Stations of the cross: Jesus falls a second time

Just then there came a man named Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, who was dying (Luke 8:41-42)

This time it is you who fall Jesus. The days are gone when others fell at your feet, bereft, desperate, collapsing beneath the weight of their need, hoping their pleas would move you to care.

It is easy to imagine the mercy in your eyes as you saw the crumpled mass of broken humanity at your feet. I wonder how many times you gently drew them up that they might look into the window of your soul ... and know.

But now you are a crumpled mass of broken humanity, and the eyes of compassion into which we long to gaze are hidden, cast down into the ancient cobblestones, no longer able to give what our hungry hearts crave.

Or do they? For even here we see into the window of your soul ... and know.

We see that it is the weight of love you carry, the burden of a love that doesn’t break even as your body fails and falls.

And here, we, who long to look into the eyes of your compassion, are moved to love you, to feel for you what you always have and always will feel for us.

“See,” you say to us on your hands and knees, broken and spent. “Now you know what is in me for you. The love I am ... I give to you, a holy gift.”

Pr. David L. Miler

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By you holy cross you have redeemed the world