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ELEVENTH STATION
V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you. From the Gospel according to Mark 15:25-27 And it was the third hour, when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.
MEDITATION Jesus is nailed to the cross. An appalling form of torture. And as he hangs on the cross, many of the passersby mock him and even try to provoke him: “He saved others; he cannot save himself! … He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said: ‘I am the Son of God!’” (Mt 27:42-43). Not only is his person mocked, but also his saving mission, the mission that Jesus was bringing to fulfilment upon the cross. Yet deep within, Jesus knows an incomparably greater suffering, which causes him to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34). These are the opening words of a Psalm which concludes with a reaffirmation of complete trust in God. At the same time they are words to be taken completely seriously, as expressing the greatest test to which Jesus was subjected. How many times, when we are tested, we think that we have been forgotten or abandoned by God. Or are even tempted to decide that God does not exist. The Son of God, who drank his bitter chalice to the dregs and then rose from the dead, tells us, instead, with his whole self, by his life and by his death, that we ought to trust in God. We can believe him.
All: Pater noster, qui es in cælis: Tui Nati vulnerati,
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