Walking Through Calvary, St. Ignatius Style Part 2

Third Station: Jesus Falls for The First Time

It’s hard to imagine that almost as soon as Jesus carries the cross, he falls down straight out of the gate. Then again, it’s a miracle that he didn’t die during the scourging. It brings Jesus’s human nature to mind.

I think that people tend towards two extremes when it comes to Jesus. One extreme is just to see Jesus as just a human person (our current heresy) while the other extreme was that Jesus was never human, that he was some kind of demi-god(Gnosticism, Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophystism, etc.). In reality, Jesus was fully God and fully man. This particular station reminds us that Jesus was fully human because like every other human being, he can fall down when the weight of a burden is too heavy.

But Jesus got back up. And in turn, so do we.

It took me a while to think of a song associated with this particular station. But this song reminds me that God never abandons us, even when we fall down:

Fourth Station: Jesus Meets his Mother

There is no greater pain for a parent than to see their child suffer. I am not even going to try and place myself in Mary’s place in this scene. But I know a lot of parents can probably imagine this. Even though Mary was born without sin, she was still as human as the rest of us. All that she knew leading up to this point was that a sword would pierce her heart. It’s really hard for me to imagine the pain she went through. But again, I know a few people who probably know this pain all too well.

Whenever I go to the Stations of the Cross, each station ends with lyrics from an old song called Stabat Mater, which is a hymn about the sorrows of Mary. The lyrics were modified for each station (or were from a different English translation).