by
Fr. John Keep

8th Station: Jesus Falls a Second Time

Verse:  We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You.
Response:  Because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.

After Veronica has been hustled away by the guards, Jesus falls for the second time.  The whole of the Passion was suffered for us.  At the first fall, or even the first act of His human life, what He did was of sufficient value in itself to atone for all our sins.  But it was the Father’s will, and Our Lord chose it, to suffer to the utmost for us.  Why was it so?  Was it to make us meditate on the meaning of real love?  Or was it the only adequate expression of Jesus’ love for us?  Was it to comfort us when we suffer?  Was it to show what an absolute horror we ought to have for all sin?  Was it so that by His grace Our Lord might be in every suffering of every Christian for all time?   In His love for the Father and His love for us He wants to embrace the tormenting results of all sins.  He chooses to feel the full weakness of a very burdened humanity, and He falls to the ground again in utter exhaustion and pain.  He has told us that without Him we can do nothing, and His Apostle, St. Paul, tells us that we can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us.  We are made strong through the grace won by this weakness as He struggles through it and does not give up even now.  He has carried our weakness.  “Ours were the sufferings He bore, ours the sorrows He carried,” says Isaiah.

(after a brief pause)

Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.