Saturday, 20 April 2019

THIRTEENTH STATION: JESUS IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS AND GIVEN TO HIS MOTHER


How many deaths we must pass through to be wise, and these little deaths are a subset of the one great death which has already been won over for us on Calvary through our Baptism. The life we live now is hidden with Jesus in Christ (Col 3:3).

We shall have to pass through rivers, cross through seas and navigate through oceans of trials before we can attain our freedom. Let us sail with the Star of the Sea who can guide us from the Inferno of life, through its Purgatorio and unto the bliss of its Paradiso, where our tragedy is changed into a Divine Comedy.

The softest landing we can experience during a deep crisis, is to find ourselves in the arms of the Blessed Virgin, that is why we ask her to aid us now, and at the hour of our death in the Hail Mary. And a sword shall pierce your own soul … (Lk 2:35). Let us have recourse to Mary, the pitiful maiden who receives the dead body of her son from the cross. 

When the Crucifix becomes the Pieta, Easter can already be smelt from afar. The Crucifix and the Pieta should make their space in every home.

Albert Einstein clearly expresses the 13th Station emotion when he noted that the years of searching in the dark for a truth that one feels but cannot express, the intense desire and the alternations of confidence and misgiving until one breaks through to clarity and understanding, are known only to him who has experienced them himself.

Pain may endure to the nights but joy cometh in the morning (Ps 30:5). It cannot get worse, things can henceforth get better. Where many without faith have fallen into despair, here let us keep hope alive. 

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