THIRD STATION
Jesus is Condemned by the Sanhedrin
V.Adoramus
te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R.Quia
per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.
Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
From the Gospel according to Mk 14,55.60-62.64
Now the chief priests and the whole council sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death; but they found none. And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus: "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said: "I am". And they all condemned him as deserving death.
MEDITATION
The judicial apparatus has now been set in motion. The apparatus that condemns without proofs, accuses without grounds, judges without appeal, and crushes the innocent. Summary justice, the swift justice of modern dictatorships and times of war. The justice sometimes given - blasphemy of blasphemies - in the name of the God who forgives and absolves. Jesus in the dock. Like all the victims of caprice, presumed guilty of crimes of conscience. They resist, they refuse to bow beneath the yoke of the system, power which crushes, destroying personhood and identity. Identity check: "Who are you". On arrival, every prisoner receives a number. At all times he has to show his tag, hand over his identity card. In the hour of caprice, the Church's duty and her boast is to tell him that he is not a number, and that every man has a right to be called by name. "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mk 14,61). The response is full of light: "I am!" (Mk 14,62). To proclaim one's own identity and one's faith are acts sometimes punishable by death. How many people are seeking God? How many are seeking him behind bars? How many seek him within the prison of their life, their sufferings? How many seek him amid mockery and torture? Men and women in prisons everywhere, hunted down, marked, scarred, lacking answers to the essential questions: about the meaning of life and about evil, about repentance, forgiveness and salvation, about the mystery of the Cross and of Redemption. A people of flesh and blood. A land of encounters, faces, voices and cries. A land of the Gospel.
PRAYER
Jesus, you need but say "I am",
and we will race to your side.
In the prisons men and women implore you.
They keep watch and pray in the night.
They teach us about the air which they breathe,
the evil which weighs them down,
the freedom they seek.
Hear their prayer.
If they feel unforgiven, unloved by you and by us,
if their hope is denied,
then they are doubly condemned,
relegated to death row.
Give them what you have given us:
faith in you and in your presence,
love of life, hope for a new world.
To us and to them grant the means to seek you,
to accept the time of waiting, and to find you.
To you, Jesus,
Good Shepherd and Lord of our lives,
Friend with a merciful face,
be pure and grateful praise
with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
world without end.
R.Amen.
All:
Pater noster, qui es in cælis:
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat regnum tuum;
fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a malo.
O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta
mater Unigeniti!
Oh, how sad and sore
distressed
Was that mother highly blessed
Of the sole-begotten one!