The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary - A Model for the Crisis of the Church

JMJ

One advantage of having a 50km+ commute to work is that I have time almost 2hrs to say my rosary and think.

This past week I started thinking about parallels between the Sorrowful Mysteries and this Crisis.

The parallels that I drew stem from the thought that the Mystical Body of Christ (i.e. the Catholic Church) emulates the path of Her Spouse - Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sorrowful Mystery - Parallels to the Crisis

Agony In the Garden

Our Lord foresaw the future of His Church, sweat blood and was betrayed by one of his own bishops.
The pre-conciliar Pope saw the crisis coming, suffered and were finally betrayed by their bishops.

Scourging at the Pillar

Our Lord underwent this suffering for the sins of impurity.
Post council indiscipline and sins of impurity became rampant. The extent of it is only recently percolating to the surface.

Crowning with Thorns

Our Lord underwent this humiliation to teach us humility.
The Church has been undergoing significant humiliations at the hands of its Popes (think Assisi). That self abasement wasn't enough for those who harbour a hatred for God and His Church. We are now starting to see the humiliation of the Church by Her enemies accelerating in too many ways to number.

Carrying of the Cross

Our Lord carried His cross (weighed down by our sins) to Calvary to show us the path to Heaven.
I believe that the parallel here will be some sort of persecution of the Church. It may have already started with various members of the Mystical Body of Christ undergoing physical persecution around the world. Perhaps in the Neo-Agnostic West a persecution will develop.

Crucifixion and Death

Our Lord completed the work of redemption by His crucifixion and death on the cross.
That the life-cycle of the Church is punctuated by one crisis after another is fairly obvious to see in a historical sense. So perhaps there will be a climax (ish) that parallels the Crucifixion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This will of course be followed by a 'resurrection' of the Church.

It isn't a perfect model, but there is a strong correlation between the life-cycle of crises such as this.

P^3

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