The Fifth Sorrowful Mystery - The Crucifixion and Death of our Lord

"We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."- 1 Corinthians 1:23f.

There are times when the weight of sin and suffering in the world threatens to overwhelm us, when life is so disfigured by evil that we physically and emotionally buckle under its weight, and we wonder about the meaning of such a pain-filled life. There is no escaping the reality of suffering and evil in our fragile and passing world, and it is not surprising that we should find it incomprehensible in relation to a good God. And so, it is not unexpected that we should wonder and ask God what is the point of suffering.

This mystery of the Rosary invites us to contemplate a profound and difficult answer to this perennial question that is sketched out for us in the person of Christ who, out of an unfathomable love, shares in our suffering through the mystery of the Cross. As Pope John Paul II said, Man "often puts this question [concerning suffering and evil] to God, and to Christ, [and] he cannot help noticing that the one to whom he puts the question is himself suffering and wishes to answer him from the Cross, from the heart of his own suffering. Nevertheless, it often takes time, even a long time, for this answer to begin to be interiorly perceived. For Christ does not answer directly and he does not answer in the abstract this human questioning about the meaning of suffering. Man hears Christ's saving answer as he himself gradually becomes a sharer in the sufferings of Christ".

Thus, St Paul who preached Christ crucified also said, "in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Colossians 1:24), for it is through a certain solidarity with Christ crucified, that the meaning of suffering is revealed to us and indeed it transforms us and makes us Christ-like. Moreover, we look to the Cross with faith and trust in God's divine promises which are already fulfilled in Christ and the saints. As Basil Cardinal Hume once wrote, "The cross speaks, too, of triumph - the triumph over sin and death - because we can never look at the cross without being reminded of the resurrection... Life won because love was strong" (see Song of Songs 8:6ff).

But such an understanding of suffering and death makes no sense without this Easter faith; it would remain a folly and a scandal. However, for those who ponder the mystery of sin and the Lord's Cross, perhaps we may begin to see something of the power of divine love and God's wisdom which transforms death into life.

For more on the mystery of suffering, do read John Paul II's encyclical, Salvifici Doloris.