My Jesus, infinite love! I see that You allow Yourself no rest, and I feel Your longing for love and Your pain. Your heart beats strongly, and with every beat I perceive its suffering, the fierceness and outbursts of its love. Since You cannot hold back the fire that consumes You, it becomes a torment for You. You sigh, and with every sigh I hear the word “ cross” coming from your lips. And “cross” repeatedly every drop of Your blood , “cross” is uttered by all Your sufferings, in which You are immersed as in a shoreless sea. Now you cry out: “0 beloved and longed-for Cross, you alone will save My children, in you I unite all My love”.

Jesus is Crowned with Thorns a Second Time

Meanwhile, Your tormentors let You return to the court house and take off Your purple robe to put Your clothes back on You. But what pain! Dying would be sweeter to me than seeing you suffer so horribly. The cloak gets caught in the crown of thorns and sticks. With unheard-of cruelty they now tear off Your crown as well as Your cloak. In this cruel act, many thorns shatter and remain in your head.

The blood trickles down and Your pain is so intense that You sigh. But the henchmen do not care about Your agony. They put Your clothes on You, place the crown on Your head anew and press it in so firmly that the thorns penetrate Your eyes and ears again. There was no part of Your head that did not feel the stings of the thorns. Under these pitiless hands You stagger and tremble from Your head to Your feet, yes, Your agony brings You close to death. You look at me with a dull look in Your blood-filled eyes and ask for help in this heavy suffering.

My Jesus, King of Sorrows!¹ Allow me to hold You up and let You rest in my heart. How I would like to steal the fire of love that consumes You in order to reduce Your enemies to ashes and set You free. But You do not want to, because Your longing for the cross is growing ever more ardent and You want to sacrifice Yourself on it immediately, even for Your tormentors. While You now rest on my heart, You speak to me:

"My child, let My love flow out and atone with Me for those who do good but dishonor Me. The Jews put My clothes on Me again only to discredit Me even more among the people and to convince them that I am truly a transgressor. Apparently, this clothing was a good deed, but in intention and in itself it was evil. Oh, how many perform good deeds, administer or receive the holy sacraments, but with human, sometimes even evil intentions. But the good that is done with evil intent leads to hardness of heart. So I want to be crowned a second time with even greater pain than the first time,² in order to soften the hardness of people's hearts and draw them to Me with My thorns. My daughter! This second crowning is far more painful for Me. It seems to Me as if My head were buried in thorns. With every movement I make and with every thrust they give Me, I have to suffer cruel agonies of death. In this way I want to atone for the wickedness that lies in every insult to God; atone for those who, whatever the state of their souls, instead of thinking of their sanctification, live only in distractions, reject My graces and thus make Me feel even more cruel thorns. Nothing remains for Me but to sigh, shed tears of blood and long for their salvation.

Oh, I do everything to love people, and they do everything to insult Me. At least you do not leave Me alone in My sufferings and My atonements."

Jesus Takes the Cross on His Shoulders

My abused Jesus! I atone with you, I suffer with you. Now I see that Your enemies are pushing You down the stairs, where the people are waiting for You with rage and greed. The henchmen are already bringing the cross that You look for so longingly and gaze at with love. With determined steps You approach it, embrace it and kiss it. Your whole humanity shudders with joy. You look at it again and again and measure its length and width. You are already determining the share in it that You have given to all people, a share that is sufficient to bind them to the Godhead through the bond of mystical marriage and to make them heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Now You can no longer contain the love with which You love souls. This is why You kiss the Cross anew while You speak:

"Desired cross! At last I can embrace you. You are the desire of My heart, the martyrdom of My love. Long have you waited, while I have always directed My steps towards you. Holy cross! You are the goal of My desires, the conclusion of My journey here on earth. Into you I place My whole being, into you all My children. You will be their life, their light, their defense, their protection, their strength, their support in everything and lead them triumphantly to heaven. O Cross, Chair of Wisdom! You alone will teach true holiness, you alone will form the heroes of virtue, the martyrs, the saints. Beautiful Cross, you are My throne! Since I must depart from the earth, you remain behind in My place. To you I give all souls as an inheritance. Preserve them for Me, save them for Me, to you I entrust them."

As You speak like this, my Jesus, You allow the cross to be placed on Your shoulders. It is still too light for Your love, but to its weight is added that of our immense guilt of sin, as far and wide as the heavens reach. You, my good bent under its weight, feel repelled by so many offenses. Your soul shudders at the sight of them, because You have to bear the punishment for every single guilt of sin. Your holiness feels repulsed by its ugliness. That is why You stagger as You take up the cross on Your shoulders, fall into sorrow, and deathly sweat runs from Your body.

Oh, my dear! I cannot bring myself to leave You alone. That is why I want to share the burden of the cross with You. To ease the burden of the guilt of sin, I embrace Your feet. In the name of all people, I want to give You love for everyone who does not love You, homage for those who disregard You, praise, thanksgiving and obedience for all. I solemnly confess that for every offense You suffer, I intend to offer myself entirely to You in order to make reparation, to perform an act of virtue in opposition to the offenses, and to console You with my continued acts of love.

But since I realize that I am too poor, I need You in order to be able to offer You true atonement. Therefore I unite myself with Your humanity, my thoughts with Yours, in order to do enough for my evil thoughts and those of all men. I unite my eyes with Yours to atone for evil looks, my mouth with Yours to atone for blasphemies and slippery conversations, my heart with Yours to make satisfaction for all evil intentions, desires and inclinations. In a word: I want to atone for all that for which Your most holy humanity atones, in union with Your boundless love for all the children of men and all the good You do them in unlimited measure.

But I also want to unite myself with Your divinity, sink this nothing of mine into its abyss and thus give everything to You. I give You Your love in order to sweeten Your bitterness, I give You Your heart in order to hold You harmless for the coldness, ingratitude and little love on the part of people, as well as for the fact that they do not follow Your promptings. I give You the eternal harmonies that lie in Your divinity to make You feel good for having to listen to curses and imprecations that make the air tremble. I give You Your beauty to divert Your gaze from the ugliness of our souls when they are defiled by guilt of sin, Your purity as a substitute for the lack of good opinion, for the filth and rottenness You see in so many souls. I also give You Your immensity as a gift, to give You consolation for the lack of understanding that souls voluntarily constrict themselves so as not to give You room. I give You the glow of Your heart as a gift to consume all sins and set all hearts on fire so that all may love You and no one may offend You. In short: I give You everything that You are in order to offer You infinite satisfaction and eternal, immeasurable, infinite love.

My most patient Jesus! I see You taking the first steps under the immense weight of the Cross. I unite my steps with Yours. When You, weak and exhausted, are about to fall, I will stand by Your side, lift You up and put my shoulders under the cross to share its burden with You. O do not spurn me, accept me as a faithful companion! Jesus, You look at me and I realize that You atone for those who do not carry their cross with surrender, but with curses and outbursts of anger, who take their own lives or murder others.

Jesus Falls Under the Cross for the First Time

And You plead for all to love and surrender to the cross that weighs on them. Your pain is so great that You feel crushed under the weight of the cross. No sooner have You taken the first steps than You fall to the ground and bump into the stones. The thorns dig even deeper into Your head, all Your wounds are torn open and bleed anew. As You have no strength to get up, the fierce henchmen try to get You to Your feet with kicks and punches. My love lying on the ground! Let me help You to get up, that I may dry Your blood and atone with You for those who sin out of ignorance, frailty and weakness. I ask You to grant these souls the assistance of Your grace so that they may rise from their fall.

Jesus Meets His Mother

My Jesus, now the henchmen have succeeded in setting You on Your feet. As You stagger on, I can hear Your panting breath. Your heart is pounding violently and new pains pierce it. You move Your head to clear Your eyes of the blood they are filled with and look around in fear. Oh, I have understood everything. Your mother, who has gone in search of You like a wailing little pigeon, wants to say one last word to You, to receive Your last look. And You feel Her sorrow, feel Her heart, torn by pain, in Yours, struck and wounded by Her and Your love. You can already see Her making Her way through the crowd to see You at all costs, to embrace You and give You a final farewell. But pain binds Your steps as You catch sight of Her, pale as death, all Your sufferings reproduced in Her by the force of love. If she still remains alive, it is a miracle of Your omnipotence. You go to meet Her, but You are hardly allowed to exchange glances. O heart-breaking pain! The soldiers notice Your intention. By pushing and shoving, they prevent mother and son from meeting to say goodbye.

Jesus Falls for the Second Time under the Cross

The sadness on both sides at this heartlessness is so great that Your mother is petrified and threatens to succumb to the force of Her pain. However, the faithful disciple John and pious women stand by Her while You once again fall under the cross. Then Your sorrowful mother does in spirit what She cannot do in reality because She is prevented from doing so. She makes the will of the Eternal One Her own, participates in all Your sufferings and fulfills all the duties of a mother. She caresses You, strengthens You, tries to soothe Your pain and pours the balm of Her painful love into Your wounds.

I unite myself with Your sorrowful mother, make all Your sufferings my own, want to represent Your mother's place with every drop of blood You shed, with every wound that hurts You. In union with You and Your Mother, I want to atone for all sinful meetings and also for those people who do not avoid the opportunities to sin or, if they cannot avoid them, succumb to the temptations of sin.

Falling for the second time under the cross, You burst into sighs. Although the soldiers fear that You might die under the weight of so many tortures and as a result of the excessive loss of blood, after many efforts they succeed in getting You back on Your feet by beating and kicking You. Thus You atone for the repeated relapses into sin, atone for the grave sins committed by all classes of humanity, intercede for the obstinate sinners and weep tears of blood to obtain their conversion.

The Shoulder Wound of Jesus

My sorrowful love! As I follow You in Your acts of atonement, I realize that You will not be able to bear the heavy burden of the cross for much longer. Your whole form is already trembling. The thorns are penetrating deeper and deeper into Your head with the constant blows and pushes they give You. The cross digs itself into Your shoulder because of its weight, forming a wound so deep that Your bones lie bare, and with every step I think I see You die rather than go on. Only Your love, which can do everything, gives You strength. Through Your sacred shoulder wound You atone for the hidden sins which, because no satisfaction is made for them, only increase the bitterness of Your agony. My Jesus, allow me to put my shoulder under the cross to give You relief and to offer You satisfaction for all secret sins.

Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

Fearing that You might succumb to the burden of the cross, the henchmen force Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for You. Not willingly and not out of love, only forced and grumbling, he helps You. In Your heart You hear the echo of all the complaints of those who suffer with a lack of submission, with anger, rebellion and disregard for suffering. But what wounds Your heart the most is the perception that even souls consecrated to God, whom You call as companions and comforters in Your pain, flee from You. When You draw them to You through suffering, they slip away from Your arms, seek earthly pleasures and leave You to suffer alone.

My Jesus! While I am atoning with You, I ask You to embrace me in Your arms, so firmly that there will be none of Your sufferings in which I do not also participate, and that through them I will be transformed into You, to give You consolation for the fact that so many souls abandon You.

Veronica Hands Jesus the Handkerchief

My sorrowful Jesus! You stagger along with difficulty, bent low. Suddenly I see that You are standing still and looking around You. What is it? Oh, it is Veronica, who is courageously and fearlessly drying Your blood-covered face, and You are wiping it with a cloth as a sign of Your pleasure. My magnanimous Jesus, I too want to dry You, but not with a cloth, but to offer myself to You, to lift You up, to enter into Your inner being and to give You heartbeat after heartbeat, breath after breath, inclination after inclination, desire after desire. I want to enter into Your mind, sink all these heartbeats, breaths, inclinations and desires into the immensity of Your will and multiply these acts into infinity. I would like to form a sea of every human heartbeat, so that none may find an echo in Your heart that was not made out of love for You, and thus alleviate all the bitterness of Your inner suffering. I want to form a sea of all human inclinations and desires in order to keep away all evil inclinations and desires that could grieve Your heart in the slightest. I also want to form a sea of every human breath and every thought, in order to drive away every breath and every thought that could displease You in the slightest way.³ I will keep a good watch, my Jesus, so that nothing may deceive You any more and that no others may be added to Your inner sufferings. My Jesus, make my whole inner being immerse itself in the immensity of Your divine Being. In this way I will find enough love and strong will to make it so that no sinful love or will will penetrate my inner being that could displease You.

My Jesus, to be assured of myself, I ask You to seal my thoughts, my will, my desires and my inclinations with Your thoughts, Your will, Your desires and Your inclinations, so that in this way they may be enlivened only by You. My Jesus, I immerse myself in the immensity of Your Will. By making it my own, I want to make satisfaction for all men and seal all souls in the omnipotence of Your Will. Jesus, now only my blood remains. I also want to shed this as a pain-soothing balm for Your wounds, so that You can regain Your strength and recover from all Your suffering. I also want to let all my thoughts slide into the heart of every sinner so that I may rebuke him without ceasing if he dares to offend You. Furthermore, I beg You with the voice of Your blood that all souls may surrender to the power of my miserable prayers. Then I will be able to bring them all to Your heart. Yet another grace I ask of You, my Jesus. In everything I see, touch and feel, let me always see You, touch You, feel You. Let Your most holy image and Your most holy name be imprinted on every atom of my miserable being.

Meanwhile, Your enemies, who have looked with evil eyes upon the touching act of Veronica, strike You again and drive You on Your way.

Jesus Comforts the Weeping Women

After a few steps, You stop again. Although Your suffering weighs heavily on You, Your love does not stand still. When You see pious women weeping for You and Your suffering, You forget Yourself and comfort them with the words:

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and your children!”

What sublime teaching, O my Jesus, and how gentle is Your word! With You I atone for the lack of love. Therefore I ask You for the grace to forget myself completely, to remember nothing but You alone.

Jesus Falls for the Third Time under the Cross

When Your enemies hear You speak, they are enraged. They pull You back and forth by the ropes and drive You forward in such a hurry that You fall to the ground again and hit Your knees on the stones. The weight of the cross becomes torture for You. It is as if You are close to death. Your face touches the ground and Your mouth is red with blood. O let me lift You up and wash Your face with my own hands. But Your enemies want to set You on Your feet, pull You up by Your ropes and hair and kick You, but in vain. What agony, my Jesus, my heart breaks with pain. Now the henchmen drag You to Calvary. On the way there, You atone for the sins of the souls consecrated to You. They weigh heavily on You. No matter how hard You try to walk upright, You do not succeed. Kicked and dragged away, You finally arrive at Calvary, leaving traces of Your precious blood everywhere.

Jesus is Stripped of His Clothes and Crowned with Thorns for the Third Time

New torments await you there. The soldiers strip You again, tear Your clothes from Your body and the crown from Your head. Oh, You sigh at this rough treatment. For along with the crown they also tear off the thorns and with Your clothes they tear away pieces of Your sore flesh that was glued on. The wounds break open again, the blood trickles to the ground, and Your agony is so great that You appear more dead than alive.

But no one is moved to pity, my greatest good! On the contrary, with animal fury, they place the crown on Your head anew and crush it with blows. The agony You feel is so terrible that only the angels could tell what You are suffering. Shuddering, they turn their eyes away from You, “the angels of peace weep” (Ps 33:7).

My robed Jesus! Let me warm You, for I see that You are trembling and cold sweat covers Your body. How gladly I would give my life and my blood to replace Yours, which You shed to give life to us all.

Now You look at me with dull, half-extinct eyes. I feel as if You are speaking to me:

"My child, how much souls cost Me! Here is the place where I await all of them to save them; where I want to atone for the sins of those who humble themselves under the beast and are so stubbornly devoted to their sins that they can no longer live if they do not offend Me. Their reason is blinded and they sin like madmen. When they tear the garments from My body, I atone for those who wear splendid garments and shameless clothes, atone for sins against chastity and for those who are so attached to wealth, honor and pleasure that they make of them the god of their hearts.

O certainly, each of these offenses makes Me feel death. If I do not die, it is because the will of the Eternal Father has not yet determined the moment of My death for now."

My exposed Jesus, as I make reparation with You, I ask You to strip me of all earthly inclinations and not to allow a single sinful inclination to enter my heart. Watch over it, surround it with Your sufferings as with a fence and fill it with Your love. May my life be nothing other than the repetition of Your life. So affirm with Your blessing my divestment, bless me with all Your heart and give me the strength to witness Your painful crucifixion, so that I may always be attached to the cross with You.

Reflections and Practices

by St. Fr. Annibale Di Francia

Jesus carries the Cross. The Love of Jesus for the Cross, His anxious Ardor to die on It for the salvation of souls, are immense! And we—do we love suffering like Jesus? Can we say that our heartbeats echo His Divine Heartbeats, and that we too ask for our cross?!

When we suffer, do we have the intention of becoming companions of Jesus in order to relieve Him from the weight of His Cross? How do we accompany Him? As He receives

insults, are we always ready to give Him our little suffering as relief for His pains?

In working, in praying, and when we feel the hardship of our suffering under the weight of interior pains, do we let our pain fly to Jesus, which, like a veil, may dry up His sweat and cheer Him, making His hardship our own?

All: O my Jesus, call me always to be close to You, and remain always near me, so that I may comfort You always with my pains.

¹ Isaiah 53:2 describes the Savior's suffering in harrowing words: “He has no form or beauty; there is no form, and we do not desire Him, the despised, the least of men, the man of sorrows, the man of weakness, His face veiled in shame.”

² With the removal of the purple robe, the henchmen, as noted, also tore the crown of thorns from Jesus' head, but later put it back on their victim with even greater pain.

³ The visionary wants to collect all that is imperfect, all that is sinful, as if in a sea, so that it may be held in check, just as the sea holds its waters in check, so that evil may no longer reach Jesus.

Sacrifice and Thanksgiving

Sources:

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