Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic Catholic where real faith meets real life.

Have you ever wondered about the women of Jerusalem who weep as Jesus is carrying his

cross to Calvary and those strange cryptic words Jesus says to these women have

ever wondered about this we contemplate this in in the Stations of the Cross. We just heard about it in Luke's presentation of the passion narrative in this Palm Sunday liturgy reading. What is this all about? I want you to get into the scene, picture this moment.

Jesus has been condemned to death. He's given such a severe scourging. He has scourged so intensely

that he can barely walk anymore.

He starts to carry his cross, but he can go no further.

And then the Roman soldiers do the unprecedented thing.

They go grab some other man, a guy named Simon of Sireen, and forced him to carry Jesus's cross for him.

That just doesn't happen.

The condemned man is always supposed to carry his own cross to the execution site.

The fact that the Romans break with that normal procedure

and get someone else to do it shows us that Jesus is already almost dead

before he even gets to Golgotha. And it's in the midst of this miserable

situation for Jesus walking on the way to Calverly, barely just holding it

together, that the women of Jerusalem, these women of Jerusalem are

they're weeping, they're weeping and lamenting all that's happening to Jesus.

And think about this incredible compassion they have for our Lord.

And then Jesus responds to this compassion with these words,aughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

What is that all about?

That doesn't seem to be a nice way to respond. You know, at first glance you look at that to say Jesus, why don't you just say thank you? Why did he say these words? And then he goes on, he says,

for behold, the days are coming when they will say

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