Good Friday Way of the Cross 2021 St. Gabriel Catholic Church
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FIRST STATION Jesus is condemned to death. Guide: We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. All: Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. From the Gospel according to Mark (15:14-15) The crowd shouted all the more, “Crucify him”. So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas; and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Good Friday Way of the Cross 2021 MEDITATION St. Gabriel Catholic Church Pilate’s verdict was pronounced under pressure from the priests and Meditation Texts are from St. John Paul II, Via Crucis in Rome 2003. the crowd. The sentence of death by crucifixion was meant to calm their fury and meet their clamorous demand: “Crucify him! Crucify Opening Prayer him!” (Mk 15:13-14). The Roman praetor thought he could dissociate himself from the sentence, washing his hands of it, just as he had Lord Jesus, already distanced himself from Christ’s words identifying his King- At your birth you came to share our nature. dom with the truth, and with witness to the truth (Jn 18:38). In both In your Passion and death you shared our pains and sorrows. instances Pilate was trying to preserve his own independence, to Through our meditation on the sufferings you endured for our salvation remain somehow “uninvolved”. So it may have seemed to him, on the may we share your rejection of sin surface. But the Cross to which Jesus of Nazareth was condemned and your life of commitment (Jn 19:16), like the truth he told about his Kingdom (Jn 18:36-37), had to God and neighbor. to strike deep into the Roman praetor’s soul. All this was, and is, a May we come to share also in the glory of your Resurrection single reality, in the face of which one cannot remain uninvolved, on in the Kingdom where you live and reign the sidelines. with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. When Jesus, the Son of God, was questioned about his Kingdom and, because of this, was judged guilty by men and condemned to death, his final testimony began: he was about to demonstrate that “God so loved the world...” (cf. Jn 3:16). We have this testimony before us, and we realize that we are not allowed to wash our hands of it. SECOND STATION THIRD STATION Jesus takes up his Cross. Jesus falls the first time. Guide: We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. Guide: We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. All: Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. All: Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. From the Gospel according to Mark (15:20) From the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (53:4-6) After they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. esteemed him stricken smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon MEDITATION him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every The execution, the implementation of the sentence, is beginning. one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Christ, condemned to death, must be burdened with the Cross just like the two other men who have received the same punishment: “he MEDITATION was numbered with the transgressors” (Is 53:12). Christ draws near to the Cross, his body atrociously bruised and lacerated, blood running Jesus falls under the weight of the Cross. He falls to the ground. He down his face from his head crowned with thorns. Ecce Homo! does not resort to his superhuman powers, he does not resort to the (Jn 19:5). In him we see all the truth foretold by the Prophets about power of the angels. “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, the Son of man, the truth proclaimed by Isaiah about the servant of and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” Yahweh: “He was wounded for our transgressions... and by his stripes (Mt 26:53). He does not ask for that. Having accepted the cup from we are healed” (Is 53:5). the Father’s hands (Mk 14:36) he is resolved to drink it to the end. This is as he wills it. And so he has no thoughts of any superhuman In him we see also the amazing consequence of what man has done force, although such force is at his disposal. Those who saw him when to his God. Pilate says: “Ecce Homo” (Jn 19:5): “Look what you have he showed his power over human infirmities, crippling diseases and done to this man!” But there seems to be another voice speaking as even death itself, may well, in their grief, have wondered: “What well, a voice that seems to be saying: “Look what you have done, in now?” “Is he repudiating all that?” In a few days the disciples on the this man, to your God!” road to Emmaus would say: “We had hoped” (cf. Lk 24:21). “If you are the Son of God....” (Mt 27:40), the members of the Sanhedrin It is very moving to hear this voice from centuries ago, as it blends were to fling at him. And the crowd would yell: “He saved others but with the voice coming to us from what we know in faith. Ecce Homo! he cannot save himself” (Mk 15:31: Mt 27:42). Jesus “who is called the Messiah” (Mt 27:17) takes the Cross upon his He accepts these provocations, which seem to undermine the whole shoulders (Jn 19:17). The execution has begun. meaning of his mission, his teaching, his miracles. He accepts them all, for he is determined not to combat them. To be insulted is what he wills. To stagger and fall under the weight of Cross is what he wills. He wills it all. To the end, down to the bitter end, he is faithful to what he had said: “Not my will, but yours be done” (cf. Mk 14:36, etc.). God will bring forth the salvation of humanity from Christ’s falling beneath the weight of the Cross. FOURTH STATION FIFTH STATION Jesus meets his Mother. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the Cross. Guide: We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. Guide: We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You. All: Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. All: Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. From the Gospel according to Luke. 2:34-35, 51 From the Gospel according to Mark (15:21-22) Simeon said to Mary, his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the They compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign of contradiction, that the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his Cross. And thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed. And a sword will pierce they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means the place through your own soul also”... His mother kept all these things in her of the skull. heart. MEDITATION MEDITATION Simon of Cyrene, called upon to carry the Cross (cf. Mk 15:21; Lk The Mother. Mary meets her Son along the way of the Cross. His 23:26), doubtless had no wish to do so. He was forced to. He walked Cross becomes her Cross, his humiliation is her humiliation, the public beside Christ, bearing the same burden. When the condemned man’s scorn is on her shoulders. This is the way things are. So it must seem shoulders became too weak, he lent him his. He was very close to to the people around her, and this is how her own heart reacts: “And Jesus, closer than Mary, closer than John who - though he too was a sword will pierce through your soul also” (Lk 2:35). The words a man - was not called upon to help. They called on him, Simon of spoken when Jesus was forty days old are now fulfilled. They are now Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as we learn from the completely fulfilled. And so, pierced by that invisible sword, Mary Gospel of Mark (Mk 15:21). They summoned him, they compelled sets out towards her Son’s Calvary, her own Calvary. Christian him. devotion represents her with this sword penetrating her heart, in paintings and sculpture. Mother of sorrows! How long did he continue to resent being forced into this? How long did he continue to walk beside this condemned man, all the while “You who shared his suffering!”, say the faithful, who know in their making it clear that he had nothing in common with him, nothing to hearts that the mystery of this suffering can be expressed in no other do with his crime, nothing to do with his punishment? How long did way. Although this pain is hers, striking deep in her maternal heart, he go on like that, torn within himself, a barrier of indifference the full truth of this suffering can be expressed only in terms of a standing between him and the Man who was suffering? “I was naked, shared suffering - ‘com-passion’.