NINTH STATION: JESUS FALLS THE THIRD TIME

Hypocrisy is a terrible sin (Lk 12: 1-3), scandal is a horrible malady (Mk 9: 42). Christ seriously condemned both in the scripture. But how rare in our age it is to come across a leader who walks the talk and is not a catch 22 victim of hypocrisy or scandal.

The higher one climbs the ladder of leadership -in the public, work or worship places- the more one is faced with its structural hypocrisy and scandal, and anyone who is not matured enough to deal with these human failings will either give up on the effort or join up with the failure. Few people can cope with the reality that exists at the top. The great Babylonic System thrives at the expense of this spirit of discouragement.

Every known malady is tucked up under the misery and mystery behind the 3^rd fall and only Calvary can redeem that.  The effect of the 3rd fall can cause anyone, either to abandon the journey altogether, or to continue up unto Calvary. There is a great personal loneliness experienced after any hypocrisy becomes a scandal for the redeemed and it takes great faith and effort to journey to Calvary.  

Nothing that is hidden that shall not be made known (Lk 8: 17). Be careful therefore, what you do in an age where private scandals are publicly shamed on Facebook, where deep secrets of ages past can easily be purchased for a fiver on Amazon, where any hypocrisy is only but a Twit away. Even the seal of the confessional shall be broken!

The numerous unresolved conflicts are just ways of avoiding Calvary. Neither Peter nor Paul; Francis, or Benedict; Leave, or Remain, Trump, or Obama; PDP, or APC, none of these can resolve our conflicts. Only Calvary! 

Without Calvary, there is no moving on.  Let us go willingly therefore towards Calvary to resolve our scandals and hypocrisies, or we shall be having them resolved for us over there unwillingly. The remaining 5 Stations of the Cross happen  on Calvary because our real initiation is on Calvary. Everything until now is external, the Calvary journey is more internal.

As night draws nigh then, on this Palm Sunday, let us begin this Holy Week with a resolve to embrace the only scandal worth coveting: The scandal of the cross!