jesus consoles the women of jerusalem

℣. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

℟. Because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Among the people watching Our Lord as he passes by are a number of women who are unable to restrain their compassion and break into tears, perhaps recalling those glorious days spent with Jesus, when everyone exclaimed in amazement: bene ómnia fecit (Mk 7:37), he has done all things well.

But Our Lord wishes to channel their weeping towards a more supernatural motive, and he invites them to weep for sins, which are the cause of the Passion and which will draw down the rigor of divine justice:

Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children . . .. For if they do these things to the green wood, what shall be done to the dry? (Lk 23:28, 31).

* Your sins, my sins, the sins of all men, rise up. All the evil we have done and the good that we have neglected to do. The desolate panorama of the countless crimes and iniquities which we would have committed, if He, Jesus, had not strengthened us with the light of his most loving glance.

How little a life is for making atonement!

NINTH STATION