The Sorrowful Mysteries - Meditations based on the Letter on the Rosary of St. John Paul II

The Agony in the Garden

The path of meditation opens in the Garden of Olives, where Christ experiences a particularly agonizing moment before the will of the Father, against which the weakness of the flesh might be tempted to rebel. There, Christ stands in the face of all the temptations of humanity and before all its sins, to say to the Father: Not my will, but Yours be done.

The Scourging at the Pillar

This ”yes” of Jesus reverses the ”no” of our first parents in the Garden of Eden. And how much this acceptance of the Father's will was to cost Him emerges from the subsequent mysteries, in which through the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, and death on the cross, He is handed over to the greatest humiliation: Ecce homo!

The Crowning with Thorns

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 him repeatedly.(Jn 19:2-3)

The Carrying of the Cross

In this humiliation, not only is the love of God revealed, but the very meaning of man. Ecce homo: whoever wants to know man must be able to recognize his meaning, source, and fulfillment in Christ – God who humbles Himself out of love even unto death, death on a cross (Phil 2:8).

The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus

The sorrowful mysteries lead the believer to relive the death of Jesus, to stand beneath the cross beside Mary, so as to enter with Her into the ocean of God's love for man and to feel all its regenerating power.