Ponder and Magnify: A Rosary Podcast

S1, E5 - The Scourging at the Pillar Bible Study (Matthew 27: 24-26)

• Jessica Helling • Season 1 • Episode 5

Share episode

The mission of the Ponder and Magnify Podcast is to seek an encounter with Jesus through praying the rosary, relying on the grace of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary. Join us as we dive into the Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary! In this episode, Jess, John, and Fr. George discuss the account of Jesus' Scourging at the Pillar from Matthew 27: 24-26. All Praise be to God!

Jessica:

Hello and welcome to the Ponder and Magnify podcast, where our mission is to seek an encounter with Jesus through praying the rosary, relying on the grace of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary. I am so happy that you are here. Welcome back, everyone. Today we are approaching the Second Sorrowful Mystery, the Scourging at the Pillar. I'm joined again by my husband, John, and Father George Staley. Thank you both so much for being here. Father George, I'm going to kick it over to you to open us up in prayer, if you will.

Fr. George:

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Jesus, we thank you for entering into your suffering and death for us. Thank you so much for the love that flowed from your most Sacred Heart, that suffered so much for us. Jesus, we're sustained by your love, by your passion for us. We just ask, we beg you to pour forth mercy into our hearts and into our lives and, as we reflect upon this Second Mystery of the Rosary today, we ask that your Precious Blood may wash over us to give us strength. Jesus, we ask this in your name, amen.

Jessica:

Amen. Thank you, Father George. All right you guys? How are we doing? What is your word or phrase, John, to describe how you are feeling?

John:

I'm feeling settled in. That's my phrase. I got my cup of coffee right next to me, as we call it in our house, kosh. So I got my kosh and ready to just sit down and have a good conversation with you guys.

Jessica:

How about you, Father George?

Fr. George:

I would say I am hopeful hopeful for what the Lord wants to do in this episode and for what the Lord wants to do in our hearts and in our lives, and just out of the love that he has for us, I'm just filled with some hope. What about you, Jess?

Jessica:

I'm feeling energized. I'm loving that when we come together for these conversations, it's building momentum in my heart and getting me excitable and more and more energized every time. So I'm going to go with energized, but without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into our mystery. We've got, like I said, the Scourging at the Pillar and Father George, before we read the Scripture here, do you mind painting the scene a little bit for us?

Fr. George:

Absolutely so. Scourging was a common Roman practice for criminals. It was a brutal way of treating prisoners and people that were condemned to death that in some ways was even a death sentence for some. Just how brutal the punishment was. In Jewish law you couldn't be struck more than 40 times, but in Roman law there was no such restraint.

Fr. George:

And so Jesus would have been scourged, he would have been tied, he would have been stripped, and then tied to a pillar and he would have just been. There was the flagellum, was the instrument of torture, and it was this cord that had on the end it would have like bone fragments and like nails and things that just would then tear into the flesh of the person who was beaten. And so Jesus was scourged and was brutally whipped. The executioner would then reposition themselves to continue the scourging and it would cause fracturing of bones and it would cause flesh to be torn and it would cause tremendous loss of blood and the person, the victim, would have experienced great, incredible thirst from just the loss of fluid, and it was just a really brutal, horrible way for someone to experience pain. And so Jesus did that, already having suffered the night before being in his agony in the garden, and then he would have already had some persecution given him after being, he would have been thrown into the jail and would have had a restless night of sleep, or perhaps no sleep at all.

Fr. George:

And then he's being let out, and so he's and this is his first kind of real diving into his passion in this way.

Fr. George:

So we're going to dive into now the scripture for this mystery of the rosary, and so just invite you in this moment, just invite the Holy Spirit to come and to quiet our hearts and to open our minds and our hearts to receive God's word and that he speaks to us. Reading from the Holy Gospel, according to Matthew, when Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all but that a riot was breaking out, instead he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying I am innocent of this man's blood, look to it yourselves. And the whole people said in reply his blood be upon us and upon our children. Then he released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. I just invite you now to perhaps open your Bibles to Matthew 27, or to rewind and listen to the gospel again, or to just sit wherever you find yourself and let the Lord speak his words to you in this particular gospel scene.

Jessica:

Father George, what stuck out to you?

Fr. George:

It's interesting, this is one of the shorter verses of the Mysteries of the Rosary. That's there, it's just. You know, Jesus was scourged, and, and the word that came to my mind as I was praying with this was the word love, because there's no way I just think like he would have been beaten so much and so brutally and like what? Like what kept him going, like what kept him continuing, but just that burning love that he has for me, that he has for you, that he has for all of us.

Fr. George:

One of the things when I was in seminary I remember learning about was how Jesus is thinking about each one of us as he's going through his passion, like how we think, like that's not humanly possible, but he's man and God, and so as he's suffering and experiencing this, like he's thinking of you, he's thinking of me particularly, and he's enduring this for our salvation, and out of just tremendous love, this tremendous lover that just poured out. He could have just had one drop of blood too, that could have saved the world, but he instead chose to have so much of his blood shed in this scourging. Just that his love really is what stood out to me. How about for you, jess?

Jessica:

well, kind of just to add on to what you're saying or something that you were making me think about too. You know, we have the, this crowd of people in this Gospel that's saying just adamantly nope, we want this, we want him to be tortured, we want him to be killed. His blood be upon us and upon our children. And I just think it's wild to think about that word. Love, too, applied to me, but also applied to that crowd, applied to that person holding the whip, like Jesus is loving even those people in that moment who are bringing him there, and that speaks a lot of hope to me for things that well, I should say, when I thought about that at one point when I was praying, it was a true release of like things that I had been holding on to, just carrying shame and just realizing, like gosh, Jesus was loving even the person that, as you described in the beginning, Father George, was so brutally harming him. Jesus was actively loving him in that moment and I, just for me, that speaks a lot of hope and peace and gives such freedom from shame, which I think the evil one loves, to hold us there, and so I think that that is something that made me that just came to mind when you were saying that. But for me what really stood out was not necessarily a word that was in the scripture, but just the repetitious nature of the scourging, just like repeatedly, repeatedly being beaten.

Jessica:

And I think a lot in my life about experiences I've had that sometimes I just allow myself to ruminate on them and that ruminating can feel like a scourging. Or sometimes, you know, maybe, if you're holding on to shame or like negative self-thought, like it can almost be like a self-scourging in a way, and just in a lot of ways, like there is an identification with that maybe. And I just pictured the Lord as I was thinking about that, just saying you know what, that's enough. Come here and while he's tied to the pillar, like inviting me in close to him, like like hovered up in a little ball at his feet between the pillar and him, just like taking it like this is enough.

Jessica:

You've allowed this scourging to go on a long enough. Release the shame, release this way that you're thinking. Let me give you freedom to that experience that continues, that you are allowing to continue to keep going into a deeper wound. Just let me take that. And I'm reminded of this verse. It's from Isaiah. I'm not sure where exactly, but just by his stripes we are healed and I just. It's a consoling place for me to imagine myself just curled in a little ball at his feet, allowing him to offer me that protection, almost like his back is my shield that he willingly offers.

John:

That was awesome I've never, I don't know, that was beautiful. That was just a really cool way of imagining just, you know, Jesus' love in a different way I never thought of. You know so much of you know this scene that's set it's. I'm feeling for Jesus, but I'm not thinking about what you know. Jesus is feeling for me, um, so I don't, I really I really appreciated that, hearing that perspective. Um, I was the.

John:

The line that kind of stuck out to me was um, or who I, you know, kind of feel for, and this is Pilot, Pointus Pilot. You know just a guy who feels like he might be in the wrong place at the wrong time, like doesn't want to do this, um, and you know he's like, all right, you know I'm washing my hands of this, this isn't on me, this is on you, on you guys. Um, and I think about, like you know, if I were in his shoes, it's like, oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have done that, I would have done what was right. Or if I was in the crowd, I wouldn't have been that person screaming, I would have, you know, gone against the grain, um, and that's just kind of a I don't know.

John:

Sometimes I feel like in prayer like, especially if, like I feel like things are going wrong or you know, it feels like things are kind of heavier or you know, whatever's going on, that's extra stress. I'm just like like why is this going on? I do a, b and C. There's people out there doing you know, x, y and Z and it's just like that comparison game. It's dangerous and it doesn't matter. Like it's your relationship with God and Jesus and um, you know you can't, I don't know. Just the whole thing with Pontius Pilot and washing his hands, it just reminded me of you know, just do what's best in your heart and your relationship with God.

Jessica:

I love that. Father George, can I ask you a question where I'm thinking of something in the Old Testament? I need you to help me flesh it out. Okay, at some point in the Old Testament, God is renewing his covenant and the people of Israel are sprinkled with blood. Is that that? That happened, right? Okay, good, okay, so.

Jessica:

I thank you. I just needed that verification because while, while, while we were praying this something, or while I was meditating on this, the words of the crowd saying his blood be upon us and upon our children, that scene came to mind, that Old Testament scene where the people are rejoicing in the covenant of God, like sprinkled with the blood from the animal sacrifices which Father George, to me it's like, was a sealing of the covenants. Is that?

Fr. George:

Yeah, it was a part of this. Yeah, it was part of the covenant sign. It was with Moses in the Old Testament and the sacrifice of the bull and the sprinkling that would happen on the altar and consecrating that, and then the sprinkling of the people got tied in connecting with the Mosaic covenant.

Jessica:

Okay. So I was thinking there, like those people then could have been saying the same thing, like this blood be upon us and upon our children, but doing it in a way of like exaltation and praise, like claiming the covenant, and then here, his blood be upon us and upon our children, just like the opposite, like a rejection of that. And it really made me think about just approaching how we approach God, just like the disposition of our heart. Like, are we open to allow Him to surprise and delight us, or we approach Him with kind of a hardened heart. So that's something that really stuck out to me.

Jessica:

Thank you for helping me flesh that out. I also was imagining when I was trained to be a Eucharistic minister back when we lived in Kansas City, John and they went over this whole protocol for if any of Jesus's blood spills on the ground, like how we're going to handle that. Like, okay, we're going to put the little cloth, what's it called, Father George?

Fr. George:

Purificator.

Jessica:

Okay, the purificator is going to go down and cover it and you're going to stand across it so we can properly make sure that Jesus' blood is attended to and all of that sort of thing.

Jessica:

And here I was just thinking Jesus' blood that I get to drink in the Eucharist and claim as my entrance into heaven is just being poured out on the ground and people are cheering about that. It's being trampled upon what could lead to their salvation, is instead just like being left aside, and I just think that I just really pray for each of us and for all those who are listening, that we can just have an experience of this Passion where we just claim it as our own, we claim the salvation that Jesus went through this suffering for, and don't let any of our conceptions of what we deserve, what we don't deserve, what God thinks of us, all of that kind of thing. If we just cast that aside and just trust in the fact that God wants to save us that is, he wants us to be in heaven with him. That is his desire and just not letting all of this blood be shed in vain or for no purpose, but really claiming that. That also stood out to me.

Fr. George:

Yeah, claiming the salvation. That's awesome. Yeah, claiming the covenant that God has invited us, that he's sealed by his blood yeah, I like that a lot.

Jessica:

Either of you have anything else to add on this one before we c lose out

Fr. George:

the only other thing that stood out, at least to me, are that this Mystery of the Rosary often challenges me to just deeper conversion in my own life, like for what Jesus has gone through, like in my own flesh uh, you know, I don't have, I don't get scourged in my own flesh, but there are times where I can, whether it's in just offering up the little inconveniences of life, offering up the bigger things of life sicknesses, illnesses, challenges, struggles, temptations, all of those things like to really be united with Jesus in that moment, just in deeper conversion and letting go of self-reliance, letting go of that control, letting go of, you know, any and all of the sins, that this, yeah, this mystery really invites me to conversion

John:

yeah, I mean, I think that that thought and messaging is about as good of a point to end on as we're going to get there

Jessica:

Absolutely. Thank you both so much once again for sharing your hearts. I know I benefit from it so much, so thank you For all those who are listening. Know that we are praying for you and please, please, pray for us. Praise be to God.