A few weeks ago I on retreat, and although it was encouraged, I did not particularly feel like praying the Stations of the Cross. And then, I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to pray them in a specific way.
For each station, I not only contemplated what happened to the person of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago but contemplated the sufferings in the Mystical Body of Christ as I have seen them in the past few years. He has been the victim of unjust condemnation, he has been rejected, he has been given a heavy burden, he has fallen, he has been humiliated, his heart has been pierced in the people I love – my family, friends, community of consecrated women, those I serve, the Church, society…
I felt in a way I have never felt, a power in the words of the traditional response to each station: “We adore O Christ and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”
I think some of my most frustrating experiences have been when I have seen people I love suffer and felt like there was nothing I could do to take that suffering away. During these last 6 years, I have to admit I have often been frustrated. In the repetition of the response, “by your holy cross you have redeemed the world,” Our Lord was inviting me to a new way of filtering and seeing things – within the context and projection of what redeems.
