Discerning Hearts.com presents Stations of the Cross, Reflections with Deacon James Keating.

Deacon Keating is a professor of spiritual theology at Kenrick Glennon's seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

He formerly served as the director of theological formation at the Institute for Priestly Formation.

He is also the author of numerous spiritual books, including Heart of the Deaconate, Remain and Me,

Spousal Prayer, and Listening for Truth.

He has given more than 400 workshops on moral theology and spirituality nationally and

regularly conducts retreats.

Stations of the Cross, Reflections with Deacon James Keating.

I'm your host, Chris McGregor.

The next day of the day. McGregor. The Ninth Station, Jesus falls a third time.

And here we feel almost unbelievably that this can't keep going on, that he's grown too weak, that he just doesn't

have the power anymore to fulfill the Father's will.

And of course, ourselves and our own lives are near despair at many points of our existence.

We just can't go on.

We don't have the power. Whatever level of suffering,

it may be physical, emotional, spiritual. And here Jesus again joins us in what we thought might have passed forever, our suffering. And this suffering comes back. And in this station, he joins us again in this position

of failure or pain. He joins us again when we thought that all our days ahead would be healthy

or fruitful. And yet we find ourselves once again in a position of limit, finitude, suffering.

And so we look upon Jesus here and almost physically exhausted,

emotionally exhausted, intellectually exhausted. What does all this mean?

And we lie there with him on the ground, with the weight of all of our failures and all of our

sufferings, laying upon us, waiting again for consolation, waiting again for grace,

...