The eleventh Station: JESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS!
Jesus...didn't You know? Wasn't Your sufferings presented to You even before You came from Heaven to live among us? Didn't You tell Your disciples, Your friends time and time again that this ~ Your Passion was going to happen? How long did You know about it? How many years before the actual event took place did visions of Your execution play in living color before Your eyes? John says it clearly, "And Jesus knowing all that was going to happen to Him..." You Yourself made it plain that You had the fore knowledge, "I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down My life for My sheep. No one takes My life from Me. I give it freely."
I saw the women offer You drugged wine, but You turned away, flat out refusing it. Didn't You realize how painful this would be? Look at those strong, rough and tough hardened soldiers! Their used to this brutality. It's their job. They have been trained well and are experts in their field: Crucifixion.
The first nail is poised above Your hand. I don't know how I manage but I dare to watch. I have to because I want to remember every detail of all that is happening to You. The soldier swings the hammer high and then iron meets iron, driving the spike into Your flesh. I watch Your face. I think that perhaps because You are God the Son that You will transcend the pain. I'm hoping and praying You won't feel it. Your divinity will overcome, but I see the look of startled surprise in Your eyes! The second hit of the hammer I see You shut Your eyes so tightly that tears squeeze past Your eyes lids. The third hit and Your mouth is gaping, sucking in air.
I'll remember that look of startled surprise. Jesus, the Man, the very human Man,You were shocked as we would be by the terrible pain, excruciating ~ crux-ci-fix-ion pain. Although You had always known this would happen to You, when it actually did, You reeled from the agony of nerves severed shooting fire into Your brian.
For me Jesus? All this for me? How much more will You endure?
"The cross My Body pressing, pressed YOU. ALL your sorrows I intimately knew. And loving you beyond what mortals dare, Boundless, limitless, My Heart I did not spare." ~Jesus
__________________
He will carry us all the way...
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Last edited by kisstheson; 13th March 2009 at 02:42 AM.
cries out to the world of unbelief: "Oh men and women afar and nigh, is it nothing to you that I bow My head, and nothing to you that My blood is shed? Oh perishing souls to YOU I cry!"
Jesus...yes You cry but with more than words. With countless tears of blood streaking Your tortured body, with sweat oozing from every limb, with sighs and groans as You struggle to breathe by raising Yourself by standing on the spikes driven through Your feet and pulling on the nails in Your hands. You cry as knifes of pain slice through Your arms and legs and constrict Your heart. You cry for love, to love and to be loved:
"I thirst!"
You shouldn't be here. Not surrounded by filth and the stench of death. Not by people who hate You. Jesus I thought everyone knows how gentle and kind You are, how You would give the shirt off Your back if anyone asked for it and how You always bravely speak the truth.
It's time to go now. Let's close the curtain on this drama. You can come down from Your cross...
My JESUS! Not Your last tear! Not Your last drop of blood! Not the last sigh from Your lips! I am shaken! The earth is shaking and darkness is pulled over You like a shroud.
When at last a ray of light kisses Your body the truth is revealed. A soldier drives a spear into Your heart...
"I am gentle and humble of heart." You once said.
The truth is certain now...Jesus is dead. Blood and water flows from Your massive side wound, a testimony that You really did give everything for me. You loved me to the last and highest degree. Your disciple John wrote that. He is here watching.
I can't believe that You tasted death for me! I really didn't think it would come to this and all to pay the punishment for my sins. I didn't realize how evil my sins were and that they would cause...this. But You pleaded for me,
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do!"
I cling to Your lifeless body and look up into Your Face...
If I ever forget...If I ever forget...! Oh help me, my Jesus!
And piercing My Heart a soldier's spear.
I opened My side to hold YOU near. ~Jesus
__________________
He will carry us all the way...
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The thirteenth Station: JESUS IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS.
The soldiers are having a hard time of it, pulling the nails from Your hands and feet. So deeply embedded in the wood of the cross the nails are. But at last You are free, free to be received into arms that love, not obstinate, not hateful, not pushing, shoving or rejecting. Sweet embracing arms, they wrap around and hold You close to heart just like You should be held, like You deserved to be held AND wanted.
Mary’s rocking gently her son. She looks at me through her tears. I also can come near and partake in this sacred moment. I see the ravages of body, the wounds like opened mouths pleading for compassion, the terrible gash in Your side, the blood bath that not even the down pour of Heaven’s tears can wash from Your battered flesh.
Now it’s time to kiss Your broken hands, the blackened crucified palms. Now it’s time to remember the hands that blessed so many and fed hurting people the bread of mercy. Now it’s time to weep over the feet which walked in goodness. It is time to cover the head with tender touches but how? The thorn-crown has claimed Your beautiful head and must be pried away. No more thorns! Roses! Roses instead! Please!
Bring out the ointment! Bring out the nard and spices! Love Jesus! Hold Him close! At last He is delivered from the hands of ruffians. Oh I love you my Jesus! Thank You for what You endured for my sins!
As I bend to kiss Your broken heart I am hoping You can feel it. Why did it take me so long to come to love You? Why did I wait to follow You? Now I want to love and follow You and never let go!
I long to be loved! The Man of men! I long for the how and the when? Now can you feel My Heart swell? Oh I love YOU well! As you free Me from the wood and you, I indwell! ~Jesus
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He will carry us all the way...
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The fourteenth Station: JESUS IS LAID IN THE TOMB.
Jesus…I hate goodbyes, especially this one. I stand with Your followers at the open grave in front of the big stone. There are several here but my thoughts are of Mary Magdalene, John the beloved, and MaryYour Mother. I watch Magdalene weeping in the agony of her grief. How she loves You! She is nearly mad with despair, And John, Your best friend, tries to be strong by lending a supportive arm to Your Mother, but he is badly shaken and his dark eyes are heavy lidded from the long, long bitter night of watching Your suffering. He looks like a man who has seen too much and has aged before his time. Your Mother…Her dear face is a mold of sorrow. Tears drip down her cheeks. Yet her eyes portray a resolution and a firm acceptance of the will of God. She is the strong one. Magdalene, John and I are her children. She pats our hands and with gentle care assures us that all will be alright.
Jesus…will everything be alright? I hate this shroud between You and I. I don’t like rocks or boulders or distances between us. I don’t want You to be in a place where I can’t find You. Why this darkness? When will come the day when I can at last touch Your face and kiss Your hands? I cannot bear to see John place the linen shroud over Your face, covering all that is beautiful in my world. Even Your face swollen and covered with bruises is beautiful. Poor one eye injured and closed during much of Your trials, I would kiss Your eyes one more time. Now John tenderly forces them both shut.
Jesus…I have followed Your Passion step by step. I have seen how You did not keep no part of Yourself from me. I have watched You choose every inch of Your sufferings, each lash, the amount of thorns that would press Your head, the weight of the cross, the bitterness and pain of the nails, moment by moment, the time in which you would stay on the cross and now, at the end of You journey You choose to be buried in a grave that another had to supply because You didn’t have Your own. You my Jesus, choose to be a poor beggar at the end of Your journey.
Jesus…is this how You chose to win my heart by loving my soul so passionately as to love me unto poverty, humiliation and death? You, oh great King, came in the guise of a humble beggar to win the heart of a slave, a slave to sin…My innocent Jesus …YOU HAVE WON MY HEART! I want to shout the words as I watch the soldiers roll the stone in front of the grave. YOU HAVE WON!
Set Me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy relentless as Sheol, the flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of Yahweh Himself. Love no flood can quench, no torrents drown! ~Jesus (Song of Songs 8:6)
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He will carry us all the way...
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"Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others." - St John of the Cross, OCD"
"Look for Christ Our Lord in everyone and you will then have respect and reverence for all."
- St Teresa of Jesus, OCD"
Rom 14:22 -
"Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Blessed is the one not condemning himself in what he approves."
"There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church— which is, of course, quite a different thing." - Archbishop Fulton Sheen
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much. I beg you to spare the life of the unborn baby that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion." - Archbishop Fulton Sheen
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Yes and we can come into this thread and actually do the stations of the cross.
Kudos Amy. Nice work.
What would you think about copying this to the Chapel to preserve for posterity?
Did you know St. Francis made these popular and obtained from the Church a plenary indulgence attached to the recitation of the stations?
For some of us, its as close as we will ever get in our lifetimes to a pilgrimage to the Via Del a Rosa.
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"Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others." - St John of the Cross, OCD"
"Look for Christ Our Lord in everyone and you will then have respect and reverence for all."
- St Teresa of Jesus, OCD"
Rom 14:22 -
"Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Blessed is the one not condemning himself in what he approves."
"There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church— which is, of course, quite a different thing." - Archbishop Fulton Sheen
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much. I beg you to spare the life of the unborn baby that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion." - Archbishop Fulton Sheen
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
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