The Sorrowful Mysteries According to Zoey

Originally posted an The Way of the Rose Facebook group April 6, 2020

Novena Day 47

To recap for those who missed yesterday’s post, I’m outlining the mysteries and what they mean for me. It might be helpful to read yesterday’s post to put this in context. Today our story continues with

The Sorrowful Mysteries

The Agony in the Garden

I think of this one as the internal struggle. Jesus spends an anxious and tortured night in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to the biggest events of his life. He feels alone, more alone than he’s ever felt in his life (socially distant, perhaps?), knowing that he is about to be betrayed and denied by those he considers his friends. Is there anyone who can’t relate to this? To feeling alone and tortured by our thoughts and worries about the future, about the path we have chosen, about the companions we have found, about that joyful “yes!” we may have been foolish enough to say some time ago? How strong is the temptation to not walk through the fire, to not do the right thing, to back out of our commitment? This is the dark night of the soul, and it’s just the first of the sorrows!

There’s an important aspect to this one that is not true of the other sorrowful mysteries, something that may help us when we face a similar darkness: The entire event takes place in Jesus’s mind. Real as the agony is, it is not an inherent part of the action. It is certain we will experience similar doubts in our own journeys, but the suffering aspect is not strictly necessary and can be mitigated with a change in attitude.

I think it’s really important to remember at the outset that the sorrowful mysteries are not the end of the story. They come in the middle of the rosary for a reason. Sorrows are inevitable for those who say “yes” to the invitation to live their spiritual truth. The sorrows will come, and they will be hard, possibly very hard. But they are never the end of the story, especially for those who keep going despite the pain and the shadow of death.

The Scourging at the Pillar

If the Agony is the internal struggle, the Scourging is the public humiliation that is pretty much guaranteed for those of us who choose to step outside the patriarchal societal norms at the urging of our hearts. Jesus is arrested and taken to Pilate who has him “scourged.” There isn’t much in the Bible about this event, but there is no doubt a flogging and very public mocking are involved. Though flogging was a known part of the crucifixion process, the public mockery wasn’t. The mocking seems to have been meant to destroy the considerable power of Jesus’s ministry by making “an example” of him: “This is what happens to those who defy our rule!” We all know that fear of such public humiliation is an extremely effective way of keeping people in line and from speaking out about injustice. And it can make many doubt themselves to the extent that they may even renounce their own convictions and commitment.

I find the message of the Scourging’s place in the mysteries reassuring. Yes, public humiliation is part of this journey, but we can stand it and it is not the end of the road—not by a long shot.

The Crown of Thorns

Despite originally dismissing this one as no big deal, the throwaway of the rosary, I have come to realize it is no accident that this is the central mystery of the rosary.

If you’ve read Clark and Perdita’s book, you know the rosary is strongly associated with flowers, especially roses, thus the name of this group: The Way of the Rose. In fact, the Catholic rosary tradition seems to have begun with the weaving of flower crowns for a statue of the Virgin. If you were to ask yourself what would be the opposite of a crown of roses, you just might come up with a crown of thorns. Instead of being made up of the beautiful and inspirational parts of the rose, it is made up of the painful and ugly parts. If you honor the Divine Feminine as embodied in Mary, what would be a better symbol of the worship of all that is wrong with the world as it stands now, the mistakes of patriarchy, than the crowning of Mary’s son, her most intimate creation, with thorns?

It could not be more clear to me that the crown of thorns is symbolic of upside down and inappropriate worship. Unfortunately, in our current world in-your-face examples abound. Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” runs through my mind: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” The patriarchy holds profit, competition for scarce resources, and “winning” at the expense of others as the highest values there are—“thorns” indeed. Of course framing everything as competition completely ignores the tremendous role that cooperation (or symbiosis, as Lynn Margulis termed it) plays in evolution.

Not to get too political, but the current occupant of the White House is an extreme example—patriarchy on steroids if you will. Despite an almost pathological addiction to stretching the truth, we are told he “tells it like it is.” Despite admitting on a hot mike that he has no respect for women’s sovereignty over their own bodies and having been accused by a former victim of Jeffrey Epstein of underage rape, we are told he is “cracking down on pedophiles.” Despite the numerous failed businesses and bankruptcies, not to mention the fraudulent tax returns, he is hailed as “good for business.” Despite vowing to “drain the swamp,” he filled his cabinet with billionaire buddies with tremendous incentive to dismantle their particular departments.

To me, the message of its central position in the rosary is the promise that the Crown of Thorns is not the end of the story; in fact, it is a turning point. Even as the world appears to get worse—after all, the crucifixion is still to come—it is inevitable that the balance will be righted.

Carrying of the Cross

On the way to his execution, Jesus is forced to carry the means of his own destruction, a huge and heavy wooden cross. He carries it till he can carry it no farther, and then Simon of Cyrene is recruited to help him. I confess to finding this mystery the most “mysterious.” On the most obvious level, sometimes we have tremendous burdens to bear, burdens so big and so heavy that they threaten to break us, and our only option is to just keep going until we can’t go any farther, even if our shoulders wilt and our feet drag.

But there is also the aspect of “a burden shared is a burden lightened.” It is important while carrying our own personal crosses that we remember we are not alone, no matter how much it feels like we are. There is no question that the journey and the burden are made easier when they are shared.

And then there is the aspect of dragging around the means of our own destruction. Is that part of it necessary or optional? Is it the “fatal flaw” of Greek tragedy that we carry with us to meet our fate? Or is it something we can put down at any point along the way? What is the worst thing that would have happened if Jesus simply refused to continue? They could have killed him earlier. Would that have been a worse outcome? Who can say? All I know is that when I think of “carrying the cross” it seems that there is an element of choice implied. Maybe when we are carrying our crosses, we are being urged to remember that we do not have to carry the objects of our destruction. We may have our fatal flaws, but we can choose to lay down the burdens that are imposed on us by others and say, “No, I won’t.”

The Crucifixion

The public execution of truth, meaning, and beauty is the inevitable result when we honor and value the wrong things and don’t lay that burden down and say, “No more.” If we just continue carrying the cross, completing what has been begun, the crucifixion will happen. The crucifixion is the extinguishment, the darkest moment, the new moon. The moment when all feels lost. Forever. Darkness wins.

But it doesn’t win. In fact, the overreaction and spectacle of the crucifixion may even highlight for the world the injustice that is being perpetrated, setting in motion the redemption yet to come. The sorrowful mysteries are not the end of the story. The glorious mysteries are still to come.