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Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross



  Station XI
JESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS


Watch the perfect obedience of Jesus even unto death. The executioners order Him to lie down upon the Cross that they may take the measure for the nails. Jesus submits at once, and does exactly as they tell Him. This done, they thrust Him aside while they bore the holes in the wood. See Him pushed here and there, not knowing where to stand in His misery, as closer and closer, driven forward by the multitude pressing up the slope, crowds the coarse, cruel rabble. It is with difficulty the centurion and his band keep it back, and leave the executioners room to do their work. Ah, pity our dear and blessed Lord, try to realize what He suffers. Wonder how His love could go so far, how reverence due to His Majesty did not compel Him to prevent ignominy such as this!

"He loved me and delivered Himself for me. Who, then, shall separate me from the love of Christ?"

The soldiers now formed a circle round the place of crucifixion, and the executioners entered the ring. Contemplate our dear Jesus. Must not His Heart have quailed, and His whole being have trembled at this moment, before the terrible execution that was about to take place? Shall I not adore with fervent love every pulsation of His beating Heart? Shall I not offer Him my own without reserve? Shall I not suffer with Him in His anguish, and offer every reparation and consolation possible to that loving, agonizing Heart of Jesus?

All is ready! The condemned are called for----Jesus is seized by the executioners and thrown down on the Cross, like a helpless victim. Note again His obedience. He stretches Himself upon it voluntarily. How touchingly beautiful Jesus is as He lies there in His disfigurement! How venerable in His shame! The Eternal God upon the Cross with His eyes upraised to Heaven! The agony of His human Soul is beyond words. The thieves extended on their crosses blaspheme in their despair. Jesus prays. No Martyr, no criminal, ever quailed like this before torture and death, for Jesus knows all that is to come. Every pang from now to the death struggle is vividly present to Him. He does not divert His mind from it. He does not seek to repulse the horror it produces. He allows it to assail Him with the most vehement repugnance.

Our Jesus overcomes all with the love that will love us even unto death. Ah, my dear Lord, I compassionate Thee in this strife between the inferior part of Thy Blessed Soul that shrinks from torments and death and the superior which rules that at such exceeding cost we shall be redeemed. And now, dear Lord, may I learn from this strife of Thine endured for me that repugnance which is conquered by the energy of the will, far from lessening, enhances the heroism of love.

In our Lord's repugnance there was nothing inordinate, as unfortunately there sometimes is in ours. His was reasonable and arose exclusively from the objective difficulty or the awful degree of agony about to be endured. It was, moreover, brought on Him by His Own Will.

At the bidding of the executioner, Jesus lies down upon the Cross and stretches out His arms. They bind the upper part of His Body to the stem of the Cross. One executioner holds His right hand, another places the rough, three-sided nail, filed to a sharp point, in the palm, and drives it with powerful blows, through the tendons in the hollow of the hand into the hole already made for it in the Cross. A tremor of exquisite pain passes through our Lord's limbs, the blood spurts up and around about, and the fingers contract convulsively round the nail, the limbs contract, the knees are drawn up, the left hand will not reach the hole prepared for it. And then, oh, agony inexpressible. They draw a noose around the wrist and stretch the arm till the sinews give way and the joints are dislocated. At last they bring it to its place, and a blow nails it fast, the breast heaves and the muscles crack. Then the feet are violently pulled down, and with a spitting crackling sound the nail is driven through the instep into the hole in the place for the feet. Then the executioners rise and survey their work.

Ah! look long----and with deepest love and sympathy----at our dear Jesus, as He lies there, nailed to the Cross. His whole body is terribly distended; every nerve is twitching and quivering with intensest anguish. His face is deadly pale, and covered with blood; tears, sighs, and gentle moans mingle with the terrible blows of the hammer, while the blood pours from His gaping wounds. Can we not realize the horror and anguish of our Lord's Blessed Mother, St. John, Magdalen, and the holy women, who were close by and heard the strokes of the hammer and the groans of the innocent Victim? Ah, how different is the live Crucifix from the white figure, unscathed except for the wounds in the hands and feet, that we behold so often and so heedlessly! The form of Jesus crucified on Calvary is a sight almost too fearful to look upon. One alone of the many tortures inflicted on it was sufficient to cause death. The scourging, the thorny crown, the thirst, would certainly have killed the strongest man.

And what does our dear Jesus think? What does He feel? His own words tell us best. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now is the moment of His prayer. He begins at once His work of Mediator; begins, as men are nailing Him to the Cross, to secure their pardon. Father ,forgive them, for they know not what they do. Would not his charity prove Him to be Divine, were all other evidence wanting? Jesus asks forgiveness for them all, for His torturers, the Chief Priests, and the Jews----all who have a hand in His sufferings and death. And He asks it so pleadingly, supporting His petition by the most touching motives. Note how Jesus makes use of the tenderest form of address, the name of Father! He pleads in His quality of Son, and conjures the Father by His obedience unto death, by all His wounds and sufferings, and by the love that His Father bears Him.

Jesus' second motive is taken from His tormentors themselves; He excuses their crimes by their ignorance. It was certainly a culpable ignorance, at all events as far as the Jews were concerned, as our Lord Himself had testified. Lastly, Jesus pleads with success. All who were converted on the Feast of Pentecost and subsequently, and all who will be converted at the end of the world, are the fruit of this touching and earnest entreaty. The excess of pain and the fearful malice of His foes could extort nothing from His Sacred Heart but this precious prayer. All who have the Spirit of Jesus will endeavour to act as He did.

The Jews had seen Him give sight to the blind, cleanse the lepers, free the possessed, cure every disease and every infirmity, raise the dead. They had heard Him preach a sublime doctrine, silence all cavillers, speak as never man spake. He had read their thoughts, fulfilled their propheciel, proved Himself their long-expected Messias. And they had hated and rejected Him; they had shut their eyes to His miracles, and their ears to His invitations and His warnings. They had stirred up His people against Him, delivered Him to the Gentiles to be put to death, and invoked His Blood in condemnation upon themselves and upon their children. How could He find excuse for them? How could He plead their ignorance? He did so in this way----they did not see the full extent of their malice, they had not an approximate idea of the greatness of their sin. But that they knew they were doing wrong is evident from His praying that they should be forgiven. Their ignorance, therefore, did not excuse them totally, but it did partially: and our Lord asked that the rest of their guilt should be pardoned.

O mercy of the Sacred Heart! a tender and forgiving Lord! Who will fear Thy condemnation! Who will fear Thee as Judge even, provided we do not refuse the pardon for which Thou pleadest earnestly! Ah, my dear Jesus, can I ever mistrust Thee, or doubt Thy most earnest desire to save me? Help me, my God, to understand what sin is----to hate it, because it grieves Thee. Plead for me, dear Lord, with the Father, that I may be forgiven for the past, and so enlighten and strengthen me that I may be kept from sin for the time to come. May I never, dear Jesus, never again grieve Thee, nor be disloyal to Thy loving Heart. They know not what they do. Ah, Lord, how different are my harsh judgments and my vindictiveness, from the charity of Thy Sacred Heart. How hard I find it to make excuses for those who injure or annoy me. a Jesus, make my heart like unto Thine, patient, kind, thinking no evil, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things! "Father, forgive them." a dear Jesus, offer this tender prayer for all near and dear to me who stand in need of Thy special mercy, for all who at this hour are crucifying again the Son of God. In Thy prayer, my Jesus, is my trust. Draw me close to Thee, my God, by the grace of perfect love and sorrow.



The Eleventh Station:
Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

It is hard to imagine a God being nailed to a cross by His own creatures. It is even more difficult for my mind to understand a love that permitted such a thing to happen! As those men drove heavy nails into Your hands and feet, dear Jesus, did You offer the pain as reparation for some particular human weakness and sin? Was the nail in Your right hand for those who spend their lives in dissipation and boredom?

Was the nail in Your left hand in reparation for all consecrated souls who live lukewarm lives? Were You stretching out Your arms to show us how much You love us? As the feet that walked the hot, dusty roads were nailed fast, did they cramp up in a deadly grip of pain to make reparation for all those who so nimbly run the broad road of sin and self-indulgence?

It seems, dear Jesus, Your love has held You bound hand and foot as Your heart pleads for a return of love. You seem to shout from the top of the hill "I love you - come to me - see, I am held fast - I cannot hurt you - only you can hurt Me." How very hard is the heart that can see such love and turn away. Is it not true I too have turned away when I did not accept the Father's Will with love? Teach me to keep my arms ever open to love, to forgive and to render service - willing to be hurt rather than hurt, satisfied to love and not be loved in return..
Amen

Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/stations/stat11.htm#ixzz2MCJpCTFG

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