Jerusalem streets (photo: Kate McDonald)
On the road to Golgotha
Luke 23:26-31 (NIV)
As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.
Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’
Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’ For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
Meditation
Simon’s day ought to be for us the Festival of the Passer-by, the Feast of the unexpected. Imagine ‘coming out of the country’ and being caught up in the redemption of the world! A parable of sainthood, of the claim of the divine in the ordinary, the critical in the trivial, the eternal moment which is always now.
Prayer
Lord of Simon’s calling-to-aid,
Make our everyday holy with your need of us
and give us readiness of heart and hand and mind.
(Middle East: Bishop Kenneth Cragg)
Song
Man of sorrows
Meditation and Prayer:
A Procession of Prayers: Meditations and Prayers from Around the World by John Carden, p. 221