Agonizing Crucifix I

I have this question I ask my CCD students every year as we begin to study the Stations of the Cross / Sorrowful Mysteries:

How many wounds did Jesus have while hanging on the Cross?

Without fail I always get the same few answers.

"Four"  (Two Hands / Feet)
"Five"  (Hands, Feet + Side)
"Like ten or twenty" (Hands, Feet, Side + pricks from the crown of thorns)

After they exhaust the answers above, I pull out this crucifix:

Without fail, the class recoils.  Faces scrunch up in horror, disbelief and disgust.  Almost immediately their hands begin to shoot into the air, all signaling the same exact question:

"Miss G, why is He all covered in Blood?!"


I then remind my students that Jesus' Passion did not begin and end on the Cross.  Jesus endured so much more than being nailed to a cross for our Salvation.  He was beaten, scourged, kicked, punched, spat upon, bullied and whipped well before He even saw the Cross.  

You see, the crucifixes we display in churches and homes are not typically graphic.  As a result, we tend to "pretty up" the garish Sacrifice God made for us.  We lose sight of the reality of what His Sacrifice really meant.  


I didn't show my children this crucifix to get a reaction from them - I showed it to them as a stark visual reminder of the suffering that went into Christ's physical sacrifice.  Too frequently we speak about His Death with a twinge of sadness and then move on to say "But hey, that's over now because He rose and now none of that horrible stuff matters!  Jesus suffered so you don't have to!"

No.  This crucifix reminds us that Christ's Sacrifice was VERY real, VERY graphic, VERY inhuman, and VERY necessary.

Our sin is what disfigured Our Lord in this manner.  Our sin is what caused the strips of flesh to be scourged from His bones.  Our sin is what pressed the Crown of Thorns onto His Precious Head.  Our sin is what kicked, whipped and spat upon Him as He made His Way along the Via Dolorosa.

This crucifix brought all of that front and center for my class, and suddenly the Stations of the Cross became a lot more meaningful for them as a result.


They understood why He fell so many times.  They understood why Simon was needed to help Him carry His Cross along.  They understood, then, why Our Lady's heart must have broken a thousand times over seeing Her Son disfigured in such a cruel manner... and why St. Veronica was doing such a service to Him by cleaning His Face with her veil.

Seeing this crucifix colored their meditation more than any amount of explanation I could've done.  

For those of you who do not know this crucifix's origins, a seer by the name of Barnabas Nowye of Nigeria was commissioned by Christ to create a crucifix that would remind this generation of the reality of His Sacrifice.  The Lord lamented to Barnabas that we as a people have forgotten just how much He spent Himself in gaining for us the gift of Salvation.  We no longer reflect with true solemnity because we cannot envision all that His Love called forth for us.  

So He showed Himself to Barnabas and Barnabas recreated as best he could what he saw. Jesus then asked him to write the words "I am the agonizing Jesus Christ who loves you" on the cross, itself.  Indeed, He is the agonizing messiah.  Christ came for one reason and for one reason only - to suffer, die and rise for our Salvation.  Each step He took was a movement towards that terrifying, torturous Sacrifice.  In order for us to fully appreciate His Gift, we need to fully understand what went into securing it.