What are you reading for Lent?

Prayer and study are an important element of the Catholic life, especially during the season of Lent when we are invited to grow closer to the Lord. Since "ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ" obviously it's important to read the Bible. I usually focus on the four passion narratives during Lent and always read Pierre Barbet's meditation from Doctor at Calvary on Good Friday. You can read it free online. 

The Passion of Christ as Told by Surgeon Pierre Barbet

Every Good Friday my husband and I read Dr. Barbet's description of the passion from A Doctor at Calvary. The meditation is based on his expertise as a surgeon and a student of the Shroud of Turin. It's not too late to enter into this moving description of Jesus' sufferings. You can find it here and you will never look at the crucifix in the same way. 

Lord Jesus, our crucified Savior, have mercy on us. 

Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

The Corporal Passion of Jesus Christ from Doctor at Calvary by Dr. Pierre Barbet

Every Good Friday between 12 noon and 3 p.m. I try to read Pierre Barbet's meditation on the Passion. Barbet was a surgeon who studied the wounds on the Shroud of Turin and wrote a book about his finding, A Doctor at Calvary.

It is a difficult meditation and one that I can never read without tears as he admits he does himself. But if you truly want to walk the way of the cross with Jesus, you can hardly find a more truthful companion than Barbet.

 If you would like to read it, the book is online here. The meditation begins on page 187 in the book, page 213 of the PDF.

May God bless your meditations on this oh-so-strange Good Friday of 2020. And may you receive all the blessings of Our Divine Lord's passion and resurrection.

I also invite you to respond to Archbishop Vigano's call for all the bishops and priests of the world to join in Pope Leo XIII's exorcism prayer against the virus tomorrow, Holy Saturday, at 3:00 p.m. Rome time which is 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Our Lord Suffered and Died for Us

Do any of us have any real comprehension of what it means when we say, "The Lord suffered and died for us?" Maybe those who have reflected deeply and often on the passion get a small glimmer. Mel Gibson certainly presented a graphic portrayal of it in his film, The Passion of the Christ. Pierre Barbet, a French surgeon who studied the shroud and wrote a book called Doctor at Calvary, reached the point he could no longer make the stations of the cross because of his understanding. But most of us look at the sanitized crucifixes over our altars and how much do they touch us?


The truth of Christ's suffering is bloody and awful. When I saw the photos of the sculpture by  Juan Manuel Miñarro based on the Shroud of Turin, I remembered all of Barbet's descriptions of Christ's wounds. Barbet offers a meditation on the passion as an appendix to his book. I usually read it on Good Friday between 12:00 and 3:00 to remind me of the great love God has for us -- that He sent His only Son to die a gruesome death, the death of a criminal, to save the REAL criminals -- US. Now Miñarro provides the illustrations to go with the words. They are a graphic reminder of the price Jesus paid for us. "By His stripes we are healed."

It's Palm Sunday -- and so the Passion Begins!

What a picture we saw at Mass this morning. Before the processional the priest blessed the palms and read the gospel of Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem. How soon things changed. By the end of Mass we had walked the way of the cross. We saw Judas betray Jesus with a kiss and Peter with three denials punctuated by curses. We heard the crowds (ourselves taking their places) scream "Crucify him!" and watched Pontius Pilate try to wash innocent blood from his guilty hands. We walked along the via crucis adding our own sinful abuse of Christ to the weight of His cross. And we saw the Roman soldiers wield all the tools of torture from the multi-thonged scourge studded with bone, to the crown of thorns, to the nine-inch nails used to brutally attach the precious body to the wooden beams.

And how does Jesus respond through it all? Silence and prayer. "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."

There is an awful (and awe-full) passion meditation from Pierre Barbet's A Doctor at Calvary. Barbet was a surgeon who wrote the book in the 1950s after examining the Shroud of Turin. His analysis of Christ's suffering is told with a doctor's eye for detail and a sense of the physical pains that accompanied each stage from the sweat of blood on the Mount of Olives until Christ took his last agonized breath and whispered, "It is finished" on Calvary hill. My husband and I read the meditation every Good Friday to remind us once more of the terrible price Christ paid because of our sins.

Let me give you one paragraph to meditate on and urge you to buy the book. "The crucifixion begins. Oh, it is not very complicated; the executioners know their work. First of all He must be stripped. The lower garments are dealt with easily enough, but the coat has firmly stuck to His wounds, that is to say, to His whole body, and this stripping is a horrible business.Have you ever removed the first dressing which has been on a large bruised wound, and has dried on it? Or have you yourself ever been through this ordeal, which sometimes requires a general anaesthetic? If so, you know what it is like. Each thread has stuck to the raw surface, and when it is removed it tears away one of the innumberable nervous ends which have been laid bare by the wound. These thousands of painful shocks add up and multiply, each one increasing the sensitivity of the nervous system. Now it is not just a question of a local lesion, but of almost the whole surface of the body, and especially of that dreadful back. The executioners are in a hurry and set about their work roughly. Perhaps it is better thus, but how does this sharp, dreadful pain not bring on a fainting fit? How clear is is that from beginning to end He dominates, He directs His Passion."

May we all enter into this Holy Week of suffering and glory and exit it filled to the brim with increased faith, hope, and charity.

N.B. The picture above is the living face of Jesus reconstructed from the image of the dead face of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin. There are blessings attached to devotion to the Holy Face. Look into His eyes and know His love for you.