VIA CRUCIS – X Station: “Jesus is stripped of His garments”        


 

 V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)

R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)

It was not enough for the executioners charged with killing Jesus to crucify Him. They wanted to humiliate Him even more by stripping Him of His clothes.

We men are stripped of our dignity when we sin.  While grace envelops us with God’s light and transforms us with divine life, sin tears the robe of grace and dishonours us, so that we are left naked and unprotected, endangering our dignity.

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WHY WORRY IF GOD IS THERE?



 

“I understand that someone suffers or is afflicted, but why worry if God is there?” (Venerable Anne de Guigné).

These words come from the mouth of a very young saint. It was Anne de Guigné herself who said: “Nothing is difficult if you love God”. Here we find a saintly simplicity that just assimilated the teachings of the Lord and allowed them to penetrate her soul. In this way they became a natural reality for Anne.

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VIA CRUCIS – IX Station: “Jesus falls for the third time”        



 

V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)

R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)

Everything has to be consummated. From this perspective we can also understand the threefold fall of Jesus. The imperfect and sinful world was to be redeemed in its entirety.

The threefold fall of Jesus reminds us of the threefold denial of His beloved disciple Peter.

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THE HOUSE OF THE FATHER



 

‘My God, Most Holy Trinity, be my dwelling place and my refuge; the Father’s house I never want to leave’ (St. Elizabeth of the Most Holy Trinity).

A soul in love with God expresses in her letters what the Heavenly Father offers us again and again in the message to Mother Eugenia: the most intimate relationship of the soul with her Creator and Saviour. All the books in the world cannot fully describe this love. We need to read more in that book of which Saint Joan of Arc spoke: to listen attentively to the Heart of God and to know our Father as He is.

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VIA CRUCIS – VIII. Station: “Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem”                                   




 

 V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)

R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. They remained faithful to Him. Their hearts are aching, because they see the Son of God suffering on the way to the crucifixion, suffering for humanity. So we see that there were also those who did not close their hearts to the Lord.

Perhaps they did not yet understand the full extent of the events, but they have compassion for Jesus. He sees their compassion and accepts their weeping. However, He announces to them the true grief that awaits them. His death will not be final, for He will soon rise again. Then His suffering will be over.

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VIA CRUCIS – VII. Station: “Jesus falls the second time”                                     



 

  1. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)
  2. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)

Once again we see how difficult the way is. How many burdens does the Lord carry on His shoulders: the physical burden, the spiritual burden, all that is happening around Him, the cruelty of so many? But what weighs most on Him is the burden of sin, which brings separation from God, and which Jesus now takes upon Himself in His own flesh for our sake, depriving Himself of the glory of the Father.

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READING IN A DIFFERENT BOOK



 

“Listen attentively to the Heart of God. This is more important than reading many things” (Inner Word).

No time is ever wasted in listening attentively to the Heart of our Father. On the other hand, we waste a lot of time if we do not take advantage of His invitation and let these moments pass us by. Often we are so immersed in our tasks and so used to them that we do not really notice the precious moments of silence in our lives. Yet it is precisely these moments that mark us the most and make us inner persons.

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VIA CRUCIS – VI Station: “Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus”                               



V. Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus tibi (We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee)

R. Quia per Crucem tuam redemisti mundum (For by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.)

In Veronica, Jesus finds a kind soul, a soul that has compassion for Him. She does not mock Him, she does not turn her back on Him, nor is she indifferent to Him. With this gesture of love and compassion, she shows Him her heart by offering Him a handkerchief. Jesus understands the gesture and imprints His face on the cloth. He leaves a deep imprint of His being on this pious soul.

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A SWEET SORROW



 

“Oh, my good Lord, if only my soul could be called your beloved” (Blessed Henry Suso).

This exclamation comes from a mystic inflamed with love, Blessed Henry Suso, who experienced the fire of the Holy Spirit in his inner encounter with the Lord, awakening him to the love of God. There is such a profound awakening to the love of God that the soul longs for union with the Beloved and yearns with increasing intensity for an encounter with Him. It suffers a ‘sweet sorrow’. On the one hand, it is sweet because it fills the soul with the bliss of God’s incomparable love; on the other hand, it is painful because it awakens in her an ever-increasing hunger for love which cannot be fully satisfied in this life and is only comforted by the prospect of eternity.

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