The Holy Face in the Way of the Cross XIV-Jesus is laid in the tomb

(The fourteenth  in a series of posts praying the Stations of the Cross...begin here and then follow along each day.)

Calm as a summer evening when no breezes are abroad, quiet as a noonday wood when all birds are songless, the Face of Jesus rests in death.  The Holy Countenance breathes by its very silence its last and final message:  "it is Consummated."  Not the malice of men, nor their ingratitude, is consummated, but the atonement for all human malice and ingratitude by the Sacrifice of that fair but now broken Humanity of God's Son.  With thoughtfulness too deep for words, with grief too deep for tears, the faithful disciples carry in tender haste the body of their Master to Joseph's tomb.

Jesus, because You were born in a cave and laid to rest in another man's tomb, I find courage to ask You to rest in this poor soul of mine.  It must have value in Your eyes, for You paid so readily a great price for its possession.  Take then, Jesus, what You have bought, and give me in return Your forgiveness and Your love.

Sorrowful Mother, rejoice with Jesus; He shall not have died in vain for me.

(From The Holy Face in the Way of the Cross with etchings by Hippolyte Lazerges and reflections by  Father Page, C.S.C. aka Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, sP, the founder of the Handmaids of the Precious Blood, published by the St. Columban's Fathers Foreign Mission Society)