A Crown of Thorns
As we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King this week, let us not forget that the notion of kingship was to haunt Jesus as he endured his Passion. John's Gospel tells us that sometime between his Last Supper with the apostles and the Crucifixion, Roman soldiers mocked Jesus' sovereignty, placing upon his head a Crown of Thorns. Representing the sin and suffering of humanity carried by Christ to his death on the Cross, thorns date back to the Garden of Eden, springing out of the earth when God cursed Adam and Eve's transgression. On the Cross, the thorns became "an ironic sign of the contempt the world showed for the King of Kings as he gave up his life for them" (source 1). Born a King, Christ died a King, as the inscription on the Cross reminds us: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
Image: Jesus' Crown of Thorns, preserved at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Saint Louis (a king himself, Louis IX) is said to have carried the Crown barefoot through Paris to Notre-Dame, then built the Sainte Chapelle as a reliquary for it and other relics of the Passion. Today, the faithful may venerate the Crown of Thorns at the Cathedral on Fridays during Lent, and throughout the day on Good Friday. It is a powerfully moving and awe-inspiring ritual.
For more on the Crown of Thorns and its symbolic origins, see source 1.
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