He bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
1 Peter 2:24
For the second time as he makes his way along the narrow path to Calvary, Jesus falls. We can sense his physical weakness after the long night and the torture he had endured. Perhaps it was not just that ordeal, his own exhaustion and the heavy cross on his shoulders that made him fall. An unfathomable burden weighs on Jesus, something personal and profound which makes itself felt more clearly with each step.
We see you as a just another poor man,
one who made a mistake in life and now must pay for it.
You seem to have no physical or moral strength left
to face the new day. And so you fall.
We recognize ourselves in you, Jesus,
even in this further, exhausted fall!
Yet you get up again; you want to carry on.
For us, for all of us,
to give us the courage to get up again.
We are weak indeed,
but your love is greater than our failures;
it is always ready to accept and understand us.
Our sins, which you took upon yourself,
crush you, yet your mercy
is infinitely greater than our misery.
Yes, Jesus, thanks to you we get up again.
We made our mistakes.
We let ourselves be taken in by the temptations of the world
perhaps for nothing more than a glimmer of satisfaction,
at the thought that someone still wants us,
that someone says he or she likes us, even loves us.
At times it is a struggle even to maintain
the commitment to fidelity made in our marriage vows.
We no longer feel the freshness or the enthusiasm we once had.
Everything is repetitious, every act seems a burden,
We just want to escape.
But we try to get up once more, Jesus,
And not to fall into the greatest temptation of all:
that of not believing that your love can accomplish all things.
In Caelo et in Terra 