The 4th Sorrowful Mystery

The Way of the Cross

How does it feel to be walking towards certain death? Even for the bravest it has to be unsettling! It is the facing of an inexorable and possible painful end, coming face to face with mortality, with the unknown, the sundering of body and spirit, the termination of life as we have known it, a change in the very essence of our humanity. For some death is a plunge into the blackness of non existence, for us through the eyes of faith it is a passage, albeit uncomfortable, from life to life.

The fourth sorrowful mystery invites us to contemplate Jesus carrying his cross, followed by the crowds to the place of the skull, where pain and death awaited. Little is written about his inner struggles that day, though he paused to comfort the grieving women of Jerusalem. His mother and a few loved ones surely followed, in sorrow and disbelief that their beloved and with him the dream of the kingdom of God as they had thought was being destroyed.

Sometimes we forget we too are walking to an end that is certain. This is not a scenario of our own choosing; we do not know the time or the hour. In our distress, we ignore, deny, and distract ourselves from the reality that we too, carrying our cross head to the place of unknown!

May Christ, his mother, angels and saints pray for us that our journey be marked by grace, dignity and peace.

Blessings

seraph