Every Friday my husband and I join several other members of the chapel for a holy hour for priests. It has become an essential and well-loved part of our week. We pray the rosary and then the stations of the cross. The prayers all focus on supporting our own priests and all the priests of the world in their challenging vocation. How desperately we need our priests. Without them Jesus cannot come to us here and now, really and truly present on our altars and in all the tabernacles of the world.
I especially love praying the stations of the cross. Each one has a poignant message, but there are four that especially focus my eyes on the love of Christ for me and every one of us. The first is when Jesus accepts His cross. Some stations say Jesus embraces the cross. Think of that, an execution meant to strip the prisoner of dignity and show the utmost contempt. And yet Jesus embraces and kisses the instrument of torture that becomes the instrument of our salvation. The Litany of the Holy Cross dates from the Middle Ages and the refrain, Save Us, O Holy Cross, refers to Jesus Who hung upon it. The wood of the cross is sanctified by His body just as we are sanctified by receiving Him in the Eucharist.
The next station that calls to my heart is the 4th, Jesus Meets His Afflicted Mother. How can any mother's heart not recognize the agonizing pain of Mary as she beheld the battered and bleeding body of her Divine Son? If any station can bring a woman to her knees in adoration and grief for our beloved Lord it is this moment in time when the Blessed Mother beheld and united her suffering to His for the salvation of the world. O Mary, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces, help us enter into the passion of Our Lord during these last days of Lent.
Mary must have been praying as she watched her Son's painful journey to Calvary. The fruit of those prayers no doubt was the assistance Jesus received from Simon and then Veronica. How I love this depiction of Veronica by the painter Paul De la Roche.
What a reward Jesus gave to this holy woman who defied the roman guards by approaching Our Savior to wipe his sweating and blood-stained face. Not only did she show courage, but think of her neighbors observing her. Some of those neighbors joined in reviling Christ as He made His way to the hill of execution. Evil hates good. Did many turn on Veronica, momentarily distracted from their attack on Christ? I ask Veronica's intercession that I might have the courage to publicly witness to my faith in Our Lord despite ridicule and contempt.
The final station, the one that invites me to a long and sorrowful reflection, is the Crucifixion.
I think of the texts in the Old Testament that foreshadow the final fulfillment of our rescue through the cross. I remember Moses raising the serpent on the pole. It reminds the Israelites of the seducer of their patriarchal ancestors, Adam and Eve? Jesus, through Moses, shows them the ultimate source of salvation, the cross. It will save them from the plague of serpents who represent sin and destruction. Later, He will overcome sin on another "pole." What looks like defeat becomes the greatest exaltation which the Easter Vigil celebrates. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your cross and resurrection and let me thank you also for Adam's sin that gave us such a Savior. Help me to truly enter into your passion during these final weeks of Lent.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on your people and grant us Your salvation!
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