SR. ELENA MARIA MANGANELLI, O.S.A.
VIA CRUCIS
LECCETO 2011

SECOND STATION
Jesus takes up his cross

Jesus carries the cross; he shoulders the burden of truth

V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R/. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

From the Gospel according to John   19:6-7, 16-17

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.” [...]

Then [Pilate] handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his cross, to the place called the place of the skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha.

* * *

Pilate hesitates; he seeks a pretext to release Jesus, but yields to the outcry and the will which dominates, which appeals to the Law and spreads innuendo.
The history of the wounded human heart continues to be repeated: with its pettiness, its inability to see beyond itself, to escape the illusions of petty self-interest, and thus to find freedom, to take flight and to soar in the broad expanse of goodness and honesty.
The human heart is a microcosm.
Within it the great fortunes of humanity are decided, its conflicts resolved or intensified. But the decisive factor is always the same: whether to cling to, or to let go of, the truth which sets us free.

Jesus most humble,
in the ebb and flow of daily life
our heart looks down to its own small world,
and, all consumed by ledger of our own wellbeing,
remains blind to the outstretched hand of the poor and needy
which begs for a hearing and asks for help.
At most we are touched, but we do not stir.

Come, Spirit of Truth,
touch our heart and draw it to yourself.
“Keep sound our inner sense of taste,
that it may eat and drink
of wisdom, justice, truth and eternity”![1]

All:

Pater noster, qui es in caelis:
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat regnum tuum;
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, 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.

Cuius animam gementem
constristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.

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