Meditations on the Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crucifixion

Last in a series of meditations on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary taken from our family bible printed in the 1950s. On the rare occasions we feel drawn to deeper meditation, we read these meditations just after announcing each mystery. For the previous four mysteries go here.

The Fifth Sorrowful Mystery: The Crucifixion

"They crucified Him", so simply did St. Mark describe the most important event in all human history. Human life never could be the same after the crucifixion of Christ because He died unto the fall or rise of all mankind. One death and all the world is different. One death for each man and all the difference in the world. More definitive than birth, more serious than marriage, death adds up life into inexhaustible profit or hopeless bankruptcy. No long concern about how or where or whence death comes; our only sensible concern should be about our ability to say, "It is consummated. I have discharged my task. I have been handmaid of the Lord."

Each man has the duty so to live that he may die with God's work completed. There is no general obligation to die old, or rich, or powerful, or learned; there is but one common obligation to die as a son of God upon whatever cross the Father has selected.