Seventh Station, After Jesus is made an object of fun, he is led out to be crucified

Sister Marie Claire Naidu
(second half of the twentieth century)
Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Bangalore – India

SEVENTH STATION
After Jesus is made an object of fun, he is led out to be crucified

V/. Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.
R/. Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.

Jesus, at whose name every knee in heaven and earth bends,[1] is made an object of fun. We are shocked to see to what levels of brutality human beings can sink. Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today: when things that are most Holy and Profound in the Faith are being trivialized; the sense of the sacred is allowed to erode; the religious sentiment is classified among unwelcome leftovers of antiquity.

Everything in public life risks being desacralized: persons, places, pledges, prayers, practices, words, sacred writings, religious formulae, symbols, ceremonies. Our life together is being increasingly secularized. Religious life grows diffident. Thus we see the most momentous matters placed among trifles, and trivialities glorified. Values and norms that held societies together and drew people to higher ideals are laughed at and thrown overboard. Jesus continues to be ridiculed!

We have faith, Lord, but not enough. Help us to have more.[2] May we never question or mock serious things in life like a cynic. Allow us not to drift into the desert of godlessness. Enable us to perceive you in the gentle breeze, see you in street corners, love you in the unborn child.

God, enable us to understand that on Tabor or Calvary, your Son is the Lord. Robed or stripped of his garments, he is the Saviour of the world.[3] Make us attentive to his quiet presences: in his “word”, in tabernacles, shrines, humble places, simple persons, the life of the poor, laughter of children, whispering pines, rolling hills, the tiniest living cell, the smallest atom, and the distant galaxies.

May we watch with wonder as he walks on the waters of the Rhine and the Nile and the Tanganyika.

[1] Cf. Phil 2:10.

[2] Cf. Mk 9:24.

[3] Cf. Jn 4:42.

Pater noster, qui es in cælis:
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat regnum tuum;
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a malo.