Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

The Eleventh Station

Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

"And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (St. Luke 23.33-34)

I am a procrastinator. I am lazy. I noticed that very much today. I have work to do, things to finish, things I have been putting off for long time because I don't feel like doing them. I know that I can do them because when something does interest me, I don't stop working until what I am doing is finished. So I have no one to blame but myself. I managed to tick one thing off my to do list today and it wasn't a very hard thing to do.

I think of Christ, in that position of total surrender, giving himself up into the hands of men for them to do what they pleased. In my own little way, I hope I can learn to surrender myself to the things I don't want to do or don't enjoy doing and to do those things without complaint.

Tomorrow is Holy Thursday and the Easter Triduum begins. I am looking forward to it!

Let us pray:
 
You opened your hands so many times before, my beloved Jesus. To bless, to heal, to raise the maimed, the ill – even to raise the dead; to caress the face of lepers, to hold the children who gathered so gleefully around you, to lift up from shame those brought down in disgrace.

And now you open them once more in an act of love and compassion greater than any other. The same love that opened them to the blind, opens them to the blind once again ... who do not see, do not understand, what they do. Willingly you open them to be transfixed by my sin – it was not the force of soldiers' calloused fists, but the force of  love that unfolded your hands beneath the shattering blow in the towering hatred and hammer.

You did not resist what in a word you could have vanquished!

Teach me, my Jesus, to be like unto thee: meek before hatred, returning love for spite, and blessing for malediction! ... to suffer evil without reproach, to immolate myself in my suffering – beneath the hands of men more evil than me – in an offering to Thee, O, God ... my God ... Who has not forsaken me! Into Whose Hands I commend my cause ... and commit my spirit!

Responsory

O, my Jesus, in this mirror of suffering I see your wounded hands and feet.

Though your wounds are bleeding freely, yet on your face is peace.

Your mission is almost accomplished; you have done what was yours to do.

O Jesus, teach me now to do what is mine.

Your arms are open in total surrender to the will of the Father –

I ask for the grace to abandon myself totally to your will, and through you to the Father.