III & IV
“I feel your pain.”
There is in reality, only One person who can actually say those words and mean them.
These next few weeks we will be walking the Way of the Cross, side by side with Jesus. I pray that, as you meditate on them, just two per week, that God will in a new and fresh way speak to you through them.
Offer to Him your sufferings. Be united to His with yours. Enter into the mystery where a bond of love so deep can be forged that nothing on this earth can tear you asunder. Jesus suffered, but for a purpose, so that through His suffering we might be set free from what causes ours. Take His hand and walk with Him because...
“For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm...” Galatians 5:1
Station III: Jesus Falls For The First Time
Meditation: Laboring under the weight of the Cross. Jesus slowly sets forth on the way to Calvary. His agony in the garden has exhausted His Body; He is sore with blows and wounds; His strength fails Him; He falls to the ground under the Cross.
Prayer: It was for my sins, my Jesus, that You bore the heavy burden of Your Cross and fell under its weight. Let my remembrance of these sufferings make me careful, lest I fall into mortal sin. Amen.
Station IV: Jesus Meets His Afflicted Mother
Meditation: Recall the meeting between Son and Mother on the way to Calvary. How oppressive that experience must have been for both of them! What a sword of anguish must have pierced Mary’s maternal heart!
Prayer: My Jesus, by the compassion which You felt for Your Mother, have compassion on me, and permit me to share in her intercession with You. O Mary, afflicted Mother, intercede for me with you Son, that by His sufferings I may be saved from the wrath which is to come. Amen.
Need Inspiration for Lent? Try these beautiful spiritual readings:
*Come see Fr. Jacques Philippe LIVE in DC- March 21-Rsvp here.
*Interior Freedom by Fr. Jacques Philippe
*Searching For and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Philippe
*In the School of the Holy Spirit by Fr. Jacques Philippe
The Way of the Cross by Caryll Houselander
Into Your Hands, Father by Wilfrid Stinissen
Into the Deep by Dan Burke
Meeting God in the Upper Room by Monsignor Peter Vaghi
Lent with Saint Teresa of Calcutta by Heidi Hess Saxton
Hearts on Fire, Praying with Jesuits by Michael Harter, SJ
