Who carried the cross of jesus christ. Who Bore the Cross of Jesus to Calvary? Himself or Simon of Cyrene? Station VI. St. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

This is the entrance to the Synagogue of King David, above which is the hall of the Last Supper. I tried to go there, but in the hall I was greeted by concrete walls, building materials and an evil worker who quickly kicked me back

Here was the last meal of Jesus Christ with His twelve closest
students, during which he predicted the betrayal of one of the students.

Gethsemane garden

In this garden, Jesus loved to rest and communicate with his disciples. Here, after
Judas' treacherous kiss and they arrested him. There are 8 very ancient
olives, which can be around 2000 years old

Jesus was led into Jerusalem through the Lion's Gate

Somewhere here he was tried by Pontius Pilate

The stone platform on which Pontius Pilate sat, judging the Prisoner, did not survive.
As much as Pilate wanted to save Jesus, he had no choice. Church and then
had a serious weight in the state

Dungeon

Jesus was kept here, and the robber Barabbas was sitting in the cave (bottom right corner of the photo)

Stops on the Way of the Cross

The Way of the Cross went along Via Dolorosa. Now guidebooks divide it into 14 stops.
(stations), each of which reports on some episode of the tragic path of Jesus. About
I will not tell you every parking lot, but as an example I will tell you about a few

Church of the Flagellation

It was here, according to legend, that the Roman soldiers beat Jesus Christ

“Then Pilate took Jesus and ordered to beat Him. And the soldiers, having plaited a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and clothed Him in a purple robe, and said: Hail, King of the Jews! And they beat Him on the cheeks "

Opposite this church is the first station of the Way of the Cross,
reminiscent of the scourging of Jesus

Periodically, pilgrims make a procession

How beautiful and fun this ceremony is held by the Catholics!

On that day, life in the streets of Jerusalem was also noisy, everyone was minding their own business, and
Jesus dragged his cross to Calvary. The cross, by the way, was an order of magnitude heavier than this

The street goes up

It is difficult to imagine how a wounded person can drag a cross up a mountain,
weighing about one hundred kilograms

Station III.
Jesus falls for the first time

Exhausted by the night judgment and scourging, Jesus fell under the weight of the Cross.
Angels look at Him from above

Station IV.
Jesus meets his mother

The Mother of God came here to see her Son, and saw Him carrying
cross to the place of execution. Now there is an Armenian Catholic
Church "Grieving Mother"

Cafe in the courtyard of the church

Station V.
Simon the Cyrene Is Compelled to Help Christ Bear the Cross

Here Roman soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene, who came to Jerusalem for
Passover, help Jesus carry the cross

"And when they led him, then, seizing a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was walking from the field, they laid a cross on him to carry him after Jesus."

Station VI.
St. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

"Veronica, full of sympathy, came up and wiped the face of Jesus with a handkerchief and was surprised to see that there was a miraculous' true image 'of Jesus' face on the handkerchief."

Here Jesus leaned his hand against the wall

Since then, a recess has appeared in the wall, where all believers put their hands. A

Deacon Andrew

On Easter night, the lambs were slaughtered and eaten. The Passover meal included roasted lamb. But the rules of kosher (permitted by Judaism) food suggest that there should be no blood in the meat. According to the testimony of Josephus Flavius, 265 thousand lambs were slaughtered in Jerusalem on Easter. Herod Agrippa, in order to count the number of pious families, ordered to separate the sacrifices to the hearth - there were 600 thousand of them ... Of these hundreds of thousands of sacrificial animals, all the blood had to be poured out. Considering that there was no sewage system in Jerusalem, one can imagine how much blood the city sewers carried to the Kidron Stream.

The Kidron flows between the Jerusalem Wall and the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ was arrested. On the pre-Easter days, Kidron was filled not so much with water as with blood. Before us is a symbol born of reality itself: Christ, the New Testament Lamb, is led to execution across the river full of the blood of the Old Testament lambs. He goes to shed His blood so that there is no more need for anyone to kill. All the terrible power of the Old Testament cult could not seriously heal the human soul. "By the works of the law no flesh will be justified" ...

The sufferings of Christ begin in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here He spent the last hours of His earthly life in prayer to the Father.

The evangelist Luke, a physician by training, describes the appearance of Christ at these moments with the utmost accuracy. He says that when Christ prayed, the blood, like drops of sweat, ran down His face. This phenomenon is known to physicians. When a person is in a state of extreme nervous or mental stress, then sometimes - (extremely rarely) this happens. The capillaries closest to the skin break, and blood flows through the skin through the sweat ducts, mixing with sweat. In this case, large drops of blood are actually formed, which flow down the person's face. In this state, a person loses a lot of strength. It is at this moment that Christ is arrested. The apostles are trying to resist. The Apostle Peter, who carried with him a “sword” (perhaps it was just a large knife) is ready to use this weapon to protect Christ, but hears from the Savior: “Return your sword to its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword; or do you think that I cannot now beg My Father, and He will present to Me more than twelve legions of Angels? " The apostles scatter. Sleepily, no one was ready to follow Christ. And only one of them, hiding behind the bushes, follows for some time the temple guards leading Christ into the city. This is Mark the Evangelist, who later in his Gospel will tell about this episode. While Christ was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the apostles slept despite Christ's requests. In those days it was customary to sleep naked, and there was no clothing on the Mark. Jumping up, the young man threw something on himself hastily, and in this form followed Christ. The flickering of this spot behind the bushes was nevertheless noticed, the guards tried to catch him and Mark, leaving the cloak in the hands of the temple guards, fled naked (). This episode is worthy of mention because several centuries earlier it was essentially predicted already in the Old Testament. In the book of the prophet Amos (2.16) it was said about the day of the coming of the Messiah: "And the most courageous of the brave will flee naked on that day." Mark really turned out to be the most courageous, he is the only one trying to follow Christ, but still he is forced to flee naked from the guards ...

Jesus, betrayed by Judas, was captured by the guards of the Sanhedrin, the highest governing body of the Jewish religious community. He was brought to the house of the high priest and was hastily judged, resorting to both false testimony and slander. Calming the conscience of the audience, the high priest says: "... it is better for us that one person should die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish." The Sanhedrin seeks to show the Roman authorities that he himself is able to tame the "troublemakers" and not give the Romans a reason for repression.

Further events in the Gospel are described in sufficient detail. The judgment of the high priests followed. The Roman procurator (governor) Pontius Pilate does not find the blame for Jesus, which the Sanhedrin places on Him: "The corruption of the people, a call to refuse to pay tribute to Caesar - the emperor of Rome, claims to power over the Jewish people." However, the high priest Caiaphas insisted on the execution, and in the end Pilate gives his consent.

Let's pay attention only to that part of the judgment where the Sanhedrin says: "He makes himself God." This means that even those who did not at all sympathize with the preaching of Christ believed that He equated Himself with God, i.e. asserted His divine dignity. Therefore, naturally, in the eyes of the faithful Jews, who profess the deep unity of God, it really was blasphemy, it was this, and by no means a claim to messianic dignity. For example, Bar Kaaba, which at about the same time claimed the messianic title, was not crucified and his fate is much more prosperous. So, the judgment is over, the night before the execution begins.

Calvary, a low hill outside the city walls of Jerusalem, was the traditional site of public executions. It was for these purposes that several pillars constantly stood on the top of the hill. According to custom, a person sentenced to crucifixion had to carry a heavy beam from the city, which served as a crossbar. Christ carried such a beam on himself, but, as the Gospel says, he did not manage to carry it to Golgotha. He was too exhausted. Before that, Christ had already been executed once: he was scourged.

Today, based on the data of the Turin Shroud, we can say that such scourging is thirty-nine blows with a five-tailed whip with lead balls, which are tied to the ends of each of the belts. On impact, the whip wrapped around the entire body and cut the skin to bone. Jesus received thirty-nine of them because Jewish law prohibited more than forty blows. This was considered the lethal norm.

However, the law has already been violated. Christ was punished twice, while any law, including Roman, prohibits punishing a person twice for the same act. Scourging is the first, and in itself the hardest punishment. Not everyone survived after him. And yet the first punishment is followed by the second - the crucifixion. Apparently Pontius Pilate really tried to defend the life of Jesus and hoped that the sight of the bloody preacher, beaten to a pulp, would satisfy the bloodthirsty instincts of the crowd.

However, this did not happen. The crowd demanded execution, and Jesus was led to Calvary. Beaten and exhausted, He fell several times along the road, and at the end of the guard makes a peasant by the name of Simon who was standing next to him to take the cross and carry it to Golgotha. And at Calvary the Lord is nailed to the cross. The legs are nailed to the pillar that was dug in, and the hands are nailed to the crossbar that He carried on Him, and then the crossbar is placed on a vertical post and nailed.

For two thousand years the word "crucifixion" has been repeated so often that its meaning has somewhat lost, faded. The enormity of the sacrifice that Jesus made for all people, past and future, has also faded in the minds of those living now.

What is crucifixion? Cicero called this execution the most terrible of all executions that people invented. Its essence lies in the fact that the human body hangs on the cross in such a way that the fulcrum is in the chest. When a person's arms are raised above shoulder level and he hangs without leaning on his legs, the entire weight of the upper half of the body falls on the chest. As a result of this tension, blood begins to flow to the muscles of the pectoral girdle, and stagnates there. Muscles gradually begin to stiffen. Then the phenomenon of asphyxia sets in: the pectoral muscles, contracted by a convulsion, squeeze the chest. Muscles do not allow the diaphragm to expand, a person cannot take air into the lungs and begins to die of suffocation. This execution sometimes lasted several days. To speed it up, a person was not just tied to a cross, as in most cases, but nailed. Forged faceted nails were driven between the radius of the hand, next to the wrist. On its way, the nail met a nerve knot through which the nerve endings go to the hand and control it. The nail breaks this nerve knot. In itself, touching a bare nerve is a terrible pain, but here all these nerves are broken. But not only is he able to breathe in this position, he has only one way out - he must find a certain point of support in his own body in order to free his chest for breathing. A nailed person has only one such possible fulcrum - his legs, which are also pierced in the metatarsus. The nail goes between the small bones of the metatarsus. A person should lean on the nails that pierce his legs, straighten his knees and raise his body, thereby relieving pressure on the chest. Then he can breathe. But since at the same time his hands are also nailed, the hand begins to rotate around the nail. To breathe, a person must turn his hand around a nail, which is by no means round and smooth, but completely covered with jags and with sharp edges. This movement is accompanied by painful sensations on the verge of shock.

The Gospel says that Christ's suffering lasted about six hours. To hasten the execution, guards or executioners often cut the crucified's legs with a sword. The man was losing his last foothold and was quickly suffocating. The guards who guarded Golgotha ​​on the day of Christ's crucifixion were in a hurry, they had to finish their terrible business before sunset, for the reason that after sunset the Jewish law forbade touching a dead body, and it was impossible to leave these bodies until tomorrow, because a great holiday was coming. - the Jewish Passover, and three corpses were not supposed to hang over the city. Therefore, the executioner team is in a hurry. And so, St. John specifically notes that the soldiers broke the legs of two robbers crucified with Christ, but did not touch Christ himself, because they saw that He was dead. It is not difficult to notice this on the cross. As soon as a person stops moving up and down endlessly, it means that he is not breathing, it means that he has died ...

The Evangelist Luke reports that when the Roman centurion pierced Jesus' chest with a spear, blood and water poured out of the wound. According to doctors, we are talking about the fluid from the pericardium. The spear pierced the chest from the right side, reached the pericardial sac and the heart - this is a professional blow of a soldier who aims at the side of the body unshielded by the shield and strikes in such a way as to immediately reach the heart. Blood will not flow from an already dead body. The fact that the blood and water poured out means that the heart blood had mixed with the fluid of the pericardium even earlier, even before the last wound. The heart could not stand the agony. Christ died of a broken heart earlier.

They manage to remove Jesus from the cross before sunset, manage to hastily wrap him in burial shroud and put him in a tomb. It is a stone cave carved into the rock near Calvary. They put him in a tomb, fill up the entrance to a small cave with a heavy stone and put a guard so that the disciples do not steal the body. Two nights and one day pass, and on the third day, when the disciples of Christ, full of grief because they lost their beloved Teacher, go to the tomb to finally wash His body and complete all the funeral rites, they find that the stone has been rolled away, the guards no, the tomb is empty. But their hearts do not have time to be filled with a new grief: not only have the Teacher been killed, but now there is not even a way to bury Him as a human being - as at that moment an Angel appears to them, proclaiming the greatest message: Christ has risen!

The Gospel describes a series of encounters with the risen Christ. It is surprising that after His resurrection Christ appears neither to Pontius Pilate, nor to Caiaphas. He does not go to convince people who did not recognize Him during their lifetime by the miracle of his resurrection. He appears only to those who believed and managed to receive Him earlier. This is a miracle of God's respect for human freedom. When we read the testimonies of the apostles about the resurrection of Christ, we are amazed at one thing: they talk about the resurrection not as an event that happened somewhere with some stranger, but as an event in their personal life. “And this is not easy: a person dear to me has risen.” No. The apostles say: "And we were raised together with Christ." Since then, every Christian can say that the most important event in his life happened during the time of Pontius Pilate, when the stone at the entrance to the tomb was rolled away, and the Conqueror of death emerged from there.

The cross is the main symbol of Christianity. The cross is the focus of sorrow. And the cross is a protection and a source of joy for a Christian. Why was the Cross needed? Why were neither Christ's preaching nor His miracles enough? Why was it not enough for our salvation and union with God that God the Creator became a human creature? Why, in the words of the saint, did we need God, not only incarnate, but also slain? So - what does the Cross of the Son of God mean in the relationship between man and God? What happened on the Cross and after the crucifixion?

Christ repeatedly said that it was for this moment that He came into the world. The last enemy, the ancient enemy that Christ fights against, is death. God is life. Everything that exists, everything that lives - according to the convictions of Christians and from the experience of any developed religious philosophical thought - exists and lives by virtue of its involvement in God, its relationship with Him. But when a person commits a sin, he breaks this bond. And then the divine life stops flowing in him, stops washing his heart. The person begins to "suffocate". A person, as the Bible sees him, can be compared to a diver who works at the bottom of the sea. Suddenly, as a result of a careless movement, the hose through which air flows from above is pinched. The person begins to die. It can be saved only by restoring the possibility of air exchange with the surface. This process is the essence of Christianity.

Such a careless movement that broke the connection between man and God was the original sin and all subsequent sins of people. People have erected a barrier between themselves and God - not a spatial barrier, but in their hearts. People were cut off from God. This obstacle had to be removed. In order for people to be saved, to gain immortality, it was necessary to restore the connection with the One Who only One is immortal. According to the apostle Paul, God alone has immortality. People fell away from God, from life. They needed to be “saved”, it was necessary to help them find God - not some mediator, not a prophet, not a missionary, not a teacher, not an angel, but God himself.

Could people themselves build such a ladder from their merits, their virtues, along which they, like the steps of the Tower of Babel, would climb to heaven? The Bible gives a clear answer - no. And then, since the Earth itself cannot ascend to Heaven, Heaven leans towards Earth. Then God becomes man. "The Word was made flesh." God came to people. He did not come to find out how we live here, not to give us some advice on how to behave. He came so that human life could flow into the Divine life, could communicate with it. And so Christ absorbs everything that is in human life, except for sin. He takes the human body, human soul, human will, human relationships in order to warm, warm a person and change him with Himself.

But there is one more property that is inseparable from the concept of "man". Over the epochs that have passed since the expulsion from paradise, man has acquired another skill - he has learned to die. And God also decided to take this experience of death into Himself.

People tried to explain the mystery of Christ's suffering on Calvary in different ways. One of the simplest schemes says that Christ sacrificed Himself in our place. The Son decided to propitiate Heavenly Father so that, in view of the immense sacrifice made by the Son, he would forgive all people. This was the opinion of Western medieval theologians, popular Protestant preachers often say so today, such considerations can be found even in the Apostle Paul. This scheme is based on the notions of medieval man. The fact is that in archaic and medieval society, the severity of the offense depended on who the offense was directed against. For example, if a person kills a peasant, one punishment is imposed. But if he kills the prince's servant, a different, more serious punishment awaits him. This is how medieval theologians often tried to explain the meaning of biblical events. By itself, Adam's offense may be small - you think he took the apple - but the fact is that it was an act directed against the greatest ruler, against God.

A small, in itself insignificant quantity, multiplied by infinity, against which it was directed, itself became infinite. And, accordingly, in order to pay this endless debt, an infinitely huge sacrifice was needed. A person could not make such a sacrifice for himself, and, therefore, God himself pays it for him. This explanation was fully consistent with medieval thinking.

But today we cannot recognize this scheme as intelligible enough. In the end, the question arises: is it fair that an innocent person suffers instead of a real criminal? Will it be fair if a certain person quarrels with his neighbor, and then, when he finds an attack of philanthropy, he suddenly decides: okay, I will not be angry with my neighbor, but so that everything is in accordance with the law, I will go to slaughter my son, and after that we will consider that we have made up.

However, questions about this kind of popular theology arose even from St. Fathers of the Orthodox Church. For example, the reasoning of St. : “It remains to investigate the question and dogma, which is ignored by many, but for me it is very demanding research. To whom and for what purpose was the blood poured out for us shed - the great and glorious blood of God and the Bishop and Sacrifice? We were at the mercy of the evil one, sold under sin and voluptuousness and bought ourselves damage. And if the price of redemption is given to none other than the one who is in power, I ask: to whom and for what reason was such a price brought? If to the evil one, how insulting it is! The robber receives the price of redemption, receives not only from God, but from God himself, for his torture he takes such an immense price that it was just to spare us for it! And if to the Father, then, firstly, for what reason is the blood of the Only Begotten pleasing to the Father, who did not accept Isaac, offered by the father, but replaced the sacrifice by giving a ram instead of a verbal sacrifice? Or from this it is evident that the Father accepts, not because he required or had a need, but because of his economy and because man needed to be sanctified by the humanity of God, so that He Himself would deliver us, overcoming the tormentor by force, and raise us to Himself through the intermediary Son and who makes everything in honor of the Father, to whom is He found to be submissive in everything? Such are the deeds of Christ, and let the greater be honored by silence ”*.

There have been other attempts to explain the mystery of Golgotha. One of these schemes, in a sense deeper and rather daring, speaks of a deceived deceiver. Christ is likened to the hunter *. When a hunter wants to catch some animal or fish, he scatters the bait or disguises the hook with bait. The fish grabs what it sees - and stumbles upon something that it did not want to meet.

According to some Eastern theologians, God comes to earth in order to destroy the kingdom of Satan. What is the kingdom of death? Death is emptiness, nothingness. Therefore, death cannot be simply chased away. Death can only be filled from within. The destruction of life cannot be overcome by anything other than creation. In order to enter this void and fill it from within, God takes on a human form. Satan did not recognize the mystery of Christ - the mystery of the Son of God who became man. He considered Him just a righteous, holy, prophet, and believed that, like any son of Adam, Christ is subject to death. And so, at that moment when the forces of death rejoiced that they had succeeded in defeating Christ, anticipating a meeting with another human soul in hell, they met with the power of God Himself. And this divine lightning, descending into hell, begins to unfold there and smashes the entire hellish crypt. This is one of the images quite popular in ancient Christian literature *.

The third image likens Christ to a doctor. The saint says so: God, before sending His Son to earth, forgave sins to all of us. Christ comes in order, like an experienced physician, to bind together the disintegrated human nature. Man must himself, from within his own nature, remove all barriers separating him from God. That is, a person must learn to love, and love is a very dangerous feat. In love, a person loses himself. In a sense, any serious love is close to suicide. A person stops living for himself, he begins to live for the person he loves, otherwise it is not love. He transcends his own limits.

However, in every person there is a particle that does not want to go beyond its limits. She does not want to die in love, she prefers to look at everything from the point of view of her own little benefit. The dying of the human soul begins with this particle. Could God simply remove with some angelic scalpel this cancerous tumor nesting in the human soul? No, I couldn't. He created people free (in His own image and likeness) and, therefore, would not disfigure his own image, which He put into a person. God works only from within, only through man. The Son of the Eternal Father two thousand years ago became the son of Mary, so that at least one soul would appear here in the human world, capable of saying to God: “Yes, take me, I don’t want to have anything of my own. It is not my will, but Yours be done. "

But then begins the mystery of the deification of the human nature of Christ. He is God from his very birth. He has, on the one hand, the divine consciousness, the divine "I", and on the other hand, the human soul, which has developed, like every child, youth, young man. Naturally, God put the fear of death into every living being. Death is something that is not God. God is life. It is in every human soul, every living soul in general to be afraid of what most obviously is not God. Death is clearly not God. And the human soul of Christ is afraid of death - not cowardly, but opposes it. Therefore, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the human will and the soul of Christ turn to the Father with the words: “My soul grieves to death ... If possible, let this cup pass from Me; however, not as I want, but as You ... ”().

At this moment, the last line is crossed, which could separate a person from God - the experience of death. As a result, when death approaches the life of Christ, tries to crush it and destroy it, it does not find any material for itself in it. According to the definition of a saint, with whom not only Christians of the 2nd century, when the saint lived, but also believers at all times agreed, death is a schism. First of all, the split of the soul and body, as well as the second death, which, according to Christian terminology, is the split of the soul and God. Eternal death. So, when this split, this wedge, tries to establish itself, to find its place in Christ, it turns out that there is no place for it there. He gets stuck there, because the human will of Christ through the Gethsemane prayer submitted to the divine will, completely united with it. The wedge of death could not separate the soul of Christ from the divine nature of the Son of God, and as a result, the human soul of Christ was to the very end inseparable from His body. And therefore there is an almost immediate resurrection of Christ.

For us, this means that from now on, the death of a person becomes nothing more than an episode of his life. Since Christ has found a way out of death, this means that if a person follows him, figuratively speaking, “clings to his clothes,” then Christ will drag him through the corridors of death. And death will not be a dead end, but just a door. That is why the apostles say that the death of Jesus Christ is the most important event in their personal life.

Thus, we receive salvation not by the death of Christ, but by His resurrection. Death is banished by the onslaught of life. Christ does not just "endure" torment. No. He invades the realm of death and brings humanity to the source of immortal life - to God.

There is also a fourth image that explains the events of Calvary. The land where people live can be likened to an occupied planet. It so happened that in the heavenly world at some time, about which we know nothing, an event of apostasy took place ...

We do not know its motives, we do not know how it proceeded, but we do know its consequences. We know that there has been a division in the angelic world. Part of the heavenly spiritual forces refused to serve the Creator. From a human point of view, this is understandable. Any being who is aware of himself as a person sooner or later faces a dilemma: to love God more than himself, or to love himself more than God. Once upon a time, the angelic world was faced with this choice. Most of the angels, according to both the biblical and church experience, "stood" in purity and "stood" in God, but some broke away. Among them was an angel, created by the most beautiful, the wisest, the most powerful. He was given a marvelous name - the Light-bearer (Latin "Lucifer", Slav. "Dennitsa"). He was not just one of the singers of the glory of God. God entrusted Him with the administration of the entire universe.

According to Christian views, every person, every nation has its own guardian angel. Lucifer was the guardian angel of the entire Earth, the entire human world. Lucifer was the "prince of the Earth", the prince of this world.

The Bible from the first pages indicates that the most terrible events of the cosmic chronicle occur because of man. Geologically speaking, man is nothing more than mold on the surface of an insignificant celestial body located on the outskirts of the Galaxy. From the point of view of theology, man is so important that it is because of him that a war broke out between God and Lucifer. The latter believed that in the economy entrusted to him, people should serve the one who manages this economy. That is to him, Lucifer.

Through the Fall, man, unfortunately, allowed evil into his world, and the world was separated from God. God could speak to people, could remind them of His existence. The whole tragedy of the pre-Christian world can be expressed in a simple phrase: “there was God - and there were people”, and they were apart, and between them there was a kind of thin, invisible, but very elastic wall that did not allow the human heart to truly unite with God. which did not allow God to stay with people forever. And so Christ comes "in the sight of a servant" (in the form of a servant) as the son of a carpenter. God comes to people in order to raise a rebellion against the usurper, in a sense "from within".

If you carefully read the Gospel, it becomes clear that Christ is not at all such a sentimental preacher as he seems in our time. Christ is a warrior, and He directly says that He is waging a war against the enemy, whom he calls "the prince of this world" () - "arhon tou kosmou". If we look at the Bible, we will see that the Cross, Golgotha ​​is the price that had to be paid for the fascination of people with occultism, "cosmic revelations."

And then a careful reading of the Bible reveals another amazing riddle. From the point of view of ordinary mythological thinking, the dwelling place of demons is a dungeon, a dungeon. The popular show places hell underground, where magma boils. But in the Bible it is more likely that the "spirits of wickedness" dwell in the heavenly world. They are called so - "the spirits of celestial malice", and by no means "underground." It turns out that the world that people are used to calling the "visible sky" is by no means safe, it seeks to subjugate the human heart. "Forget about God, pray to me, my rewards are more correct!" It is this heavenly blockade that Christ wants to break through. For this he comes here unrecognized, and for this he dies.

The monk asks: why did Christ choose such a strange kind of execution? " and he himself answers: "to purify the airy nature." According to the explanation of St. Maximus the Confessor, Christ accepts death not on earth, but in the air, in order to abolish "the hostile forces that fill the middle place between heaven and earth." The cross sanctifies "air space" - that is, the space that separates people from the One who is "above heaven." And now, after Pentecost, the first martyr Stephen sees the heavens open - through which we see “Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (). The Calvary Cross is a tunnel pierced through the thickness of demonic forces that strive to present themselves to man as the last religious reality.

Therefore, if a person can approach the zone that Christ cleared from the dominance of the spirits of evil, if he can offer his soul and his body for healing to Christ as a doctor who in himself and through himself heals human nature - in this case he will be able to gain that freedom that Christ brought, that gift of immortality that He had in Himself. The meaning of the coming of Christ is that the life of God is now available to people.

Man was created to be with God, not with cosmic impostors. Created in the image of the Creator - to the Creator and is called to go. God Himself has already taken his step towards man. To free people from the cosmic blockade, from the muddy revelations of the "planetary logoi", astral "mahatmas" and "lords of the cosmos," God broke through to us. Burst through all the space debris - for the Virgin Mary was pure. And he pulled us out of the power of space "aliens" with his Cross. The cross linked heaven and earth. The cross united God and man. The cross is a sign and instrument of our salvation. That is why it is sung on this day in churches: "The Cross is the keeper of the whole universe." The cross has been raised. Get up and you, man, do not sleep! Don't get drunk on surrogates of spirituality! May the Crucifixion of the Creator not be fruitless for your destiny!

Christ was crucified during his lifetime - this has been predicted throughout many prophecies.

But why did the crucifixion of Jesus Christ take place and could it have been avoided?

Here is what modern sources write about it.

Why Jesus Christ was crucified briefly

In Judea, a messiah was expected, who was supposed to free the people of God from Roman slavery. Then the Jews were slaves, their empire was at the mercy of the Roman ruler, there were endless wars and suffering.

However, the people of God knew that one day the Savior of the world would come and be able to free them from sins, which became the cause of all evil on earth - disease, death, poverty and slavery. And it was predicted that such a person would be born and free the world from universal evil.

And so Jesus Christ was born, whose birth was associated with the signs of the birth of the mission.

At 33, he began to preach the word of God and perform miracles. If in childhood Jesus was in the temple and even people with a rabbinic education wondered how he knew everything more than they did.

However, despite signs and wonders, people did not believe that Christ works from good power. They considered him a heretic who confuses the people.

The Jewish government did not pay too much attention to this, but then the preaching of Christ began to cause envy, irritation and Jesus began to despise, even wanted to kill. This happened thanks to the betrayal of Judas, who gave his Teacher for 30 coins, as it was said in the prophecies.

The crucifixion of Jesus happened just at the Jewish Passover. At this time, it was customary to release one sinner. And the Jews released Varavan, who was a robber and a murderer. As a result, Christ was not pardoned and he was crucified.

Place of the crucifixion of Christ

Christ was crucified on the mountain of the city of Golgotha. Together with other sinners, he bore the cross on which he was crucified.

Since then, this word in literature means suffering, torment, pain. Calvary appears on the canvases of many artists as a symbol of the suffering that each person must endure in his life.

Hence the expression - "carry your cross." The cross is understood as a life test, with which a person cannot cope in any way and which cannot be avoided. You just have to endure it with dignity and try to get rid of it at the first opportunity.

Way to Calvary

Jesus walked to Calvary for several hours. During this time, he walked with a crown of thorns on his head and fell 3 times.

Today, the path to Golgotha ​​to the place of execution is considered sacred. Those who do it will be able to see the future and find their way in life.

The places where Christ fell are considered holy and there is a monument on them. Christ walked along them almost to the very place of his execution. It was only after the last fall that a warrior named Simen helped him carry the cross.

Why Jesus Was Crucified on the Cross

The Jewish preachers did not understand the teachings of Christ and his holiness. They expected from him an earthly reign - liberation from slavery, disease and death, paradise on earth, but did not receive it.

His teaching is a preparation for the spiritual paradise that every soul will reach after death. And the Jews expected specific miracles and therefore did not accept Christ, hated him and crucified him.

Icon of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ photo and meaning

The Church venerates Jesus Christ more than other icons, except for God the Father - the creator of all living things. Therefore, the crucifixion icon has historical significance and is revered as a place for the forgiveness of the sins of all mankind.

The cross is considered the main symbol of death, because Christ took upon himself all sins in order to free mankind from this.

However, until the second coming of Christ, each person is responsible for their sins, and for some sins, children and grandchildren are paid at all.

Who helped carry the cross to Jesus

Nobody helped - he himself carried his own cross. And only at the end of the journey, the warrior Simen helped him bring the cross to the place of death.

Lamentation of the Mother of God at the Passion of Jesus Christ on the Cross

His Mother was also with Christ.

The Mother of God read prayers and suffered, the texts of her words were put not only in the words of the passions in Great Lent, but also in church chants. Many of them are performed in secular concerts of church music.

What became of Jesus after the resurrection

For some time he preached on Earth, performing miracles and knowledge. He could even walk through the walls, talking about the Kingdom of God.

Then he ascended into heaven, promising a second coming.

The life of the apostles after the crucifixion of Christ

The apostles dispersed across the earth and began to preach the word of God in all countries.

They received a special gift to understand all languages ​​and preach in each of them.

It was they who helped to create the church and became the most holy disciples of Jesus, who led many followers.

PROCESSING TO GOLGOF

(Christ carrying His cross; Way of the Cross;

"Via Dolorosa")

(Matthew 27: 31-32; Mark 15: 20-21; Luke 32: 26-32; John 19: 16-17)

(31) And when they mocked him, they took off the purple robe from him, and clothed him in His garments, and they led Him to be crucified. (32) While leaving, they met one A Cyrene by the name of Simone; they made him carry his cross.

(Matt. 27: 31-32)

(16) Then at last he delivered Him to them to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led him away.

(17) And, carrying His cross, He went out to the place called Skull, in Hebrew Calvary.

(John 19: 16-17)

W the last path of Christ from the house of Pilate to Golgotha, the Sorrowful Path -Via Dolorosa, - is narrated in all four Gospels, although there is a significant difference in the testimonies of the synoptics, on the one hand, and John, on the other.

From the point of view of John, it was in no way possible to give a helper to Christ to bear the cross - to Christ, this Lamb of God, who Himself bore the sins of the world. After all, Christ, as a substitute for humanity, Himself took upon Himself its sufferings and the most cruel execution. And now, if He is replaced in carrying the cross, then He could be replaced on the cross (the Gnostic Basilides, by the way, taught that instead of Christ the very Simon of Cyrene was crucified).

This seemingly inexplicable discrepancy in the description of the way of the cross, which has always served as proof of the alleged inauthenticity (fictionalization) of the entire story, in fact, is by no means a contradiction. Simon could connect to the carrying of the cross, as many commentators claim, later, at the moment when the forces began to leave Jesus. Thus, the stories of the evangelists do not contradict each other, but complement each other, as has happened more than once.

D. Strauss explains the difference in the stories about bearing the cross among the Evangelists: “But if John's story cannot refute the story of the weather forecasters, and if John’s story arose on the basis of dogma, then the question naturally arises before us: did the story of the weather forecasters also arise on the basis of dogmatic considerations? The Cross of Christ became a characteristic symbol of Christianity when the prejudice and temptation that was previously associated with it disappeared. To put on the cross of Christ now meant to imitate the example of Jesus Christ, and, according to the Evangelist, Jesus himself commanded to do this (Matthew 16:24), saying: “Whoever wants to follow Me, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow By me. " In general, this kind of "figurative speech" has the property that it always leads to the assumption of some really happened incident. In fact, the cross of Christ could be carried after Him only when He was already led to the crucifixion, therefore the following scene easily arose in the imagination of the ancient Christians: on the way to the place of execution, a man appears who lays and carries on himself the “cross of Christ”, following Jesus and thus fulfilling the will of Christ, expressed by him in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:41). However, it is quite possible that the cross of Christ was really carried by someone else, following Jesus to the Place of execution: it is not for nothing that all forecasters agree with each other in indicating the name and homeland of the person who carried the cross of Jesus to Calvary ”( Strauss D., with. 456).

Both Gospel versions of the Way of the Cross are reflected in Western European painting. Simon of Cyrene is usually painted gray-haired, with a rounded beard and in a short dress (Duccio).

Duccio. Procession to Calvary (altar "Maesta") (1308-1311). Sienna. Cathedral Museum.

This version was often accepted by Italian artists of the Early Renaissance, but eventually disappeared - later Simon was portrayed only as an assistant to Christ (Tamash from Kolozhvar, Fouquet).

Tamash from Kolozhvar. Procession to Calvary (1427). Esztergom. Christian Museum .

Jean Fouquet. Procession to Calvary (from The Book of Hours by Etienne Chevalier) (1450-1460).

Chantilly. Condé Museum.

But such an image is based on a false interpretation of Luke's words: "that he should bear the cross after Jesus" (Luke 23:26). Based on these words, some thought that Simon supported only the back of the cross, while the front, the heaviest, was carried by Christ Himself. Luke's words in no way protect this point of view and this type of depiction of the way of the cross, since carrying the cross per Jesus or behind It is not the same as carrying the cross together with him. Therefore, this opinion was constantly rejected by the Church Fathers. In painting, when an artist chooses this program, Simon is often depicted walking with a cross in front of, not behind, Christ.

More widespread in Western art was the image of Christ independently bearing his cross. V XIII - XIV for centuries, Christ was depicted in this scene walking or standing straight and proudly. In later art, the cross becomes more massive and heavier, which radically changes the nature of the interpretation of the plot: now it is not a triumph, but a tragic pathos that emphasizes suffering. Christ falls under the weight of His burden, and the Roman soldier drives Him forward ( Durer, Pieter Bruegel the Elder).

Albrecht Durer. Procession to Calvary (from the series of engravings "Great Passion", sheet VI)

(1497-1500).

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Procession to Calvary (1564).

Vein. History and Art Museum

This was the most common motive, although it had no substantiation in any of the Gospels. From a historical point of view, this, however, is justified: under Roman rule, the person condemned to death actually bore his own cross, however, not all of it, but only its crossbar -patibulum, while a vertical pillar was installed in advance at the place of execution. The old masters did not know this feature of the ritual or ignored it.

For His last journey, Christ is again clothed in His garments, taken from Him in the scene of Crowning with thorns. The colors of His robes are blue and red (El Greco). He is still wearing a crown of thorns. Christ can be dragged on a rope by a Roman soldier (El Greco, Durer). The image of the procession often includes other Roman soldiers carrying standard letters inscribed on them. S. P. Q. R - Senatus Populusque Romanus(Latin - Senate and the Roman people) (Rubens) (cf. JUDGMENT OF CHRIST: Christ before Pilate; CROWN WITH THURN CROWN; "CE, MAN!"; CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST).

Peter Paul Rubens. Procession to Calvary (1634-1636).

Brussels. Royal Museum of Fine Arts

Sometimes the image of the Way of the Cross turns into a multi-figured composition in accordance with the story of Luke: “And a great multitude of people followed Him (...)” (Luke 23:27). Among those accompanying Christ, one can see His disciples - Peter, James the Greater, John.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder gives an extremely original interpretation of this plot: the action unfolds in a vast space, and the figure of Christ, as it has been more than once in other crowded compositions of the artist, seems to be lost in the background; many scenes unfold around - some of them are deliberately mundane genre situations: the artist presents one of the greatest events in world history as something mundane, thereby calling on the viewer - his contemporary - to wake up from spiritual slumber and see this great: it is happening here and now!

Luke, and only he, says that on the way to the Place of Execution, women followed Christ among a great multitude of people, “(27) who wept and wept for Him. (28) And Jesus, turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem! Do not weep for Me, but weep for yourself and for your children, (29) For the days are coming in which they will say: Blessed are the barren ones, and those who have never given birth, and those who have not nourished breasts! (30) Then they will begin to say to the mountains: fall on us! and the hills: cover us! (31) For if they do this to a green tree, what will happen to a dry tree? " (Luke 23: 27-31). The features with which Jesus outlines, according to Luke, the future destiny of Jerusalem, are borrowed in part from Jesus' great speech about the end of the world, where, according to the testimony of all the forecasters, Jesus said: "Woe to those who are pregnant and those who nurse in those days," as He said this is also in this case. But the immediately expressed wish that the mountains fall on the sufferers and the hills cover them with themselves is taken almost literally from the book of Hosea (10: 8). In painting, the image of Christ carrying His cross and addressing women in the crowd with the words conveyed by Luke is often found ( Tamash from Kolozhvar; on a parcel post emanating from the mouth of Christ, this text is quoted in Latin: “Filiae Hierusalem, nolite flere super me: sed super uos ipsas flete, et super filios uestros"- Luke 23:28; behind Christ, the Virgin Mary in her characteristic mournful pose (for more information about this pose, see. CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST); the face of Christ is also more mournful than suffering; behind Mary is one of the St. Wives; the end of the cross is supported by Simon of Cyrene).

The introduction of the characters of the Procession to Calvary of the Virgin Mary to the characters is based on the Gospel of Nicodemus, and on its expanded presentation, which became widespread in the West in Xv century. According to this literary source, John informed the Virgin Mary about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at Calvary. Mary, who had come here with the other Holy Wives, lost her senses at the sight of the terrible sight (for more details, see. CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST). However, artists often transform this story and transfer its scene to the road on which Christ walked to Calvary. Thus, Mary loses consciousness at the moment when Christ falls - the first of three times - under the weight of the cross ( Pieter Bruegel the Elder). In Italian painting, the episode of the loss of feelings by the Virgin Mary occurs as an independent plot, known as “Lo Spasimo"(" Fainting ").

Another female character who has gained popularity in Western European painting since Xv century under the influence of the religious mysteries of the time - Veronica. There is no mention of her in the canonical Gospels. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Veronica is identified with a woman who recovered from bleeding, whom she suffered for twelve years: “And a certain wife named Veronica said:“ I was bleeding for twelve years and only the edge of the robe touched Him - and the flow of my blood stopped ”(Gospel of Nicodemus, Vii ; Wed Mt. 9: 20-22; Mk. 5: 25-34; OK. 8: 43-48). The legend tells that Veronica left the house when Jesus passed by, exhausted under the weight of the cross. She wiped the sweat from His face with a handkerchief. His face was displayed on the handkerchief. According to another version, Veronica, having met Jesus Christ on His way to Calvary, asked Him to leave her something as a keepsake, and He gave her His Not-Made-to-Hand Image on a kerchief. This version of the legend was embodied in the mysteries of the Passion of the Lord, played out in France, Germany and England. Veronica kneeling before Christ who fell under the weight of the cross is a frequent additional motive in the Procession to Calvary ( Durer, Rubens). The plate on which the face of Christ was displayed - the plate of Veronica, or, in Latin,sudarium- became one of the symbols of the Passion of the Lord.

Among the crowd accompanying Jesus Christ on His Way of the Cross, there were, of course, the Roman soldiers with their standards, on which, according to tradition, is inscribed S. P. Q. R - abbreviation of words: "Senatus Populusque Romanus"(Lat. - the Senate and the Roman people), which has already occurred more than once in the" Roman "scenes of the Passion (see. JUDGMENT ABOVE CHRIST: Christ before Pilate; CROWN WITH THURN CROWN; "CE, MAN!"; CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST). Soldiers, besides Christ, lead two robbers, sentenced together with Christ, to crucifixion. Their names - Dismas ("good") and Gestas ("bad") - have come down to us only in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. No evidence of their crimes has survived. It has been suggested that they were from the company of Barabbas. Mark notes that Barabbas was in "bonds" with "his accomplices, who committed murder during the rebellion" (Mark 15: 7). This crime, of course, was punishable by crucifixion, and they had, like Jesus, to carry their every cross to Calvary. In painting, however, they are often depicted as led by Roman soldiers without their crosses ( Rubens).

In the first centuries of Christianity, and then later in the era of the Crusades, there was a tradition of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Countless pilgrims rushed to the Holy Sepulcher, intending to walk the road of Christ to Calvary. Returning to their countries, the pilgrims often celebrated - in memory of themselves and for the edification of others who had yet to go to the Holy Land - the path of Christ with the cross. At first, the number of Stops of the Cross varied, and only to VI their century was established fourteen - the number that remains to the present day. V XIV century, thanks to the Franciscans, a special cult of the Stops of the Cross developed. Certain prayers and religious rites began to correspond to these stops. The cycle of paintings on these subjects became especially popular in XV century, and by the XVII century a cycle of fourteen paintings on this theme has become an indispensable element of the decor of every Catholic Church. “Art is finally giving up its arrogant dispassion,” writes the famous French historian Lucien Febvre. - To replace the triumphant Christ XIII of the century comes the suffering, exhaustedtortured and crucified Christ Xv century. The drama of the Passion of the Lord, a drama, as if slowly advancing from stop to stop, to the last limit - Calvary - art Xv for centuries he retells it with all the details, mercilessly, not hiding a single plague of Christ, not a single fall, not a single tear. It takes this drama even beyond the confines of the Cross of Christ and continues it with the Cross of Mary - a crucifixion, perhaps even more painful; truly a favorite topic XV century - " Pieta": On the knees of the tormented Mother of God - the body of Christ, bloody and miserable" ( Feb L., with. 319).

The stops of the Cross, which it was customary to depict in this cycle of paintings, are as follows.

1 Jesus is sentenced to death.

2. Jesus accepts His Cross.

3 Jesus falls for the first time under the weight of the Cross.

4. Jesus meets His grieving Mother Mary.

5. Simon the Cyrenean helps Jesus carry His Cross.

6. Veronica wipes Jesus' face with her handkerchief.

7 Jesus falls for the second time under the weight of the Cross.

8 Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem.

9 Jesus falls for the third time under the weight of the Cross.

10 Jesus is stripped of His clothes.

11 Jesus is nailed to the Cross.

12 Jesus dies on the Cross.

13. Jesus' body is taken down from the Cross.

14.The body of Jesus is placed in the tomb.

These plots, performed in a single artistic manner, can be seen in Catholic churches in the form of paintings of a single cycle, hung in the given compositional sequence on the columns (if there are enough of them) or on the walls of the naves clockwise, starting from the altar.

EXAMPLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS:

Giotto. Procession to Calvary (1304-1306). Padua. Scrovegni Chapel.

Duccio. Procession to Calvary (altar "Maesta") (1308-1311). Sienna. Cathedral Museum. .

© Alexander MAIKAPAR

Jesus at Pilate's Trial

They cried out even more: Crucify Him!
Then Pilate, wishing to please the people,
sent Barabbas to them, and Jesus,
having been beaten, he betrayed him to be crucified.
(Mark 15, 14-15)

The people greeted Jesus
When He entered Jerusalem.
Now they are shouting: kill Him!
They are not people anymore,
They merged into a collective wild beast,
Thirsty for torture and blood.
What evil lurks in a person
What the power of darkness
To be the target of a rite of cruelty
Was the innocent chosen?

Jesus is the King.
He entered Jerusalem as King
And now He is a King without a kingdom.
Such is our God whom we drive out of His creation
And who, incarnated in him, takes upon himself all exile.

Cruel story, destruction hypnosis:
Kill in order to forget that you yourself have to die.
A cruel and how ironic story!
After all, Barabbas means "father's son."
And the ruler Pilate, who does not know the truth except his own power,
Flattering the crowd to guide its madness
And save the order of Caesar.
The monstrous wisdom of the rulers
Throwing scapegoats to the masses

But soon everything will turn, for the Man of Sorrows,
When His soul offers a propitiation sacrifice,
He will look at the feat of his soul with contentment.

And through Him all exiles, all people without a face
They will see the light and be satisfied.

Lord Jesus, King without a kingdom,
Open the doors of our hearts
That Thy sweetest light, bright as life without death,
Shone in the world of Barabbas and Pilates.

Lord Jesus, scourged by our sins,
You, who do not even know what evil is,
And silently enduring a hearing,
Rip our dark side out of us
The dizziness of denial
So that we don't need scapegoats
And in every person we have learned
Barabbas, why a son,
The unexpectedly freed assassin.

The second station of the Cross

The cross is laid on Jesus

When they made fun of Him, they took off the purple robe from Him,
clothed him with his own garments, and led him out to crucify him.
(Mk 15, 20)

After the purple
Again whiteness:
After the king - the priest,
And here is the altar:
Cross.

They took him out,
Get out of the holy city
Get out of the jealously guarded sanctuary,
Where there is no place for the uninitiated.
For from now on He is the source of holiness
And there is nothing more that is "outside":
Nothing unthinkable.

They took him out,
Far from the Temple where the lambs are slaughtered:
It is He - the Lamb carrying the sin of the world;
There is no other temple
Like His Body:
The Eucharist, our refuge.

They took him out,
Far from people and from God,
From that God whom they supposedly know,
"For cursed before God is everyone who is hanged on a tree."
But behold, in Him the true God reveals Himself.

They brought Him out with the cross.

O Jesus, banished out,
Let it not be outside our Churches,
From which we drive you out,
Opposing them to each other.

O Jesus banished out
So that no one else is expelled,
So that no one is chased away from the supper,
Which from century to century you offer us.

O Jesus, banished from this world,
Behold, You are coming to illuminate him.

The third station of the cross

Jesus falls for the first time

The dusty ground was cool. It seemed to him that she shuddered and trembled before His eyes, as if she wanted to rise, open her womb, swallow Him and hide it in an unattainable depth - away from people, away from pain.

The dry dust gave off a thousand odors - this is how dust smells on the roads of the world. She stuck to His wounds, sanctified by this touch.

He lay prone in the dust, weak and emaciated. But even His fall reflected His love for us, and the message, written in blood on dusty ground, said: “Listen, human soul, I love you. Remember: My fall will give you the courage to rise when you fall. I will be with you and support you. "

He was raised. The cross dug into His back again. He obediently walked on hand in hand with joy, for such was His love for us!

Fourth station of the cross

Jesus meets His Most Pure Mother

The skies were blue. Her eyes were the same blue. And his? His eyes reflected the glory of the Father and the Holy Spirit. No mortal remembered the color of His eyes: their light shone blindingly.

The eyes of the Mother and the Son, separated from each other by the Cross carried by the Son, met, and this meeting was like a silent embrace, which they will never have to repeat on earth. Mother and Son - God's creation and God - united in love and joy.

The harsh words of the soldiers lashed Him like a whip. The mocking crowd squeezed closer and closer. He walked ahead with a slow gait, majestic and imperturbable, for He drank love and was ready to pay with love, dying on the Cross.

Fifth Station of the Cross

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross

And they forced a certain Cyrenean Simon who was passing by,
Father Alexandrov and Rufov, walking from the field, to carry His cross.
Mk 15, 21

Simon is a Hebrew name, but Kyrenaea is a Greek city somewhere in Africa.
Returning to the land of the fathers, he worked it.
A sturdy peasant, stained with fertile mud,
Joyful, maybe because the fruit trees are blooming.
Here he is at the gates of the city,
Goes, not knowing anything about what is happening.
Occupation Forces Officer,
Seeing a healthy and poor man
Delays him: he can walk fast,
Carrying the cross of Jesus.

This is not a student and not a friend.
The apostles fled.
But he doesn't refuse, he carries the cross,
Not intended for him.

Many are forced by life to carry the cross,
And they do not know that this is the Cross of Christ.
They carry it every time,
Overcoming selfishness
They give the stranger food, clothing, shelter.

“We did not know You,” they say to Christ,
but He answers: "You did it to me."

In Simon's eyes there was still a tree in bloom,
But under the blood clot
He considered, perhaps, the face of the Radiant
And I felt that it bears much more than a tree,
Which will soon dry up
I felt that it was carrying
New Tree of Life.

Lord, fate gives us the ability to carry the cross.
Show us that it is Your Cross
And that it is indeed You who carry our crosses.

Lord, we carry our passions like crosses
They are not devoid of love
And they are not free from lies.
Deliver us from illusions with your passions
And transform our passions:
Are not devoid of love -
Into compassion.

Lord, we carry the cross of our death
Death of those we love.
Show us what's on our painful path
You are waiting for us
You transforming my cross
Into Your Cross of Resurrection.

Sixth Station of the Cross

Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

A cool handkerchief touched His face burned with pain, on which blood mixed with dust. From the kiss of the midday sun, both blood and dust became dry as from fire. The cloth caressed His stained, swollen, distorted face. However, that day, cooler than any linen cloth and softer than the wing of an angel, was the love that touched His tortured face. Courageous, fiery love emanating from the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son, neglecting the crowd, poisonous ridicule and obscene jokes, came with Veronica, who had come from nowhere and disappeared from nowhere, leaving all of us a linen handkerchief with the imprint of His holy face!

Seventh Station of the Cross

Jesus falls for the second time

The ground under His cheek was hard and hurt as much as the hearts of people who reject God. The cross fell on His outstretched body, like the whole weight of the sins of mankind.

The dust was bitter - bitter, like mortal sin.

This time no one was called for help. They pushed him, shouted at him, ordered him to get up.

He tried to get up, got up with difficulty, and fell on his face again. The sun and dust that had crammed into His wounds stung with a thousand raw pains.

He tried again. They kicked him and showered him with curses. He managed to rise a little more, and then, completely exhausted, staggering, he rose to his full height.

The cross again pierced the deepest wound in His holy body, and He moved on. For the last time, the earth, rough and hard, felt the steps of an extraordinary Love, Which will never again touch its surface.

The sun and stones dug even deeper into His wounds, and the rough earth imprinted its kiss on the body of God.

The Eighth Station of the Cross

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

And a great multitude of people and women followed him, who wept and wept for him.
Jesus, turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem! Don't cry for me
but weep for yourself and for your children. For if with a green tree
do it, then what will happen to dry?
(Luke 23: 27-28.31)

The men sentenced Jesus
But women, weeping, follow Him.
There are no women among Jesus' enemies.
They beat their breasts to signify
Abused motherhood.

But Jesus says to them: do not cry.

Do not cry for Me, Mati,
In three days I will rise. Don't cry over the priest
To those who make the sacrifice
Universal holiness.

We must cry over the fate of a person,
Over what man has done with his destiny.
Lazarus died, and already stinks,
Enemies are already besieging the city,
Forces of nothingness besiege man
And they drag him into the abyss of emptiness.

Jesus accepts this destiny in order to overcome it.
He resurrected Lazarus
And prepares for a duel with the one who shares
And who does not take part in anything.
This will be for the day to come
When at last He tells us:
I will wipe away every tear from your eyes
And death will be no more, no weeping, no outcry, no sickness,
For the former has passed away.

Siluan tower keeps falling and falling
Troops set fire to cities again and again.
This is not because you punish us,
But because we are becoming a withered tree.

You, green tree, grant us Your living strength,
So that we know how to wipe away the tears of Jerusalem women.

Let each of us become Veronica,
Wiping the sweat from your face
So that Your Face on our icons -
And here, each person is your icon
It was for us the door to eternity.

Ninth Station of the Cross

Jesus falls for the third time

The earth collapsed under His weight. She could not stand the God-man, who loved people so much that, sinless, he took upon Himself the burden of their sins.

The earth trembled under His weight when He, exhausted and dying, fell on it for the third time!

Stones screamed. The dust cried with bitter tears. The blackness of the fertile soil, hidden under a layer of dust and stones, lovingly covered Him with its cool mantle.

But His hour has not yet come. They dragged him away and, putting him on his feet, drove him further, although this was unnecessary: ​​He was hurried by love, and only love led Him to the holy mountain - to death!

Tenth Station of the Cross

Jesus' Clothes Torn Off

His skin was white, and his hands and face were brownish, almost black compared to the white skin of his body.

They began to mercilessly tear off His clothes from Him, thus exposing one thousand wounds one after another. However, He stood majestic and calm as His sacred blood blushed rubies against the whiteness of His skin.

Then, with an emphasized loud rattling of iron, people brought a basket of nails and hammers. They were not going to cover him with anything, except for a shroud of excruciating pain ... And so they did.

The wicked words of those whom He mourned hurt Him like a thousand arrows of fire.

How else could He have died if they had not ripped off His clothes? But He clothed our flesh with His Not-Made-with-Hands Spirit out of love for us! How else could He die? After all, His very body was the greatest gift of love!

Eleventh Station of the Cross

Jesus crucified

Those who crucified Him divided His garments, casting lots to find out what to whom.
(Mk 15, 24)

Nailed to the gallows that day
The one who is in infinity
Keeps the worlds in balance.
He is nailed down
Bridegroom of the Church.
Pierced with a spear
Son of the Virgin.
We worship Thy Cross, Christ,
May Your Resurrection come.

On this day Jesus will know
The horror of the body stretched out on the cross
Suffering confusion of the soul
And the contempt of people.
From now on, He is the brother of all,
Tortured
All despairing and despicable.

On this day, He, the only living one -
I am the Resurrection and the Life -
Born of the Virgin without injuring Her,
Knows the wound outside
Human dimensions.
A temptation for those who value discretion
But for us - the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Oh Jesus, embracing forever,
From your perforated rib
The water of Baptism and the Blood of the Eucharist beats.
A few drops of blood renews the universe
The dawn of the Spirit dawns from the tormented Body.

We needed God to incarnate and die,
So that we can live again.
The tree of shame becomes the tree of life
The axis of the world that collects all our sorrows,
To give them to the fire of the Spirit.

This tree from earth reaches Heaven.
Jacob's ladder, angelic path,
Its fruit carries in itself all life,
We eat from it and, by eating from it, we will not die.

Oh Cross of Christ,
Only you can endure us
Guilty verdict
Only you reveal to us
Crazy love of God.

Oh Cross of Christ
The only answer to Job,
Countless Job's stories,
Contemplating you, may all rebellion dry up in us
And let any hatred become meaningless.

Oh Cross of Christ
Give us in the most difficult moments
Don't fall into despair
But to fall at Your foot,
So that the One who is exalted on you,
All of us attracted to Him
In His paradoxical glory.

Jesus Promises His Kingdom to the Discreet Thief

One of the hanged villains reviled Him and said:
If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. The other, on the contrary, calmed him down and said: or are you not afraid of God?
We are justly judged, because we have received worthily according to our deeds, but He has done nothing wrong.
And he said to Jesus: Lord remember me, when you come into your kingdom!
And Jesus said to him: Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
(Luke 23: 39-43)

Our whole destiny lies
In the fate of these two robbers.
They are not strangers, not others: they are us.
We have no choice but a robber
On the right hand and on the left.

The robber on the left offers to Jesus
The last temptation:
If You are the Messiah, save Yourself!
The priests and soldiers have already said:
May He save Himself, and we will believe in Him.

But Jesus is silent, and another robber,
Referring to the first, he says;
We humans kill and are killed
Death is inscribed in the depths of our being.
But in Jesus, in whom there is no evil,
There is no fatal presence of death,
But only death from love.

And the robber, nailed and motionless,
Retains the last and highest freedom:
Freedom of belief.
Screams: Jesus, remember me,
When you come to Your Kingdom.

Does he have a premonition that the Kingdom is not in the future,
That it has already arrived, it is Jesus in His sacrifice of love.
It is here, it is Jesus: one Breath of life with the Father.
In Him the land of sorrows becomes a paradise.

Then, turning his eyes to the robber, He says:
"Today you will be with me in paradise."

Jesus, each of us is a blasphemous thief at the same time
And the one that believes.
I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
I'm nailed to death, nothing is left for me
How to cry: “Jesus, remember me,
When you come to your kingdom. "

Jesus, I don’t know anything, I don’t understand anything
In this world of horror.
But you come to Me with open arms, open hearts,
Thy presence alone is my paradise.
Remember me
When you come to your kingdom.

Glory and praise to You who receive
Not healthy, but sick,
To you, whose unexpected friend is a robber,
Rejected by human justice.

Already you go to hell and liberate
Of those who thought they were damned
And they shout to you:
"Remember us, Lord,
When you come to your kingdom. "

Jesus crucified, mother and disciple

Jesus, seeing the Mother and the disciple, standing there, whom he loved, says to His Mother: wife! Behold, Thy son.
Then he says to the disciple: behold, thy Mother! And from that time on, this disciple took her to him.
(John 19: 26-27)

At the foot of the Cross Mary and John,
Mother and beloved student.
Mary, Mother of God: she said to the angel "let there be",
Sovereignly unleashing the tragic knot of our freedom.
In the quiet transparency of Her body, she gave birth to the Child.
Now the weapon pierces Her soul.

John, the only disciple, faithful to the end.
At the last evening
His head rested on the Heart of the Teacher, on the Heart of the world.
He kept the last words:
The unity of Jesus with the Father,
The promise of the Holy Spirit.

The woman, says Jesus,
Woman: in Her is all femininity,
Tenderness and beauty.
The woman is strong and thoughtful,
Keeping everything in your heart,
Thy Risen Son will disappear from the eyes of men,
But behold, the son is in Your Son.
Intercessor of adoption,
Mother of all people
Rejoice, Blessed One, the Lord is with You.
John took her to him,
Into your love
The presence is now silent
In the great silence of prayer love.
May She also be in our homes,
Mother of all loyalty and tenderness.
May She also be in the house of peace,
Endlessly fertile land.

Now, this is the first Church,
Born from the tree of the cross.
Bowing his head, Jesus gives up his ghost,
And it's like the first Pentecost.

Jesus, Son of heaven through the Father,
Son of the earth through your mother,
Make us children of earth and sky
Prayers of the Mother of God.

Jesus, a spear pierced Your side
Maybe Your Heart.
And for you, Mary, the weapon pierced your soul.
Lord let us enter this terrible exchange
Prayers of the Mother of God.

Jesus, Son of the Virgin,
Make us like your beloved disciple,
Witnesses of light and life
Prayers of the Mother of God.

Twelfth Station of the Cross

Jesus dies on the cross

At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice: Eloi! Eloi! Lama savakhtani?
What does it mean: my God !, my God! Why did you leave me? And one ran, filled a sponge with vinegar,
and putting it on a reed, he gave him to drink. Jesus, with a loud cry, gave up his ghost.
(Mark 15, 34.36-37)

Jesus, the Word incarnate,
Walked the longest distance
How fallen humanity can go.
My God, my God, why did You forsake Me?
The distance is endless, the final wound, the miracle of love.

Between God and God,
Between the Father and the Incarnate Son
Our despair kicks in
And Jesus wants to be in solidarity with him to the end.

The absence of God is hell.
“I’m thirsty,” Jesus says, echoing the psalm.
My strength has dried up like a crock;
My tongue stuck to my throat,
And You brought me down from the dust of death. "

God thirsts for a man, and man runs for Him,
Building the wall of separation
Nailed to this wall, Jesus says:
"Thirsty" -
And they give Him vinegar.
The Eternal Embrace of the Father and the Son
Becomes a distance between heaven and hell.
"Eloi! Eloi! Lama Savakhtani? "
As if God was crucified for a moment
Loses faith in God.

And then everything turns
Jesus has a human will
As in the Garden of Gethsemane, agrees.

The chasm of despair dissipates
Like a tiny drop of hate
In the bottomless abyss of love.
Distance between Father and Son
It is no longer the place of hell, but the abode of the Spirit.

Jesus, you who humbled yourself,
Taking on the form of a slave,
Even to death, and the death of the godmother,
Teach us to speak on the day of disaster,
Maybe on the day of death:
"Father, into Thy hands I commit My Spirit."

Thirteenth Station of the Cross

Descent from the Cross

The sky blazed with anger. The clouds dressed in mourning. Men, women and children came and went. Immersed in their worries, almost without looking up, they walked past the Cross on which Love was crucified.

People approached one after another, bent over, as if they had strangled themselves at hard work or survived grief ... Their movements were slowed down ... It seemed that they cast strange shadows on the breathless ground, reflecting, as in a mirror, in the blood-red sky. Black shadows of mourning clouds fell on each of them.

He was slowly removed from the Cross and placed on the shroud, sparkling with purity.

And He, Who was Life, lay dead under the Cross, colored with all the reflections of a ruby.

Fourteenth Station of the Cross

Jesus is buried in a tomb

When the Tomb received the dead Lord of Life, it again became a manger, the birthplace of life!

Her silence sang a requiem like it was Hallelujah! The coldness of the tomb turned into a fire and a flame of joy - a joy that is impossible to even dream of! ..

And Jesus slept in the depths of this cradle in the sleep of the One who conquered Death! The tomb was the only witness to the mystery of His Victory! She will forever keep the secret of this sacrament, sharing with humanity only her emptiness, guarded by angels! ..

Sunday.
He touched death
For a moment

Destroying it forever
And she became an angel
Unsurpassed beauty
Which people of faith
They began to wait with bated breath.
Death has no hands of ice
They are warm...
This is a hug
Angel of love.

Illustrated with footage taken in the Samara parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus