In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence.

I ask you for pardon of my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My mother immaculate, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a skull

which is called in Hebrew Golgatha

There they crucified him and with him two others one on either side and Jesus between

them well this is the account of the passion of Jesus of you Lord who we seek to

communicate with intimately in these moments of prayer.

This is the account of the passion recorded by St. John in the 19th chapter of his gospel.

And the account by St. John is particularly precious to us because he was there at those moments,

that supreme moment of the crucifixion. When everybody else almost, except for St. John and Our Lady,

and some of the holy women, everyone else, Lord, had abandoned you. They left you alone, when you most needed them. So St. John's account

is particularly valuable as that of an eyewitness, a loving eyewitness,

it has to be said.

Also particularly valuable because this is the account given by the disciple whom Jesus loved,

for whom our Lord had a particular love and we can imagine that St. John lived

through these extraordinary painful and grace-filled moments with a particular love, with a

particular intimacy, with a particular union with Christ.

Perhaps we might be struck a little bit by how succinct it is. St John says the bare minimum.

They took Jesus, he went out bearing his own cross to Golgata. There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side. I mean St. John's Gospel is not particularly succinct. If you were to contrast it with Mark, Mark is much more brief in how he recounts things.

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