And they took Jesus, and led Him forth. And bearing His own cross He went forth to that place which is called Calvary, and there followed Him a great multitude of people, and of women who bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus turning to them said: 'Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.' - John 19:16,17; Luke 23:27,28
Nothing in the Passion of our Saviour can possibly resemble ordinary sufferings; all His ignominies, all His pains are beyond the common description of punishments or of executions. He was scourged as no one had ever before been scourged; no one before Him had been insultingly and barbarously crowned with thorns; and now He is brought to the place of His execution in a manner different from all others.
The custom of the age required slaves to carry the gibbet of a condemned person to the place prepared for it. But figures and prophecies had proclaimed in advance the additional and special tortures reserved for Him. Abraham had placed the wood of the sacrifice on the shoulders of his son Isaac; Jesus, the new Isaac, is made to bear His cross to the hill of sacrifice. The prophet Isaias had seen Him in this state of humiliation and suffering when he cried out: 'The government is on His shoulder.' - Principatus super humerum ejus (9:6)
Wherefore Jesus, having heard His sentence, is brought to the middle of the forum. His cross is there. He prostrates Himself to take it upon Him; He embraces it as if it were a long-wished-for spouse. The trumpet is heard; the officers cry out: 'Move on!' Jesus rises. On the right and on the left the people stare at Him.
With naked and bloody feet our dear Saviour, stooping low, tottering on His limbs torn with wounds exhausted by a long fast and by the loss of blood advances or rather creeps to Calvary. Officers in front of Him are dragging Him along; others are pushing Him forward. He cannot make one firm step. Loaded as He is and not being able to advance as they desire those who follow Him ever press Him on and thus He falls several times with His face to the ground and the cross falls with Him. The executioners raise Him with imprecations and kick Him as they would the meanest animal. It is the most frightful spectacle to be imagined. O Christian soul; veil not your face; look on. Move forward along with Him. Follow your Saviour piously on the sorrowful way to Calvary. Content not yourself with weeping like the holy women who will not leave Him; but gather up and carefully guard in a humble and contrite heart the deep lessons He gives you. The burden of the cross is after all less heavy to Him than the immense weight of our sins. It is really under this weight He falls to teach us what a heavy load to carry is a sinful life. If we do not take steps to throw it from our souls as soon as we feel its weight it will drag us down and cast us into an abyss. Vain thoughts frivolous desires culpable levities appear to us as nothing; yet how often are they the cause of shameful falls! Jesus falls several times on His way to Calvary. Herein He gives for our benefit a sign of our sad weakness. This man weakened, bruised, pushed forward, thrown down by soldiers and spectators, is a symbol of ourselves. The infirmities of nature and the tribulations of life cast us down; the passions make us feel in our souls their terrible sting; the demon tempts and torments us; the world multiplies its seductions around us; yet we go on in our course without serious attention to the dangers that beset us and without any safeguard as if there was no danger to our virtue. Our Saviour says to us: Take care, take care for the strong have fallen'!
He fell in the dolorous way, but He quickly rose again, notwithstanding His bruises and wounds, to show us that we too, when thrown down by the enemy of our salvation, ought to rise quickly again. To make no effort to gain our feet, not to call anyone to our assistance, to make known to no one our great misfortune, would be the part of sloth and pride. And then the evil one whose hatred rejoices in our falls endeavours to persuade us that it is better to wait. Of what use is it to rise? We are still so very weak we shall fall again. Later in life when age shall have fortified our reason, when the passions, growing cold, no longer make such pressing demands, when we shall have been satiated to disgust with pleasures the attraction to which has hastened our fall, then it will be time to say, 'Rise, go on!'
Oh! how foolish. Who has promised that death will not come and find us in our sin, or that the inveteracy of evil habits will leave us any power at all to repent? No, no! Away with cowardly sloth, away with presumptuous delays! Then all the rest will follow.
But can we repent now? Are not our repeated falls an evidence of ingratitude which has exhausted the divine mercy? Here is another temptation of the evil spirit against which the infinite goodness of our Saviour protests, as well as the 'plentiful redemption' we shall find in His blood. 'With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption.' (Psalm 129) He came to save sinners; He will not break the reed bent down by the tempest. He wishes to receive us to His mercy, and to pardon all our sins each time we go to Him with an honest and sincere heart. Arise, then, poor sinner, arise! It is Jesus invites you. It is possible you may fall again, notwithstanding all your good resolutions. But remain not for a moment prostrate; always beg the grace of God to give you true penance until the supreme moment comes when God's last pardon shall be the answer to your last act, an act of contrition.
- text taken from Jesus in the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.