Stations of the Cross/PopeJPII PART 3 of 3

Third and final part of the Stations with JJPII

ELEVENTH STATION

Jesus is nailed to the Cross

 

V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

R/. Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

 

“They tear holes in

my hands and

my feet;

I can count

every one of my

bones”

(Ps 21:17- 18).

The words of the Prophet are

fulfilled.

The execution begins.

The torturers’ blows crush

the hands and feet of the

Condemned One against the

wood of the Cross.

The nails are driven violently

into his wrists.

Those nails

will hold the condemned man

 as he hangs in the midst of

the inexpressible torments of

 his agony.

In his body and

his supremely

sensitive spirit,

Christ suffers

in a way beyond

words.

If you are the Son of God save youself and us!!

With him there are crucified two real criminals, one on his

right, the other on his left.



 The prophecy is fulfilled:

 “He was numbered among the transgressors”

(Is 53:12).  

 

Once the torturers 

raise the Cross,

there will begin

an agony

that will last three

hours. This word too

must be fulfilled:

“When I am lifted up from the earth,

I will draw all people to myself”

(Jn 12:32).





What is it that “draws” us to the
Condemned One
in agony on the Cross?

Certainly the sight of such intense suffering stirs compassion.

But compassion is not enough to lead us to bind our very life

to the One who hangs on the Cross.

  

How is it

that,

generation

after

generation,

this

appalling

sight

Emperor Constantine and his mother St. Helena
holding the true cross

has drawn

countless hosts of

 people who have

made the

Cross

the hallmark of

 their faith?

St. Francis of Assisi bore the 'stigmata'
the marks of Christ in his hands
and feet

Hosts of

men and women

who for

centuries

have lived



St. Therese of Liseaux

and given their lives

looking to

this sign?

Blessed Pope John Paul II

From the Cross,

Christ

draws us

by the power

of love,

Divine Love,

which did not recoil

from the total gift of self;

Infinite

Love,

which on

  the tree

of the

Cross

raised up

from the

earth

the

weight of

Christ’s

body,

to counterbalance

the weight of the first sin;

Boundless Love,

which has utterly filled

every absence of love

and allowed humanity

to find refuge

once more in the arms

of the Merciful Father.

May Christ lifted high on the Cross draw us too, the men and

women of the new millennium!

In the

shadow

 of the

Cross

let us

 “walk in love, as Christ

loved us and gave

himself up for us,

a fragrant offering

and sacrifice to God”

(Eph 5:2).

 PRAYER

O Christ lifted high,

O Love crucified,

fill our hearts with your love,

that we may see in your Cross

the sign of our redemption

and, drawn by your wounds,

we may live and die with you,

who live and reign

with the Father and the Spirit,

now and for ever.

Amen.

All:

Our Father ...

Stabat Mater:

Holy Mother,

pierce me through;

in my heart

each wound renew

of my Saviour crucified.

TWELFTH STATION

 

Jesus dies

on the Cross

V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

R/. Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

“Father, forgive them,

 for they know not what they do”

(Lk 23:34).

At the height of his Passion, Christ does not forget man,

especially those who are directly responsible for his suffering.

Jesus knows that more than anything else man needs love;

he needs the mercy which at this moment is being poured out

on the world.

“Truly, I say to

you, today

you will be with

me in Paradise”

(Lk 23:43).

This is how Jesus replies to

the plea of the criminal

hanging on his right:

“Jesus, remember me

when you come

into your

kingdom”

(Lk 23:42).

The promise of a new life.

This is the first fruit of the Passion

and imminent Death of Christ.

A word of hope to man.

At the foot of the Cross stood Mary, and beside her

the disciple, John the Evangelist.  Jesus says:

 

“Woman, behold your son!”

and to the disciple:

“Behold your mother!”

Jn 19:26-27

“And from that moment the disciple took her to his own

home” (Jn 19:27).

This is his bequest to those

dearest to his heart.

His legacy to the

Church.

The desire of Jesus as he dies is that

the maternal love of

Mary

should embrace all

those for whom

he is giving his life,

the whole of

humanity.

Immediately after, Jesus cries out:

“I am thirsty”

John 19:28

A word which describes the dreadful

 burning which consumes

 his whole body.

It is the one word which refers

directly to his physical

suffering.

Then Jesus adds:

“My God, my God, why have you

abandoned me?”

(Mt 27:46; cf. Ps 22:2).

These words of the Psalm are his prayer.

Despite their tone, these words reveal

the depths of his union with the Father.

In the last moments of his life on earth,

Jesus thinks of the Father.

From this moment on,

the dialogue will only be between

the dying Son and the Father

who accepts his sacrifice of love.

When the ninth hour comes,

Jesus cries out:

“It is accomplished!” (Jn 19:30).

Now the work of the redemption is complete.

The mission, for which he came on earth,

has reached its goal.

The rest belongs to the Father:

“Father, into

your hands

I commit

my spirit”

Lk 23:46

And having said this, he breathed his last.

“The curtain

 of the

temple

was torn

in two...”

(Mt 27:51).

The “Holy of Holies” of the Jerusalem Temple

is opened at the moment when it is entered

 by the Priest of the New and Eternal Covenant.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ,

in the moment of your agony

you were not indifferent to humanity’s fate,

and with your last breath you entrusted to the Father’s

mercy  the men and women of every age,

with all their weaknesses and sins.

Fill us and the generations yet to come

with your Spirit of love,

so that our indifference will not render vain in us

the fruits of your death.

To you, crucified Jesus,

the wisdom and the power of God,

be honour and glory for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

 All:

Our Father ...

Stabat Mater:

She looked

upon her sweet

Son,

saw him hang

in desolation,

till his spirit

forth he sent.

THIRTEENTH STATION

Jesus is taken down from the Cross

and given to his Mother

 V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

R/. Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

O quam tristis et afflicta

Fuit illa benedicta

Mater Unigeniti.

In the arms of his Mother

they have placed the

 lifeless body of the Son.

The Gospels say nothing

of what she felt at that moment.

It is as though by their silence the Evangelists

wished to respect her sorrow,

her feelings and her memories.

Or that they simply felt incapable

of expressing them.

It is only the devotion of the centuries that has preserved the figure of the “Pietà”, providing Christian memory with the most sorrowful image of the ineffable bond of love which blossomed in the Mother’s heart on the day of the Annunciation and ripened as she waited for the birth of her divine Son.

That love was revealed in the cave at Bethlehem

and was tested already during the Presentation in the Temple.

It grew deeper as Mary stored and pondered in her heart all that was happening (cf. Lk 2:51).

Now this intimate bond of love must be transformed into a union which transcends the boundary between life and death.

And thus it will be across the span of the centuries:

people pause at Michelangelo’s statue of the Pietà, they

kneel before the image of the loving and sorrowful Mother --

(Smetna Dobrodziejka) in the Church of the Franciscans in

Kraków, before the Mother of the Seven Sorrows, Patroness

of Slovakia -- they venerate Our Lady of Sorrows in countless

shrines in every part of the world.

And so they learn the difficult love which does not flee from suffering, but surrenders trustingly to the tenderness of God, for whom nothing is impossible (cf. Lk 1:37).

PRAYER

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ;

vita dulcedo et spes nostra, salve.

Ad te clamamus...

illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte

et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,

nobis post hoc exilium ostende.

Implore for us the grace of faith,

hope and charity,

so that we, like you,

may stand without flinching beneath the Cross

until our last breath.

To your Son, Jesus, our Saviour,

with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

all honour and glory for ever and ever.

 R. Amen.

All:

Our Father . . .

Stabat

         Mater:

Let me mingle tears with you,

mourning     him who       mourned     

for me,       

all the days

that I may live.

 

FOURTEENTH STATION

 Jesus is laid in the tomb

V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

R/. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

 “He was crucified,

died and was buried...”

The lifeless body of Christ has been laid in the tomb.

But the stone of the tomb is not the final seal on his work.

The last word belongs not to falsehood, hatred and violence.

The last word will be spoken by Love,

which is stronger than death.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24).

The tomb is the last stage of Christ’s dying through the whole course of his earthly life; it is the sign of his supreme sacrifice for us and for our salvation.

Very soon this tomb will become the first proclamation of

praise and exaltation of the Son of God in the glory of the

Father.

“He was crucified, died and was buried,. . . on the third day he rose from the dead”.

Once the lifeless body of Jesus is laid in the tomb, at the foot

of Golgotha, the Church begins the vigil of Holy Saturday.

In the depths of her heart, Mary stores and ponders the Passion of her Son;

the women agree to meet on the morning of the day after the Sabbath, in

order to anoint Christ’s body with aromatic ointments; the disciples gather

in the seclusion of the Upper Room, waiting for the Sabbath to pass.

This vigil will end with the meeting at the tomb,

the empty tomb of the Saviour.

  Then the tomb, the

silent witness of the

 Resurrection,

will speak.

The stone rolled back,

 the inner chamber

 empty, the cloths on

 the ground,

this will be what John sees when
he comes to the tomb with Peter:

“He saw and he believed”

John 20:8

And with him the Church believed,

and from that moment she never grows weary of

communicating to the world

this fundamental truth of her faith:

“Christ has been raised from the dead,

the first fruits of those

who have fallen asleep”

1 Cor 15:20

The empty tomb is the sign of the definitive victory

of truth over falsehood,

of good over evil,

of mercy over sin,

of life over death.

The empty tomb is the

sign of the hope which

“does not deceive”

Romans 5:5

“[Our] hope is full of immortality”

(cf. Wis 3:4).

PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit,

you were drawn by the Father

from the darkness of death 

to the light of a new life in glory.

Grant that the sign of the empty tomb

may speak to us and to future

generations and become a wellspring of living faith,

generous love, and unshakeable hope.

To you, O Jesus, whose presence, hidden and victorious,

fills the history of the world,

be honour and glory for ever and ever

R. Amen.

All:

 Our Father . . .

 

Stabat Mater:

 

While my body

here decays,

may my soul your

goodness praise,

safe in paradise

 with you. Amen.

The Holy Father addresses those present.

At the conclusion of his address the Holy Father imparts the

Apostolic Blessing.

V/. The Lord be with you.

R/. And also with you.

 V/. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

R/. Now and forever.

 

V/. Our help is in the name of the Lord.

R/. Who made heaven and earth.

V/. May Almighty God bless you,

the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

R/. Amen.

Blessed John Paul II please pray for us
and help us to follow Christ with our own crosses.
Amen.