Seventh Station, Way of the Cross 2011

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

Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Jesus falls again beneath the weight of the cross. The wood of our salvation is burdened not only with the infirmities of our human nature but also the trials of our daily life. Jesus shouldered the burden of persecution against the Church, past and present, the persecution that murders Christians in the name of a heartless idol and offends her dignity “with lying lips and arrogant words.”[2] Jesus bore the burden of persecution against Peter, against the untrammeled voice of “the truth that challenges and frees the heart.”[3] By his cross, Jesus bore the burden of persecution against his servants and disciples, against those who respond to hatred with love, to violence with meekness. By his cross, Jesus bore the burden of that inordinate “love of self which leads to contempt of God”[4] and injustice against our brothers and sisters. He bore it all freely, he endured it all “in patience, as a means of instructing our own patience”.[5]

Jesus most humble,
amid the injustices and trials of this life
we fail to stand fast in patience.
Often we implore you to show your power
by freeing us of the weighty wood of our personal cross.

Come, Spirit of Truth,
teach us to follow the example of Christ
and “to practise his great precepts of patience
by the tenor of our hearts!”[6]

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.

[1] Cf. Commentary on the Psalms, 40, 13.

[2] Ps 11(12): 4.

[3] Cf. BENEDICT XVI, On Conscience, San Francisco, 2007.

[4] The City of God, 14, 28.

[5] Sermon 175, 3, 3.

[6] Commentary on the Gospel of John, 113, 4.