The Seventh Station: Jesus falls the second time under the weight of His cross

by Jean Fallon

We see Jesus falling beneath the cross the second time. Despite the help of Simon of Cyrene, the cross has crushed Him once more, and Roman soldiers have beaten him down. Let us see Jesus in the Beqa’a Valley, outside of Hebron, now.

It is 1998. Just before sunrise, the Israeli military had come in the name of the State of Israel, gun and demolition orders at ready, driving out the families, forcibly holding them back while the bulldozers smash homes that had been rebuilt with the help of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions… In the piles of rubble, the families sit crushed.

It means nothing that these Palestinian families have held the land for generations. Above them, on the top of a hill, the settlements continue to expand, clearing this area of Palestinians and taking their land.



The Eighth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

by Mary Wendeln

A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him. Jesus turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.' At that time, people will say to the mountains, ‘Fall upon us!' and to the hills, ‘Cover us!' for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?" Luke 23: 27-31

Jesus tells the women of today to weep for themselves and their children if their society continues on its current path. All women living in Palestine and Israel bear the cross of division and fear.

Palestinian women face the possibility of home demolitions, substandard social, and health services. Mothers fear home invasions and not knowing the whereabouts of their sons, detained by the Israeli army. Others fear that their sons may be wounded, killed, and blacklisted for throwing stones or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Israeli women bear the burden of a national budget that prioritizes military power over human needs. Many live in fear that their children will die violent deaths as recently happened to the boys at the Yeshiva school in Jerusalem.

Jesus meets Israeli and Palestinian women working together who question why this violence is happening.

They meet us and ask how many times we have felt sorry for the victim and failed to question the policies that perpetuate this injustice? How many times have we failed to question our involvement in the injustice? How many times have we continued to talk about an injustice and failed to act?