IX. Jesus falls for the third time

“The Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity,’ said Isaias, speaking of Christ during His Passion : Dominus voluit conterere eum in infirmitate. Jesus is crushed beneath the weight of justice. We shall never

THE WAY OF THE CROSS BY be able, even in heaven, to measure what it was for Jesus to be subject to the darts of Divine justice. No creature, not even the damned, has borne the weight of it, in all its fulness. But the sacred Humanity of Jesus, united to this Divine justice by immediate contact, underwent all its power and all its rigour. This is why, as a Victim Who delivered Himself out of love to all its action, He falls prostrate, crushed and broken beneath its weight.

O my Jesus, teach me to detest sin which obliges justice to require of You such expiation. Grant that I may unite all my sufferings to Yours, so that by them my sins may be blotted out and I may make satisfaction even here below!