Every Step with Jesus - John Collins

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Station –

       Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross

       St. Catherine of Siena

       – The Fourteenth Station –

       Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb

       St. Teresa of Calcutta

       – The Fifteenth Station –

       The Resurrection

       St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

      – Introduction –

      Walking with the Saints in the Footsteps of Christ

      “Out of darkness is born the light,” writes St. Catherine of Siena. And in those few words she offers us a gift: a perfect way to begin our mediation on the Way of the Cross. Yet the birth of light is rarely on our minds as we follow Jesus’ slow and painful climb to Golgotha’s heights, for the darkness is too apparent, the gathering gloom too great. The light that Catherine perceives hides from us. We know it will come on Easter morning, but on Good Friday doesn’t darkness reign supreme?

      Catherine and the other saints are emphatic in their answer: No it does not! How could it, for the Way of the Cross is the way to the Resurrection, the way of redemption? The saints tell us that this dark journey contains within itself a great and powerful light that is present from the beginning, but is not apparent until the end. Long before Jesus stands in front of Pilate, the light of a new dawn has become real. It shines within Him and from His every act. It shines forth from the divine will that gives us a Savior and allows Him to live and die as one of us. It is a light powerfully present in every step Jesus takes as He makes His way through a darkness that becomes light, to a death that becomes life.

      Catherine of Siena knows that “out of darkness is born the light,” just as she knows that out of Jesus’ sorrowful death unconquerable life is born. This is not just her vision but also the vision of countless saints who preceded us. We look to them as they lead us from Pilate’s unjust court to the brilliance of Easter morning. We meditate on their words and allow those words to dispel the darkness that surrounds us — that pervades us. With their help we begin to perceive the light concealed within darkness and to accept the cross as the tree of unending life. Perhaps this understanding is captured most perfectly by St. Theodore the Studite, a monk whose life straddled the eighth and ninth centuries. So we will linger for a moment on his words before we begin to walk with Our Savior to His death … and to our life:

      How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return. (Quoted in the Office of Readings for the Second Week of Easter)

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      – The First Station –

      Jesus Is Condemned to Death

       St. John Paul II

      The future Pope John Paul II was born Karol Jósef Wojtyła in Poland during the spring of 1920. His early life was far from ideal: He lost his mother and brother while still a child, and less than a decade later his father died as well. During World War II, Karol was forced by the Nazi occupation to abandon his studies and undertake backbreaking work in a quarry. Undaunted, he enrolled in an underground seminary and was ordained after the war. The young priest became a seminary professor and then a bishop who participated in the Second Vatican Council. Named archbishop of Kraków in 1964 and a cardinal in 1967, he was involved in the writing of the famous encyclical Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”). In 1978, Cardinal Wojtyła was elected the first non-Italian pope in four centuries, embarking on a papacy that lasted nearly twenty-seven years. Pope John Paul II not only championed Christ and His Church in a world beset by secularism, atheism, and relativism, but he played a major role in the fall of communism. Perhaps the greatest of modern popes, St. John Paul II died in 2005 and was canonized in 2014. His feast day is October 22.

      V. We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You.

      R. Because by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world.

      “And Pilate … said to them, ‘Then what shall I do with the man whom you call the King of the Jews?’ And they cried out again, ‘Crucify him.’ And Pilate said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Crucify him.’ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas; and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified” (Mk 15:12-14).

      A civil official discards truth. He makes his judgment based solely on expediency — choosing death because it has become more convenient than life. Thus the creature grasps at the power that belongs to the Creator alone. It has been decreed: blind, uncaring man, so enamored of destruction, will attempt to annihilate the source of his own being. The Son of God will be put to death by those He has come to save. What greater decision for death — for nothingness — can there be than Pilate’s?

      St. John Paul II knows this verdict to be a judgment on us all. Yet he also knows it to be the unavoidable first step on a path that leads not just to death but through it to life and the salvation for which we all yearn:

      God created man as rational and free, thereby placing himself under man’s judgment. The history of salvation is also the history of man’s continual judgment of God.…

      This is the definitive meaning of Good Friday: Man, you who judge God, who order Him to justify himself before your tribunal, think about yourself, [think whether] you are not responsible for the death of this condemned man, [whether] the judgment of God is not actually a judgment upon yourself. Consider if this judgment and its result — the Cross and then the Resurrection — are not your only way to salvation. (Crossing the Threshold of Hope)

       Prayer

      My Jesus, You are the innocent lamb, the One in whom no wrong can be found. Yet Pilate and countless others condemn You. Help me to see that no condemnation from sinful man can ever overcome the love You extend even to those who judge You. Grant me the grace to trust in Your ways. Never let me doubt You or judge the manner in which You choose to work in my life. Lord Jesus, never permit me to condemn You as Pilate did … as so many still do. Amen.

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      – The Second Station –

      Jesus Carries His Cross

       St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio)

      Francesco Forgione, born in 1887 to a peasant family in southern Italy, displayed a devout faith from childhood. As a boy he yearned to join the Capuchin Franciscans, but did not have sufficient education to apply. So his father sailed to America where he earned the money to send his son to school. By the age of fifteen, Francesco was able to realize his dream: He took the Capuchin habit and the name of Pio. In 1918, Padre Pio underwent various mystical experiences, which were to continue for the rest of his life. These included the stigmata (the wounds of Christ), which he bore for five decades. An extraordinary priest, he heard confessions for up to twelve hours a day and was able to see into people’s hearts more clearly than they could themselves. The miraculous seemed to surround him, resulting in

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