JESUS: "THE CROWN OF THORNS WILL MERIT YOU THE CROWN OF GLORY"

In the year 1850, when she was only 9 years old, the little girl who would grow up to be Sister Mary Martha, had her first vision of Jesus Crucified on the Cross and saw our Savior's Wounds rain blood. At the time she was a simple farm girl in her native France and spent countless hours doing chores on her parents' farm. Years later, as a young woman she joined the Visitation Sisters, founded by St Francis de Sales. Yes, Sister Mary Martha gave herself to a way of life that was remote from the world, hidden au couvent, but Our Lord Jesus personally instructed her on to how to adore His Holy Wounds, and this was to be passed on to as many people as possible throughout the whole world, and in our time this means you and me. 

I've been processing the divine instruction given Sister Mary Martha from the Lips of Our Lord and I've read the words of Our Lord as though He were speaking to me. I bid you to do the same with the divine lessons that are included in this post. You and I need first observe a principle that imbues everything that Our Lord taught Sister, that we may not adore Him if we do not contemplate Him. If you ignore His Wounds, you cannot adore. If, however, you contemplate Them, then you may adore.  For my first post on Sister, I am expressly concerned with a time when Our Lord invited Sister Mary Martha to contemplate His Wounds from His Head to His Feet. 

Our Lord informed Sister Mary Martha, "Behold, this Head which was pierced for love of you". Our Lord had previously told her that she was highly honored to view His Wounds so very often, but here He reminded her of His Sacrifice that was done for love of her, that she may be cleansed of her sin through the Blood He shed. None of us can ever exclude ourselves from this, that the Scalp of our Savior was punctured by a thick ringlet of spiky thorns for you and me. But Our Lord gave her a promise that His Head that was broken with barbs was the way, "It is the Crown of Thorns that will merit you the crown of glory." Sister was to undergo the crowning of thorns, too, and it was the means by which she was to earn her eternal crown in Heaven. This was Jesus's guarantee to Sister, and He made sure she became the messenger of His desire that more people love His Sacred Head. 

His exact pledge to her, however, was not meant for everyone.

Jesus specified that He does not place his actual Crown of Thorns on the heads of very many souls, but to a few deserving ones, "My Crown of Thorns, I give My privileged ones...for my beloved on earth, it is a suffering." It is not so much that Our Lord is playing favorites, rather He imparts His Crown of Thorns to souls who are able to bear the suffering and who want to imitate Him in His agony, as he said to Sister Mary Martha, "My true servants try to suffer as I." These "true servants" may also be given this privilege of sharing in His pain because also they are inspired as to how they can offer up their pains and for which purpose. 

But in speaking to Sister, Our Lord specified that those who take on the Crown of Thorns desire to do so, they want this Crown as Sister wanted it. It can be hard for you and me to read the divine dialogue between Our Lord and Sister, and see that she firmly falls into the category of "true" servant who is highly privileged, but we need also search our wills to see if we are actually as willing as she was to wear the pointed briars. That her will was so willing makes her more resemble Christ in His willingness to suffer. While you (and certainly not me) may not always have that same willingness, there is the gap of gratitude where we may be thankful that Our Lord did bear the briars on His Head and that He has had followers in the form of Sister who bore the crown as a way of suffering and winning graces for other souls. 

Next, Our Lord said of the piercing on His right foot,"How much you must respect this Wound and hide yourself therein like the dove!" Our Lord was totally clear that this is for every soul, everyone is invited to respect His right foot, but also to take cover in this same Wound. When I contemplated this, I visualized myself, my whole being going into the Wound and being enveloped into the folds of Jesus's Skin like a cuff around the piercing so that I disappeared utterly. Perhaps you may think of envisaging yourself as one who is absorbed totally in the right foot wound, because it certainly makes real that Jesus must increase while the self decreases. Also, when you allow yourself to be cloaked in His Flesh it makes you part of His Body that suffered unto death, even if you do not have the same desire to be wounded as Sister had. Most especially, you are taking yourself so totally out of sight that you give yourself the self-forgetfulness that means you only see Jesus Crucified, which is the start of heightened contemplation. In contemplation of Our Lord, we need lose sight of the self, then we may adore. We need ignore ourselves in order to adore. 

Sister Mary Martha was in awe of her Beloved, and His wounds and she could not take her eyes from Him, and she saw Jesus was pleased with her contemplation, "My daughter, in contemplating Them, you console Me...I will console you with the vision of My glory for Eternity." Our efforts to contemplate Our Lord may mean that you and I give Him consolation which is a direct way of showing our love. 

Our Lord said to Sister of both His feet, "Lead all my creatures here...These openings are large enough to enclose all." The awesome reality is that the piercings on Jesus's Feet may encompass all humanity, and we may think of everyone we know as having a place in Them, that they may be given shelter. I'd ask you not to leave this dormant, but think of people you know, family, friends and particularly people who are in trouble as ones who may actually venture into Jesus's Foot Wounds. Someone who is in trouble knows the impulse to hide, and it may take bravery, but if someone you know has problems, they may be just the type who is open to hearing how they can actively contemplate themselves being lost in the Foot Wound.  

Jesus assured Sister that, "The Wounds of My Sacred Feet are an ocean." When Our Lord said "ocean", Sister Mary Martha did not understand. She was not well educated, nor did she do much book-learning. Sister Mary Martha was often called, "simple", a term considered derogatory nowadays. Presumably growing up in a small farming community, she knew that the French for the sea is "la mer", but she never heard the word "ocean". There are occasions when Our Lord gives colloquies to a soul who is incapable of fabricating the content, and Our Lord knew that Sister Mary Martha did not know the meaning of "ocean", and still He told her that there was an ocean of grace available to wash over souls who enclose themselves in His Sacred Feet, and when she had to ask the meaning of the word of her Mother Superior, she proved her guilelessness and humility. A proud person who wanted to be the special one, the one selected for divine conversation would not admit their lack of understanding. Yet, she was Jesus's ingenue.  And while we may be better educated than she was, we are all Jesus's ingenues, His followers who do not understand the ocean of graces that are there for us, and which select graces He wishes to impart to us. We may find out if we contemplate, adore and lose ourselves in the Folds of His Flesh. 

I wrote this post that it might be a small help in preparing to meditate on Our Lord's Passion during Friday when we offer the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, and especially now that we are on the cusp of Lent. 

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This post was informed by Mystic of the Holy Wounds: The Life and Revelations of Sister Mary Martha Chambon which you may get at the Spirit Daily bookstore. 

The classic painting Christ Crowned with Thorns was executed by Matthias Stom.