Praying with the Gospels: Carrying the Cross

Lord, as I go about my business, journeying to the Holy Land where
Your chosen people dwell, I am told that I must share the burden of
another, one who has been cast out into the darkness outside by their
judgment that it is better that one should be killed than that many of
the people should be slaughtered like fattened calves offered to You.

Please help me by Your grace to ever provide help to You through a
sharing of the burdens carried by Your least brothers and sisters, that
I may not begrudge them the help they require of me in carrying the
cross they have taken up, the cross under which they have fallen at
times as they struggle to walk the via dolorosa walked first by You.

Christ my God, let me remember that as You fell carrying the cross,
so too will I fall carrying my cross and ask another to help me bear
it with me, carrying the cross under which I have fallen by my sins
many times only to stand and walk at Your word again without fear,
trusting that as You rose to glory I may also rise to glory with You.



By Andrea di Bartolo - http://www.phombo.com/miscellaneous/european-paintings-and-sculpture-from-12th-to-mid-19th-centuries/775454/full/popular/ 2010-10-05, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15367980


Note:  The man who carried Jesus' cross to the mount of execution was Simon of Cyrene, and this event is one of the Stations of the Cross.