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Ash Wednesday - This Day of Fasting and Abstinence begins the holy season of Lent. Readers may find these images helpful for meditating on the Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ during Lent.
The Crucifix was sculpted by Professor Juan Manuel Minarro, of the University of Seville. The professor worked with a multidisciplinary team of scientists, who had been researching the Shroud of Turin. This is the only Shroud-based crucifix in the whole world and it reflects in great detail the many wounds and traumas revealed on the Shroud.
The Crown of Thorns is thus depicted as a helmet, made from ziziphus jujuba. The thorns of this plant do not bend.
The Romans used whips that were tipped with spiked metal balls. The Crucifix reflects these scourging wounds.
One of the more heart-rending aspects of the Crucifix relates to the right arm and hand. This arm is dislocated because the Lord is presented as though He has been leaning on this arm in search of air during the process of asphyxia. The thumbs on both hands have folded inwards. This is due to the reaction of the nerve when the wrist has been pierced. Â Â
Our Lord's toes are bluish in colour to suggest heart failure. Dear readers, our sins did all this! This is what sin does. These pictures express something of the cost of Mercy.
Catholics today are worrying about many things - the salvation of their families, the agenda at the Synod, the widespread dissent and irreverence in the Church, the state of society, ISIS.
Lent gives us a unique opportunity to draw near to Our Saviour. Our Lenten observances can be fruitful if we remember first of all that He loves us and has died for us. It is His grace that has already brought us thus far. All that we can really do this Lent is to respond in humilty to this unmerited and unfathomable love.
Can anyone sincerely look upon these images and still contend that those in unrepented and unconfessed mortal sin should proceed to Holy Communion?Â
Could we see these pictures and still be content to just go along with the irreverences happening at many Masses, welcoming dissenting speakers into parish halls, or tolerating explicit sex-education and teachings from false religions being given to little children in our parish schools?
This Lent, may God give us the grace to give up sin and easy compromises with the world. Let us not so much seek consolation from Christ, as offer Him our compassion and love. As we can see all around us today, He has few friends. Spending less time looking for solace in the Catholic blog-world, and more time consoling Christ in times of silent prayer, will help us to have a more fruitful Lent.Â
Whilst reflecting this Lent on His Passion through images such as these, and in the accounts presented to us in the Gospels, let us recall that He has first loved us and that we are loving Him in return. That can help our little prayers, penances and almsgiving - small though they are in themselves - to become great, by being done out of compassion and love for Him.
A text which may be helpful is found in St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians (Eph 5:2): ''And walk in love, even as Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness.''Â
