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 Twelfth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
Meditation
If the cross was a pulpit from which Jesus preached the greatest sermon ever on God’s love for sinners, it was also a prie-dieu on which Jesus prayed Psalms 22 and 31 to their perfect fulfillment. One has to realize that the ancient Jews did not refer to the Psalms by number but by their first or best known line. Psalm 22:1 Reads: "My God, My God, why have You Forsaken Me?" And Psalm 31:5 Reads: "Into Your hands I place My Spirit." Jesus prayed these Psalms to their perfect fulfillment because they are Psalms in which the faithful servant of God expresses His confidence in God’s ultimate vindication of Him despite the persecution and suffering now heaped upon Him.
Prayer
Father, help us remember always, not just that Jesus prayed on the cross, but also that He perfected all prayer there, making the cross the best of altars upon which He finished the complete surrender of Himself to You that puts us all at one with You.
The Thirteenth Station: Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross
