VIA DOLOROSA - completion

      I missed last Friday's post on the Way of the Cross, so I will complete our reflections on this Good Friday.

The Eleventh Station

JESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS

    The action of "nailing" the convict to the cross was not commonplace but reserved for the circumstances when a "point was to be made".  Usually the hands and feet were securely bound by ropes.  However we are bound to our cross, the pain is always there and usually excruciating.

    Sometimes our will is bound to the cross through the people that we are forced to bear or who we must serve or obey.  Sometimes it comes through sickness and disease without our being able to do anything about it.  Sometimes our being bound to our cross crushes our dreams, plans, and ambitions that keep us from touching the living God.

    Jesus willing allowed himself to be bound, with nails and ropes, to a cross for the redemption of all creation.  

The Twelfth Station

JESUS DIES UPON THE CROSS

    At the foot of the cross was his mother, Mary.  She stood there in anguish and sorrow.  Though Mary can do nothing at this moment, her inactivity is not paralysis.  It is an inward churning of love and wonder and sorrow.  If this is where her son leads her, then this is where she will stay.  She will want nothing else if this is the appointed end of the son whom she loves; the son who, far from receiving her loving care has become the master of her soul.

The Thirteenth Station

JESUS IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS

    He has commended himself into the hands of his Father.  The crowds begin to disperse.  Those who love Jesus stay with him in stillness; those who hate, betray, or deny him leave, with many words and emotions.  Waiting with Christ in stillness, like Mary, means union with him.  It means knowing "the tragedy and the victory of his love."  It is called contemplation.  Are we found at the foot of the cross in prayer and contemplation, or have we moved on?  The great "Pieta" is the image of this Station.

The Fourteenth Station

JESUS IS LAID IN THE SEPULCHER

    The scriptures take the view that in living and dying, the best thing available to us is the knowledge of God.  As to knowing ourselves, that will come with knowing God.

    The Cross of Christ reveals God most truly because that is where he redeems the human beings that he has made, bringing them fully and finally into his purposes.  Wonderfully he allows us to embrace his Cross.  When the crucified comes to live with us, we die into his glorious Resurrection.

Remember, that Easter morning this sepulcher will be found empty ... but he is found in our midst.