Station 1: Jesus is condemned to Die Pilate said to him: ‘Do you know that I have power to release you and power to condemn you?’ Jesus answered: ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.’ (John 19.10) Then said our good Lord Jesus to me: ‘Are you well satisfied with my suffering for you?’ And I said: ‘Yes, good Lord, in your mercy. Yes, good Lord, may you be blessed forever!’ Then said Jesus, our kind Lord: ‘If you are satisfied: I am satisfied. It is a joy, a bliss and an endless delight to me that I suffered my passion for you. And if it were needful or possible that I should suffer more: I would suffer more.’
Station 2: Jesus accepts the cross. So they took Jeus and he went out, bearing his own cross to the place called the place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha. (John 19.17) And I saw that the love which made him suffer passes as far all his pains as heaven is above earth. For his passion was a noble, precious and worshipful deed done in time by the working of love. And that love was without beginning, is now, and shall be forever. (IX Revelation, Chapter 22)
Station 3: Jesus falls the first time. Although he was Son, he learned to obey through suffering, that being made perfect he might become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. (Hebrews 5: 8-9) When Adam fell, God’s Son fell, as God’s Son chose not to be parted from Adam. For Adam signifies to my understanding Everyman. Adam fell from life to death, into the vale of this retched world and after that into hell: God’s Son fell, with Adam, into the vale of the maiden’s womb, who was the fairest daughter of Adam; and for this end: to excuse Adam from blame in heaven and on earth. (XIV Revelation, Chapter 51)
Station 4: Jesus meets his Mother. My Son, have pity on me, I carried you nine months in the womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up. I beseech you, my Child, look at the heavens and the earth and see everything that is in them and know that it was God who made them all out of nothing. Accept death now so that in God’s mercy I may receive you back with your brothers. (II Maccabees 7: 27-29) Here I saw a part of the compassion of Our Lady Saint Mary: for Christ and she were so made one in love, that the greatness of her loving was the cause of the greatness of her pain. In this, I saw an example of the natural love, strengthened by grace, that creatures have for him; which kind love was most fully and overpassingly shown in his sweet Mother. For ever the higher, the mightier, the sweeter that the love be, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see that body in pain that is loved. (VIII Revelation, Chapter 18)
Station 5: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus. And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. (Luke 23:26) And all his disciples and all his true lovers then suffered anguish more than their own bodily dying. For I am sure by my own feelings that the least of them loved him so far above himself, that it passes beyond the power of my telling. Here I saw a great oneness between Christ and us, to my understanding, for when he is in pain we are in pain. (VIII Revelation, Chapter 18) (Note: Cyrene was a Greek colony in North Africa.)
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