Today as I listen to the passion, I imagine myself on the journey with Jesus to Calvary. Some years ago I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Someone said to me before my travels: “I couldn’t do that, it would just be too sad.” I thought … “isn’t that the point – the sadness?” And it was sad and powerful. But the longest journey I will ever take is within my deepest depths, toward integration and holiness. The end is not significant. What is significant is the process of attaining consciousness of myself in relationship to Jesus.

Through various stages, fraught with challenges and growth, I have come to know my true self and draw closer to God. Lord of my journey, you are my way, my truth, and my life. I will spend time in prayer with Jesus’ passion as the story of my life. I have been through immeasurable sadness. Haven't we all? And I have come to learn that God is in the middle of and at the end of the sadness – God is below bottom and above top – God is waiting to embrace us as we walk through the sadness life may deal us.

This week I will spend time in prayer with Jesus’ passion as the story of my life. Like Jesus I have my own part to play in the divine plan of redemption. I pray for strength and courage to embrace the world and its suffering as Jesus did by loving and forgiving from the cross. I pray to embrace the reality of the cross as life-giving for me. And for everyone.