How a Headache Became a Crown of Thorns

During my recent bout of shingles I experienced excruciating headaches. It began the week prior to Holy Week, then all of Holy Week, and two days into this past week. At some point during a recitation of the rosary--make fun of me if you will but I say it everyday, along with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy--the "placing of the crown of thorns on Jesus head," became very personal for me.

While my headache was severe enough to make me want to drill a hole in my head, I could only imagine too clearly what a crown of plaited thorns must have felt like when pushed down onto Jesus head. Have you ever seen a real crown of thorns? At a church I once worked at, one of the young men made a crown out thorn, and it was a horrible thing to see. His hands bore the marks of his work. Just picking up the crown pricked your fingers and before it was over with the crown had a good bit of blood on it.

No one had the nerve to put it on their own head. I certainly didn't.

Yet, this disease put it on my head and pressed it down, hard. And it all happened right at the height of the liturgical remembrance of Jesus Passion and death. People have accused me of being too cross oriented. Or too identified with the sufferings of Christ, but I say, without those sufferings and that cross there is no Resurrection. The Protestants took the corpus off the crucifix to emphasize the resurrection. Or was it to never have to face the fact that God in our flesh died on the cross. For all intents and purposes, God was dead!

That is a great mystery. Resurrection only came after the flogging and the crown of thorns and the cross. Any effort to divorce our salvation from those painful realities is to water down the faith to a puddle of pap! We were not always happy-clappy people! Paul drove it home that the cross is the vehicle of our salvation.

I loathe Easter Pageants that occur before Easter. What are they forgetting? Oh, right, that he suffered, and died, and there were specific days upon which those things happened, and until those days pass, we do NOT celebrate the Resurrection in its fullness.

A crown of thorns was pushed down on my head and I had to suffer it. All the while Jesus was telling me, suffer for this little while and give it to me so I can redeem others.

If I've gotten too Catholic for you. I'm sorry. The truth is, I've always felt this way, long before I was a Catholic.