they adored Him. And as Christ bore all this with the greatest patience, they gave way to their rage.

     Oh, my proud, impudent and sinful soul, consider how enormous thy sins are, which were purged with such a chastisement and severe correction by the Everlasting Father! Jesus, shedding tears with blood, atoned for the delicacies of thy body, the pleasure of thy guilty flesh, the pomp of thy garments, the vanity thou derivest from them, and the pride they inspire thee. So He atoned for the desire of dominion that all hearts have.  So He atoned for all the sins that are conceived and maintained in our prevaricating heads, in our memory, imagination, and spirit. So thy loving Savior atoned for the heathenish cares that so many worldly persons take to adorn their proud and sinful head, wishing to expose it to the eyes of the public, and so attract admirers, whereas it is only filthy and putrid dust. He merited for us the grace of penance and mortification, the grace of contemning the world, its pomps and all its glory. He merited for us the grace of humility, meekness, and patience.

     My soul, in thy temptations, projects of fortune, ambition, revenge, in thy impure thoughts or images, think of Jesus' head crowned with thorns. And when thou sufferest in thy head, think of the sins thou hast committed with it, and to atone for them, join thy little suffering to what Jesus Christ himself suffered in it so much.

     Ah, my Savior, how great a part I have taken in the pains Thou sufferedst in the Praetorium! It is I who have put the crown of thorns upon thy head, who have derisively saluted thee, who have spit on youthy face, who have struck thy head, who have caused thy blood to flow from it, and who have been the cause so cruel pangs. Shall I ever be able to requite thy love?

 

     III. And Jesus came forth bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. And Pilate said to them: Behold the Man. When the chief priest therefore and the servants had seen Him, they cried out saying; Crucify Him, crucify Him... Ah! no, my Divine Jesus, I will crucify thee no more. I adore thee as my true King: I acknowledge thee as my sovereign Lord in the midst of all these wounds, in the midst of all these wounds, in the midst of these reproaches, with which Thou wishedst to be covered, in order to invest me with glory. Did not the blood flowing from thy whole body suffice, oh my Lord, without shedding that of thy head also? The head is the part where men are distinguished, where the person's features are found, where all vital senses and organs are united, where beauty and ugliness are revealed, where joy and melancholy, health and disease, and all the feelings of our soul appear. Just this part, oh my Lord, Thou hast suffered to be pierced through by thorns and stained with blood.  With these marks shall I recognize thee, oh amiable spouse of my soul, beautiful above the sons of men?

     Is this the face on which the Angels desire to look, and which was the delight of Joseph and Mary thy Mother, who has now become the most afflicted among women? I adore, oh God of my heart, I adore the unspeakable love that reduced thee to this state, and return thee endless thanks for so many mercier.

     How miserable I am! Is this not yet sufficient to make me love the cross, injuries and reproaches and all that renders me like thee, oh God of my soul? When sufferings befall me, I am overwhelmed: when they last long, I am down-hearted: when I am free from them, I rejoice. When wilt Thou, oh my God, destroy the weakness of my flesh by the strength of thy love? Alas!  all I think of converges to the comforts of my body, the sweetness of this life, the vain estimation of myself, the pleasure I take in men's praises. I then forget how miserable and contemptible I am in thy eyes. When shall I hate myself as much as I deserve? Thou art crowned with thorns, and I escape all that causes me the least pain!

     Oh most Holy Mother of God, oh perfect imitator of the Savior o, how much overwhelmed Thou art with sorrow! If thy innocent Son is crowned with thorns, what shall I become, I who am so proud and delicate? Help me, oh refuge of sinners, to follow the example; obtain for me the will and strength of bearing all the pains He will pease to afflict me with, for I know I cannot be thine without cross and without thorns.

     Oh my Guardian Angel, and you Angels of peace, who saw my Savior so bleeding and disfigured, and who clearly see the price of my Savior's thorns, have mercy on a sinful and miserable soul, seeking in the place of exile what is to be found only in Heaven: let her understand that, to be crowned with you in Paradise, it is necessary for her to be crowned with thorns on earth! So be it.