Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
Meditation
In addition to praying with faith and humility and perseverance, Jesus taught us to pray with forgiveness, both seeking forgiveness from those we have wronged and extending forgiveness to those who have wronged us. He had brought His gift to the altar of the cross and had no need to go anywhere else first to be reconciled with another because He alone had never wronged anyone. Now, as He stiffened at the searing pain of the nails being struck through His wrists, His thumbs curling rigidly inward, He realized that His executioners had locked Him into the final grip of death. But this only moved Him to pray for them as He taught us we must for our enemies. He did not condemn but even excused them, asking His father to forgive them because they had no real grasp of what they were doing.
Prayer
Father, let us never forget nor fail to act upon the example of forgiveness and prayer for our enemies that Jesus gave us when His executioners nailed Him to the cross so that we may merit to retain the forgiveness You have given all sinners in Jesus and truly deserve to be called Christian.
The Twelfth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
