13th Station: Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross

With Pilate's permission, Joseph of Arimathea arranges for Jesus' body to be removed from the cross. Jesus' body, limp and lifeless, is placed in the arms of his Mother.

Imagine cradling your own dead child in your arms. A parent's own death would seem less painful.

At yet, in many parts of our world today, parents hold and bury their dead children. They're children killed for political and religious reasons, children caught between warring factions, sometimes victims in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Their parents hold their lifeless bodies and mourn, unable to be consoled, because a child, the fruit of their own body, is dead.

God forgive us. Grant us the grace to see death, even the death of an innocent child, through the eyes of faith. Help us remember that in your eyes we're all children whom you wan to hold in your loving embrace now and forever.