This is the second time you have fallen on the road. As the cross grows heavier and heavier it becomes more difficult to get up. But you continue to struggle and try until you’re up and walking again. You don’t give up.
As a child, sometimes things get me down. Others seem to find things easier to do or to learn. Each time I fail, I find it harder to keep trying.
As an adult, sometimes I think I should know more than I do. I become impatient with myself and find it hard to believe in myself when I fail. It is easy to despair over small things, and sometimes I do.
Help me when things seem difficult for me. Even when it’s hard, help me get up and keep trying as you did. Help me do my best without comparing myself with others.
My Jesus, often have I sinned and often, by sin, beaten Thee to the ground beneath the cross. Help me to use the efficacious means of grace that I may never fall again. (Catholic Online)
It is very understanding that Jesus’ journey with the Cross to Calvary has gotten progressively difficult as he carries this enormous burden, knowing the fate that awaits him. In any case, it would make perfect sense in a time of complete hopelessness to just give up and stay down as you fall again. Imagine the pain on his back, his bare feet on cut up ground, aching muscles, a crown of thorns jabbing around his head not to mention the unbearable heat. But Jesus does not do that. He gets up despite his failure when the result seems to have no great outcome. All seems to fail but he keeps trying.
Over the course of these past eight months, I am sure we all have had moments like this, where under stress or by exhaustion we have found ourselves in the position where we think we have failed those we serve. It could be any circumstance where we could think we acted in a way that we look back on and regret. I am sure we then question, “This really can defeat the purpose for why I am here”. Another thing to think about is if we are tired in our jobs, it is easy to think we need to give it our all and if we come short it could leave us feeling totally defeated. As it turns out, we were not the only ones. Jesus, who will come to save humanity stumbled from exhaustion in a path that does not seem to have any optimism ahead, not one but two times now. Anybody watching this happen must really being doubting his abilities as we can feel people may be doubting ours in our shortcomings. One needs to know things are not always what they seem.
Reflection Questions:
Think of witnessing Jesus in from the crowd, beaten and bruised, now having fallen two times in a disheveled state, covered in dirt, sweat and blood.
When was a time at work when you believe you failed your mission for why you are here?
What is a path ahead of you to come?
From the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (%2: 2-3
“He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hid their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Closing Prayer:
Dear Jesus, know even in our repeated failures and time of exhaustion, when there seems to be no light ahead, there is always another path for hope.
