As with His Agony in the Garden, there are two situations in which the scourging of Christ is lived out anew in our bodies. First of all, there are the major illnesses and injuries that eventually find us. Bodily pain is a genuine test. At the end of his life when he was suffering greatly from pancreatic cancer, Cardinal Bernadin taught that we should pray well when we are healthy, because it is difficult to pray when we are sick. So the Passion of Christ can give us strength when it is our turn to suffer bodily pain.
Hearing the late Cardinal’s advice, though, and recognizing that conformity to Christ must be a daily effort, we can say that the scourging at the pillar corresponds to the bodily ascesis that anyone serious about the life of sanctity will need to adopt. Fasting, eating simple foods, chastising the stirrings of lust, and avoiding addiction to bodily comfort do not normally cost us in suffering what serious illness does. All the more reason to bear these discomforts willingly, like the athletes who carefully watch what they eat and push their bodies further each day for the sake of an earthly trophy. When we do this, Christ is present in us, working out our transformation from darkness to light.