Ponder and Magnify: A Rosary Podcast

S1, E8 - The Crowning with Thorns Bible Study (John 19: 2-5)

• John and Jessica Helling

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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 Third Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary! In this episode, Jess, John, and Fr. George discuss the account of Jesus' Crowning with Thorns from John 19: 2-5. 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. Today, I am joined again by John, my husband, and Father George, and we are going to dive into the third sorrowful mystery of the Rosary the crowning with thorns, the crowning of Jesus. So, Father George, I'm going to ask you if you would open us up in prayer.

Fr. George:

Sure thing, jess. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Jesus, we praise you and we thank you. In this moment, as we remember how much it is that you suffered, and, out of love for us, by wearing, in particular, the crown of thorns, we ask that the grace from that particular moment of your life may touch our hearts wherever we find ourselves today. Jesus, come with your love, with your mercy, open our hearts to receive you more and more. Jesus, we ask this in your name, amen.

Jessica:

Thank you. Alright, you guys. What's our one word? John, I'm going to kick it to you first.

John:

I'm feeling excited because I learned something new today. So we're Recording this on a Thursday and I was talking with someone at work about how, on a Thursday, you know, you kind of have that excitement for Friday, and I was told that in Denmark people don't call Thursday Thursday. They like to call it Little Friday, and I feel like that really captures the excitement of the pending weekend and just everything that you're excited about. So I feel like people need to just collectively change Thursday to a little Friday.

Jessica:

That's awesome, John. How about you, Father George?

Fr. George:

My word would be full and that has several meanings to it For me right now, at this moment, I just had Culver's, so I'm feeling pretty full from Culver's. I'm also just full just with ministry things and things in my own life and prayer today in particular was particularly enriching. So just feeling full at this moment and you Jess.

Jessica:

My word is going to be grace dependent. You know we're to the end of the night, the kids are in bed, asleep, and we had a great day, but I am just whew. I'm feeling like I'm ready for those graces to hit, to really feel energized, and I'm just excited to see where the Holy Spirit's going to lead us in this episode. So I'm looking forward to that. With that, Father George, I'm going to pass it over to you to go ahead and prep us and read our scripture for us for the crowning.

Fr. George:

Sure.

Fr. George:

A reading from the Holy Gospel, according to John. And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head and clothed him in a purple cloak. And they came to him and said Hail, king of the Jews. And they struck to him and said Hail, king of the Jews. And they struck him repeatedly Once more. Pilate went out and said to them Look, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak and he said to them behold the man. Just invite you now, in this moment, in this space, to let the word of God enter into all of our hearts that we might recognize the Lord's voice and his presence in our hearts.

Fr. George:

For me, when I was reading with this passage and reflecting on it, it's actually funny.

Fr. George:

This past week I was talking with somebody, someone I know, who's really suffering from migraine headaches. And as I was thinking about the crown of thorns and I was thinking about migraine headaches because for me, like I said to her, I was like I think migraines would be I praise God don't have migraines, um, but for those who do, I know it's. It's an incredibly painful experience, um, and I just imagine that there's just a solidarity, a deep solidarity, that Jesus has with those who suffered from migraine headaches, that he knows just the pain that is there in the head. I mean, when that crown of thorns was woven, it wasn't just like, oh, like little thorns from a rosebush, but these were large, pointy thorns that were pressed deeply into his head and into his skull and caused incredible pain and incredible bleeding and such suffering. So I just think, for those who suffer from headaches in a particular way, just Jesus is close to you and there's just a deep intimacy and union in the suffering there. So that's kind of one insight that I had in this passage.

Jessica:

Father George, I think it's really beautiful. When we were talking about the scourging, I believe it was how those with anxiety and depression really were brought up into your heart. And now, here with the crowning, those that suffer from migraines, and I think it's really beautiful Like what a grace that there's almost like a specific intention to pray for that comes up or is rising up in your heart with each of these. I think that's really cool.

Fr. George:

Yeah, thanks, John. What about you?

John:

Kind of in these, just like in scripture in general, I like to try and just physically imagine being there and what kind of caught my attention at first was just the soldiers weaving the crown of thorns.

John:

I feel like if you've ever worked outside in garden, even if you're trying trying to like trim a rosebush and like clean, you know, clean it up, like you're accidentally poking yourself, and it had to have hurt the soldiers physically just trying to weave a crown, I would imagine like not feeling good making that and it kind of seemed like I don't know just struck me as like a parallel to sin in a way. Like they made the crowns hurting, you know, potentially hurting themselves to hurt Jesus, and it's kind of like that's what sin does, like we're hurting ourselves, we're hurting, like you know, hurting Jesus. And yeah, I don't know just something about that. Just right away, like as I was, you know, as you were reading that scripture, I just my mind kept kind of imagining that scene of just trying to make it and how hard that would be. And then, unfortunately, obviously it was with the intent of, you know, causing Jesus harm.

Fr. George:

Yeah, I like that.

John:

How about you, jess?

Jessica:

That's beautiful, John. I love that. I don't think my mind would have gone there, so I really appreciate that insight. I had a couple of things that stuck out to me. The first was just Jesus accepting this crown.

Jessica:

I was taken back to in John chapter 6, when Jesus multiplies the bread and fish, and at that point I flipped back in my Bible. But in John chapter 6, 15, it says since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone. So here he was getting a crown, almost in like the traditional sense, like a crown of honor and prestige is the way I'm imagining it. And he withdrew because he didn't want to accept that. And yet here the crown he does accept is the one that is like a mark of his suffering.

Jessica:

And it really made me think about in Isaiah 53, when Isaiah prophesies about the suffering servant, and just that Jesus would rather be identified with the suffering like that and the love that comes with that suffering. You know, I really feel like that is the mark of our love. How far we are willing to suffer for a person is a true mark of love, and that is the crown that Jesus wanted to accept was that mark of love, which I thought was really beautiful.

Jessica:

And then the last line, behold the man, really stuck out to me too and I felt like, with this one in my mind I was imagining like, behold, this is your God. And yet Pilate here is just saying behold the man. And just like the misunderstanding of who Jesus was and I know for myself I can fall into misunderstandings all the time, and some of that is inevitable because we belong to an eternal, infinite God that we can't fully understand but it just really made me want to pray more for the grace to just fill in my misunderstandings of the Lord or anything that has me, you know, not thinking about God in the right way or that is disordered. I just want to ask for the Holy Spirit to really enter into those places in my mind and my heart and just correct any misunderstanding that I have of who Jesus is and how deeply he loves.

Fr. George:

That's beautiful, jess, yeah, going. But both of the things you said for me, as you were saying, what came into my mind was just that virtue of courage, and for me it's a virtue. I ask for a lot, and there's St Thomas Aquinas says there's two parts to courage. Um, the one part he says he calls daring, uh, which is what we often think of.

Fr. George:

You know, in courageous moments, you know the, the firefighter that runs into the building, or um, you know the, the going in and um speaking up. You know when, when others are being beaten down. But the second aspect of courage is what St Thomas calls endurance, and it's not a passive thing but it's very much, as you were saying, jess, it's this union with Jesus and continuing to strive to abide in him and perseverance is such a hallmark and I think just in this mystery that's a fruit of this mystery, is for that courage and as Jesus was there before Pontius Pilate, before the crowd, just with such perseverance and with such courage. And it gives us courage in moments where we feel particularly rejected or we're going to be rejected for our faith or for standing up for the truth or whatever it is to know that Jesus is in close union with us. So yeah, I just really appreciated your reflections.

Jessica:

That's beautiful and I love, just from all three of us, kind of some prayer intentions that maybe when we go to pray this mystery in the future, that we can carry with us this, you know prayer intention for you know greater courage, a prayer intention to really know our own sin.

Jessica:

John, I feel like from your reflection to know our own sin and be able to see how it's wounding us and how it's wounding our relationship with the Lord. Not in a way to cause shame, but just in a way to really repent and move forward in a positive light with the Lord. And just this idea of praying for the Holy Spirit to help fill and make up for any lack or misunderstanding in us of our God and just the ability to accept suffering and, of course, for those who also suffer from migraines, I'm excited about taking these intentions into praying future rosaries with this mystery. So thank you guys for sharing. As always, I'm so grateful for your thoughts and reflections. It really is fruitful for me. So thank you both and we promise to be praying for you and we ask for your continued prayers for us as we keep going with this podcast. Thank you so much. Praise be to God.