Day 81: Behold Your King

I'm Fr. Mark Murray with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast.
We're through prayer and meditation. The Rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus, and to Mary, him comes a source of grace for the whole world.
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For today's Lectio Divina, we'll be praying with the third sorrowful mystery,

the crowning with thorns,

Matthew chapter 27, verses 27-31.

And our point of emphasis will be,

Behold your king.

Starting with our Alexio.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium,

and they gathered the whole battalion before him, and they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him. And plaiting a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand.
and kneeling before him they mocked him saying

hail a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews.
And they spat upon him, and took the reed, and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.
Let's go ahead and engage the scripture here for our meditation or meditatio. if you remember, so we have the whole battalion here gathered in the praetorium.
So that's a couple hundred soldiers. So it's this big audience and they've all come, presumably to mock Jesus, to see this one who had been spoken of admittedly maybe there's some souls there who weren't of the same mindset but overall they're there out of curiosity they're there to mock and before this this crowd of soldiers they strip him and they mock him,

the scarlet robe, crown of thorns, a reed.

And then they mock him, kneeling before him, saying,

Hail, King of the Jews.

And really the invitation for, I would say, our meditation is,

Thank you. And really the invitation for, I would say our meditation is, is just to stay here.
To sit before the reality. Here's Jesus.
The same Jesus born in Bethlehem,

the same Jesus went about healing,

loving, teaching, saving, shepherding.

And he's come to save each and every one of these soldiers who spit upon him, who mock him.

All of it is for them.

The for you includes each of them.

But he came to his own home and his own knew him not.

Here he is rejected by the Roman soldiers, mocked by the Roman soldiers.

But this is our king they mockingly say hail king of the Jews but we with true worship and adoration behold the true nature the true love the true sacrifice the true dignity and royalty of our king

so in your imagination as you see him stripped mocked crowned with thorns

as the rest of the battalion kneels and shouts with mockery, truly say, behold, our King, we worship you, our King, we adore your King. We'll return to our Alexio.
And kneeling before him,

they mocked him, saying,

Hail, King of the Jews.

And go ahead and take the time,

again with your imagination,

to see Jesus scourged, bloodied, beaten. Notice the scarlet robe on his shoulders, the reed in his hand, and the crown of thorns on his head.

If you're comfortable, I encourage you just to really look into the details of what this

crown of thorns looks like, how it rests upon his head.

The new wounds it inflicts.

Behold the true nature of sin, and what sin does to the soul. But also behold your king.
Again, behold the one who asks for your trust. Behold his goodness.

In him behold your dignity.

Okay, we'll return to our Lectio.

And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying,

Hail, King of the Jews. Hail, King of the Jews.
Let us transition to our oratio, our prayer. Following the template, receive, respond, request, rejoice.
What is the good news here offered for us to receive what is god revealing about himself again behold behold your god behold your savior behold your king behold the cost of your salvation

which again I think it's so important to receive in the context of

Jesus does this for us freely no one takes his life from him he lays it down freely

receive the good news of who it is that we worship

and who it is that asks for your fidelity and obedience.

Respond, we begin with adoration and praise.

Lord, we adore you as King,

our victorious King, our crucified King,

our meek King, our conquering King, our meek

King,

our conquering

King.

We adore you, we love you, we bless you,

we worship you.

Thank you for your heart revealed

here.

We thank you for your fidelity to the Father.

That even here, even now, you know who you are, His beloved Son. And you know who He is, His faithful Father.
and go ahead and pay attention now to like what's the movement in your heart is there an invitation for a type of action any form of repentance lord in particular i'm just feeling a um like a desire in my heart. I'm going to offer this to you, the listener, to what I'd love my heart to be a safe place for you.
As we see here, you came into the world and you're rejected. You came into the world and you're mocked.
And how often you continue to be mocked and dismissed in the world. Jesus, I want to receive you.
I want to see you. I want to worship you as the true king.
May you always find a home, Jesus, in my heart. I see you, Lord, and I know that you are king.
That you are good, that you are savior, that you are creator, that you are the light. I repent of any ways, and I'm going to offer you an invitation to any ways in which we reject him, we don't trust him.
Lord, we repent. Jesus, I just ask.
I ask for a heart of praise and a heart of worship and a heart of adoration, a heart of obedience, a heart of gratitude. As I see you as you are, Lord, what type of king you are, what type of the cost of your victory.
May I be rooted in this reality and this truth, Lord,

in my heart, may my heart overflow with gratitude

to the power of your spirit, Lord.

We're gonna ask for grateful hearts.

And I will end with our rejoicing.

We thank you, Jesus, for your love for us.

We thank you for, in fact, being our King. We thank you for this time of prayer and the grace that you have given us.
Thank you Lord for this time. Okay, we'll conclude now with our time of contemplation, praying one decade of decade of the rosary with that particular intention I'm going to ask you to just really keep before you like Jesus crowned with thorns and behold your king now with our lady let us pray in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen our who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

That's going to conclude our time of doing Lectio Divina.

Certainly, if the Lord's been speaking to your heart and you'd like to continue to pray,

you're very encouraged to do so.

Get a little extra time of silence.

But for us, that will be our time.

Thank you so much for joining me and praying with me today.

I look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow.

All right, poco a poco friends.