Let us Pray: “We adore you O Lord and we bless you, because of your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”
5 …Jesus did not carry the whole cross (forget the pictures and movies), it was customary and natural to carry only the ‘patibulum’ the beam, the horizontal piece. If we consider the fact that this patibulum weighed 60 kilograms, to include the upright, the ‘stipes’, as well, then the whole weight would have been impossible to carry, a total weight of 120 kilograms, especially in the condition of the victims.
We must not forget the state of Jesus’ health after the Scourging, the Crowning with thorns, the night He spent being spat on, beaten and what not, the haemmorhage He suffered, the lack of food, water and sleep… it would have been an impossible task to carry all that weight.
The shape of the cross depended on the whims of the moment; it could be a single upright fixed to the ground and the victim would be nailed or bound by rope and left hanging. To increase their pain and hasten their ‘asphyxia’ they used to tie a weight to their legs and that weight would cause the victim to approach his death within minutes. They would remove the weight and keep playing about as if they had a toy.
The Romans were experts at such cruelties. I often think about Paul’s Letter to the Romans, no wonder that it is a very accusing and harsh letter to people who used to find sheer enjoyment in sadistic sport.They sometimes crucified them on an X shaped construction, but more commonly, as they did to Jesus, on a cross in the shape of a letter T, the TAU, as it is known.
The owner of a household had full authority on all his slaves. According to a Roman law, if the head of the household was killed, murdered, poisoned, and the culprit who committed the crime was not found, the law stated that all the slaves had to be crucified. That was the mentality of the time.
For nailing the feet, only one nail was used; they put the feet on each other and drove one nail through both feet. Can we imagine the pain ? I’m afraid we got so much used to seeing crucifixes, pictures and paintings of crucifixions that we seem to be taking these things forgranted.
Let us meditate, and think…I should have been the one to be nailed to the cross, because it is I who have committed so many sins, not Jesus. Jesus took my place. Do I ever stop to THANK the Lord Jesus for taking my place … whilst I keep on sinning.
Thank you, Jesus, help me to appreciate, not by paying lip service, BUT by stopping from sinning and offending YOU.
“We adore you O Lord and we bless you, because of your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”
… /6
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