The Sorrowful Mysteries

The Agony in the Garden

He is coming toward me and the look upon His Face tells me He is agonizing. Come rest here a while, I am your rock. Sit beside me and lean on me. I begin to hear Him pray in a whisper. His friends are nearby but do not hear Him as I do. They are reclining and appear puzzled. For the moment, I was distracted but this man is in anguish and I am here for Him. I feel His flesh upon my hard soil; I become moist as He perspires. His voice is warm, soft, eloquent, prayerful. He prays, "Father, if this cup cannot pass…."as He sweats droplets of blood upon me. His voice becomes saddened and tortured. His soul grieves, not for Himself, but for all men. If I had a real heart, it would be breaking as I hear Him pray…"Thy Will be done." He gets up several times to speak a word or two to His friends, then He returns, each time more pained in spirit. He practically lies upon me and now, I understand it is my moment, my purpose for being. I am His rock.

The Scourging at the Pillar

Soldiers are bringing a man toward me and are tying His hands around my circumference tightly, so tightly I can feel his chest and his heartbeat upon my white cool column. They tie His legs and feet so He cannot move about. I feel His head and hair as His face is forced violently against me while they rudely switch Him repeatedly. I feel His voice in vibration as He tries to control the groanings of pain from the fierce blows upon His body. These soldiers are relentless in their torture of him almost as though they are the devil themselves. This beaten body is beginning to hang heavily on me and if the lashings do not soon stop, they will kill him right here upon me. My white beauty is now splattered with stripped flesh and blood. Now I know my purpose, at least for a while, I beheld a King and Glory touched me.

The Crowning with Thorns

They have pulled me from the briars and are bringing me to the palace. Someone is placing me with others like me into a circular wreath. I wonder what we will adorn. I see a beaten man being brought toward us, hands crudely tied behind His back, bloodied in ripped and stained clothing. They lift us up and place us upon His head. We are a crown of thorns. Not do they gently place us there, but they press us so our tips cut through His head, brow, scalp and then they mock Him and spit upon Him. I feel their spittle and I begin to feel the blood from His head dampen me. His blood that dampens me drips toward his brow and down His face. My place is the center front just above His mid brow and if I could, I would not press so hardly. If I could pray, I would ask His Father to lift me off and out of this thorny crown of torture. Now I know why I came to be at this point in time….part of a thorny crown to adorn an Innocent Lamb.

The Carrying of the Cross

Wood of a cross! That is what they have made of me. Taken from a mighty tree, they splintered me and formed me into a cross. They bring me to a man who will carry me. He hardly looks as though He could carry much; He is a beaten man, weakened from tortures of which I know nothing except that they are mocking Him and heaving me across His shoulder. My whole weight is upon Him as He drags me across the ground. With each stone I am scraped over, I dig deeper into His flesh opening a new wound on this already bloodied body. Why are they doing this to Him? I see wailing women as we pass by. I see men with soulful glances. No one is able to do anything to stop this torturous journey as I begin to realize an innocent man is dragging me inch by painful inch. It is not me who wishes to penalize this man but I am causing Him great pain and it hurts me to know that the weight of my wood is torturing Him. Blessed relief, an unwilling man is ordered to help Him carry me. The innocent man would have died right here, had not the Cyrinian been ordered to help. The arduous journey continues.

The Crucifixion and Death

They take me off His shoulders and lay me down on the ground and throw this man upon me, stripped of everything except a simple cloth to cover His body. They stretch his arms across the shorter crossbar and pound nails into each Hand. I hear His cries of pain and I want to cry with Him because they are also nailing me. Then they take His feet, cross them, pull them, and with all of their force again pound nails into His feet and into me. O His cries torture me. We are hiked up and with great force dropped into the hole they have dug and His body is rended with even greater force and tortuous pain and He gives a loud cry which is more than anyone can bear to hear. I feel His flesh, his warm blood ooze down and across my width and length. They have also nailed a sign above His head…mocking Him with the words, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Slowly I feel His flesh become cold and His blood conjeal. His breathing is labored and after several hours an end is drawing nigh. I hear Him utter His last breath, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." My purpose for being is a sign for the many. Soon friends will come to take Him down from me. I see the tears of His friends and His Mother who has agonized much for love of her Son, Jesus. Here I stand, once a proud tree, now a SIGN of this SACRIFICIAL LAMB.

Mel Patterson © 2004

Encapsulated in His Love

Encapsulated in His Love

In 2004 I attended a charismatic day of prayer rally at the Adams Mark Hotel in Philadelphia, PA and had the great pleasure and privilege to see and hear Sister Josephine Walsh, a nun who is active in a cause for children of Bosnia. Sister wore street clothes and you would not have known she was a nun except perhaps by her joy in the Lord. She had a delightful manner and lilting accent. I was spell-bound.

Sister spoke of our 'space.' She suggested we raise our arms a way above our heads and meet them in the center, then bring them far out to our sides and down as far as they would go, meeting them in the center again. She described that 'space' as our personal 'space' and had us picture it as the 'space' where God is.

That is what I shall attempt to expand upon here in an effort to help us understand and be encouraged by the great love God has for each of us individually and collectively as Christian believers.

Again, raise your arms up over your head, touch your fingertips together, bring them out straight, bring them down to your sides, and draw them together. You have just delineated your own personal space. That space is full of God's Love for you.

Nothing can take that God-space away from you. There is nothing you can do that will lessen God's love for you. Nothing will take His love away except your own decision to follow Satan into eternity. Is that really a choice? Who would want to be devoid of the Love of God for all eternity. That would be hell. To be in a place where God's Love is not is hell.

Picture God's Love around you like a bubble, a bubble of love. Picture all of us with a bubble of God's love all around us. Let us suppose that we can imagine every single person in the world encased within a bubble of God's love, excepting of course, only those who defy and deny God and follow Satan. At this point we pray for Salvation and conversions.

You might think that each person encased in a bubble of God's love would bump and bang into and off one another. Boing, boing, boing! Not so! As we gather together, our God-encased bubbles intermingle, intertwine and enclose us all. We become surrounded in a union of prayer and care. I suppose that is what it means to experience the Presence of God in our collective midst. His Love grows and flows, flows and grows within like-minded Christian praying people. When united, Christians praying together, meld with one another and the Love of God becomes strong as the Holy Spirit descends upon this mass of people. This reminds me of that First Pentecost.

I experienced one moment last year, and I don't ever want to experience it again, where there was a void…….a blank, dark, dank void, de-void of any Holy Presence, not necessarily hell but NOTHING. It was a place I do not ever want to be again. For a moment it was frightening and I think the Lord permitted me to feel this for the reason I know I never want to go there again.

Imagine never having been born? Imagine never being able to know God, to love God, to serve God in this life and to be happy with Him forever in the next. Imagine the gifts we never would have received, the gifts of people around us, our parents, our families, our friends, our infancy, our youth, our adulthood, never mothering nor fathering children of our own, never hearing the sounds of nature, never seeing the beauty around us, never owning anything, never loving anyone, never praying, the list goes on and on and on.

Some of us may not have experienced all of these gifts, but most of us have experienced some of these gifts. Who is this GOD who loves us so much, He gave us life? He is the GOD of yesterday, of today, of tomorrow and every tomorrow thereafter forever and ever and ever. He always was, always is, and will always be. He always remains the same.

We do not arise in the morning that we are not encapsulated in His love. We do not move about during our day, that He is not loving us. We do not think a thought that was not permitted by Him. Would that all of our thoughts would be on the Lover and Creator of our souls. It is well to ask Our Father for favors, for needs, trusting as children in His Divine Providence and it is just as well to thank Our Father and to Praise Our Father in all things. If we accept everything as coming from Him, we know we are loved by a tender Father. He is teaching us and desiring us to be in a closer union with Him. As we are accepting of His Love, we are drawn more and more toward Him. As we are drawn more and more toward Him, He unfolds before us. Words are inadequate to describe the Holy Reality of Our God. Our souls, through the Holy Spirit's inspiration, know much more than our human minds can ever express. When we contemplate and meditate upon the Glory of God our souls swell, our hearts swell, we find PRAISING a natural thing to do. We are lifted to a higher plain and this, too, is an extraordinary gift of the Father to us. We are encapsulated in His Love.

As I was walking through New York City a couple of weeks ago, I imagined every person surrounded in a bubble of God's Love. It helped me to see the homeless man in the same light as the taxi cab driver, as the street vendor, as the shop owner, something that is extremely hard to do in New York City where millions are trying to make their way to their destinations. In all of that hustle-bustle, do we think God loves one more than another? It is not possible. He loves the lowly and the mighty. He humbles the mighty and the lowly He lifts up. It was not possible for me to picture everyone's bubble of love for very long, however it did help me to see differently and has colored my outlook, I pray for the long haul. Help us, O Lord, to follow in your ways, to soak in your perfect love, and through the power of your Holy Spirit, make us aware of being encapsulated in your love.

Visualizations imprint upon our minds pictures to help us remember. Visualize! Visualize! Visualize our own personal bubble of love, and the bubbles of love of everyone we see and meet. Try to see that each person is loved by God, The Father, and He made each of us to one day be happy with Him in Heaven. In essence, we are brothers and sisters, with One Father, who has encapsulated each one of us in His Love. His Love is not for a time. It is for ALL time, forever.

Whenever you raise your arms to stretch, perhaps upon arising in the morning to greet the new day, remember to visualize. Visualize God's bubble of love around you. Visualize God's bubble of love around your family, in your workplace, in the supermarket, on the bus, in your Church, wherever you are, visualize that bubble of God's love around each person you see. It will color your vision and help you to love a little more like Jesus loves. It will help you to become a little more objective and a little less judgmental. It will help you to attain a little more freedom and a little more peace. God knows we need more of these graces in our souls and spirits.

Let us pray for the ability to see a little more clearly that we are all encapsulated in His Love. Not convinced?…then look to the Cross, and see the Victim, victorious in His Resurrection. He bids us "COME." On our way to Paradise we are ENCAPSULATED in HIS LOVE. VISUALIZE! VISUALIZE! VISUALIZE!

Mel Patterson © June 2004

" TEMPLES of the HOLY SPIRIT "

TEMPLES of the HOLY SPIRIT

Broaching the subject of temples, these are a few questions we might ask ourselves: If we are "temples of the Holy Spirit," how equipped are we to house that awesome Third Person of the Blessed Trinity?Do we realize what an awesome task that is? Hardly. I, for one, am deeply lacking in that realization, even though, when I think about it, I know it is true. Do we crowd out the Holy Spirit by our own human wants and needs? Does our sinful nature push the Holy Spirit right on out of us? We need to come to grips with the awesome gift and the responsibility that we were not created for our own selves, but for HIM, for our Father, by our Father, GOD the Father. The "Holy of Holies" wants us, you and me, to be with HIM, now as we are able and to grow in that upward spiral, opening up to invite HIM in, more fully, moment to moment, hour to hour, day by day.

How do we do this? By being aware, by bringing ourselves back into focus repeatedly, by pondering this magnificent gift of His Presence within us, available to us at every moment, even to the end of time. We are never alone in our human frailty if we remember in times of trial that He told us He would never leave us nor forsake us. Why is it then, that we become so engrossed in our own world, in our own minds, that our souls cannot grow or realize HE is there? We need to hear the knock, unlock the door, open the door, and receive Our King.

The more we open up to the Holy Spirit residing within us, the more we become like Christ. Realizing the Holy Spirit within us enables us to love one another and others like Jesus did and does. There is a part in every person, no matter how deeply hidden, even from themselves, where a dit-dot of the Holy Spirit may gain entrance. While there is life, there is always hope.

If we are to evangelize, we must first evangelize ourselves. I know it sounds a little silly, but how can we purport to evangelize someone else if we are not evangelized ourselves? Perhaps we had good mentors. To them we are greatful, but the onus is then upon ourselves to stay evangelized, to stoke the fire and keep it burning, spreading it to other souls, to our families, to our friends, to our aquaintances, to our neighborhoods, to our towns, countries, cities. Wherever we are, we want to keep the Fire of His Holy Spirit burning.We have the power because of the Holy Spirit. That is the reason we must keep our temples in order. If we have some cobwebs in the temple, if we have cracking walls, if we have shaky foundations, there is the remedy. JESUS.

There is Repentence. It is the cleansing and strengthening we need to dust out those cobwebs, to caulk those cracks, to secure those foundations. We have the promise of Forgiveness if we go to Jesus with a sincere heart. There is the Bible, the Word of God, in daily doses to help strengthen us. There is church, the house of God where we take our "temples." Our churches, if we are able to physically get ourselves there, fortify us. If we cannot get to our churches, many of our churches are on the television where we may hear the Word of God to fortify us. We have our blessed Prayer Groups on the Internet to encourage us, to lift us up, to fortify us, to strengthen us. The gist of this message is, if we are Temples of the Holy Spirit, let us take on the responsibility and put into that Temple only what in the sight of God is acceptable.

We must respect the fact that we were gifted by God with this AWESOME GIFT and the responsibility that goes along with it, of keeping it in order.We pray for ourselves to realize and remember the GIFT. We pray our brothers and sisters in Christ come to realize it too, and they remember the GIFT. Awesome that He made us Temples of………the HOLY SPIRIT. Let us show our gratitude in songs of Praise and Thanksgivings to our Father.

Mel Patterson © 2004