JESUS HAS BEEN BADLY BEATEN and now he carries his cross. It is said that the crossbeam alone weighed about ninety pounds. So these are not little stumbles but increasingly repeated and exhausted collapses.
Walking with Jesus, I may become aware of my own repeated falling - my inconsistencies, my weakness in prayer, my forgetting to attend to the things that matter most: "You have been told, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)
In this painting, Jesus having fallen, looks over his shoulder - at me. He understands. In truth, my falls are not born of malice towards God but are more the result of inattentive haste, loneliness, self-centeredness, forgetting, anxiety or immaturity.
Oh Jesus, grow-me-up strong, awake and persevering!
Our Father Who Art in Heaven...
Hail Mary full of grace...
Glory be to the Father...
