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 your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my Father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

Anyone who has done a retreat will normally end up doing the way of the cross.

What happens when you do the way of the cross? Well, you use a prepared text normally,

and you go through each one of the 14 stations.

Often people will go through the church or a chapel and stop in front of a panel or a painting or sculpture of each station and they gaze at it. They recite a prepared text.

And it can be very moving as you contemplate the Lord's anguish,

his pain, and the way he allowed himself to be so mistreated by the authorities.

The texts often describe the hostile reactions of the crowds around him,

but also the pain and the anguish of his followers,

like our Blessed Mother or other figures. And we understand also that he suffered all this

purely out of love for us.

And one really has to have a heart to heart to go through this without at least a bit of empathy for our blessed Lord.

I remember a few years ago I was doing the Way of the Cross with a group of young men.

One of them was leading the way of the cross and he was

reciting the meditations from St. Hosumria, doing them one by one. He would read each one

of the stations. Well, we all knew the text pretty well. And the guy reading was not known

for his effusive or emotional character.

He had a rather quiet and laid back temperament and rarely showed much emotion.

But this time, as he came to the third station, Jesus Falls the third time,

...