The narrow streets of the old city of Jerusalem lead us to the beginning of the Via Dolorosa. On our Lenten journey we stop at the Church of the Scourging, built by the Crusaders in the 12th century, then abandoned and since 1838 owned by the Custody of the Holy Land. The stained glass windows depict the scenes of the condemnation of Jesus by Pilate, the scourging of Jesus and the liberation of Barabbas. In his third Lenten meditation, Fr. Carlo Giuseppe Adesso began with the passage from the evangelist John: "Pilate had Jesus taken and scourged" (Jn. 19:1). Inspired by mystics, music and art, he searched through these witnesses for the deeper meaning of Christ who let himself be scourged for love. Fr CARLO GIUSEPPE ADESSO Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro "I was inspired by Mel Gibson's beautiful film, and even the duration of the homily is the same duration as the crucifixion scene we see in the film, and especially the scourging. I liked the idea of Mel Gibson who analyzed in the faces of those who witnessed the scourging the way they experienced it. And I wanted to do the same thing in my reflection. I called upon the great witnesses of the faith to help us dig into the content of this great mystery by which we have been redeemed. This episode leads us to reflect also on the sufferings and injustices - sometimes to the point of martyrdom - of today and shows us a way to live our daily "Way of the Cross" with hope. Fr CARLO GIUSEPPE ADESSO Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro "One of the aspects that struck me about the flagellation is to meditate on how the Church, the mystical body of Christ, is involved in this mystery of the flagellation. In my humble opinion the most bleeding wound concerning the "scourging of the Church" is division. Fr CARLO GIUSEPPE ADESSO Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro "If the evil is division, the medicine, the antidote can only be communion, that is, unity. To put back at the center of our faith, of our life, of the life of our communities, Christ present in his word but present in a very special way, sacramentally, in his Most Holy Body. This will make the Church united, the Eucharist being the "sacramentum caritatis". Then Shakespeare will be right in saying: heaven rejoices in this unity of ours, that heaven which was so frowning, was so sad at our division". It is the very Passion of Jesus that lights our way and offers a point of hope in the midst of life's troubles. As St. Paul writes to the Galatians, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20) and "I bear the stigmata of Jesus in my body" (Gal 6:17).