The Eleventh Station:
Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
It is hard to imagine a God being nailed to a cross by His own creatures. It is even more difficult for my mind to understand a love that permitted such a thing to happen! As those men drove heavy nails into Your hands and feet, dear Jesus, did You offer the pain as reparation for some particular human weakness and sin? Was the nail in Your right hand for those who spend their lives in dissipation and boredom?
Was the nail in Your left hand in reparation for all consecrated souls who live lukewarm lives? Were You stretching out Your arms to show us how much You love us? As the feet that walked the hot, dusty roads were nailed fast, did they cramp up in a deadly grip of pain to make reparation for all those who so nimbly run the broad road of sin and self-indulgence?
It seems, dear Jesus, Your love has held You bound hand and foot as Your heart pleads for a return of love. You seem to shout from the top of the hill "I love you - come to me - see, I am held fast - I cannot hurt you - only you can hurt Me." How very hard is the heart that can see such love and turn away. Is it not true I too have turned away when I did not accept the Father's Will with love? Teach me to keep my arms ever open to love, to forgive and to render service - willing to be hurt rather than hurt, satisfied to love and not be loved in return.
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Amen
The Tenth Station:
Jesus is Stripped of His Garments
It seems that every step to Calvary brought You fresh humiliation, my Jesus. How Your sensitive nature recoiled at being stripped before a crowd of people. You desired to leave this life as You entered it - completely detached from all the comforts of this world. You want me to know without a doubt that you loved me with an unselfish love. Your love for me caused You nothing but pain and sorrow. You gave everything and received nothing in return. Why do I find it so hard to be detached?
In your loving mind, dear Jesus, did You look up to the Father as You stood there on that windy hill, shivering from cold and shame and trembling from fear, and ask Him to have mercy on those who would violate their purity and make love a mockery? Did you ask forgiveness for those whose greed would make them lie, cheat and steal for a few pieces of cold silver?
Forgive us all, dear Jesus. Look upon the world with pity, for mankind has lost its way and the principles of this world make lust a fun game and luxury a necessity. Detachment has become merely another hardship of the poor and obedience the fault of the weak. Have mercy on us and grant the people of this day the courage to see and know themselves and the light to change.
Amen
No-Fat Chocolate Cupcakes
Serves: 12 person(s)
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Yield: 12 x cupcakes
Light, luscious chocolate cupcakes that are fat-free!
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Ingredients:
1 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup nonfat dried milk powder
1 box (3.4 oz) Jello Cook and Serve Chocolate Pudding Mix
1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup sugar substitute *
1 tsp vanilla
4 oz unsweetened applesauce
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 egg whites
1 pinch of salt
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Combine flour, milk powder, Jello mix, cocoa, and sugar substitute in a medium bowl.
In a separate bowl, blend vanilla, applesauce and baking soda. Set aside.
In a clean bowl, beat egg whites and salt until stiff. Using an electric mixer, beat dry mixture into the egg whites. Add the applesauce mixture. Beat for an additional two minutes.
Divide into 12 muffin tins lined with baking paper. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes. Test by inserting a toothpick - if it comes out clean, the muffins are done. Cool or a few minutes then remove from pan.
NUTRITIONAL INFO
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The Ninth Station:
Jesus Falls the Third Time
My Jesus, even with the help of Simon You fell a third time. Were You telling me that there may be times in my life that I will fall again and again despite the help of friends and loved ones? There are times when the crosses You permit in my life are more than I can bear. It is as if all the sufferings of a life time are suddenly compressed into the present moment and it is more than I can stand.
Though it grieves my heart to see You so weak and helpless, it is a comfort to my soul to know that you understand my sufferings from Your own experience. Your love for me made You want to experience every kind of pain just so I could have someone to look to for example and courage.
When I cry out from the depths of my soul, "This suffering is more than I can bear," do You whisper, "Yes, I understand"? When I am discouraged after many falls, do you say in my innermost being, "Keep going, I know how hard it is to rise"?
There are many people who are sorely tried in body and soul with alcohol and drug weaknesses who try and try and fall again and again. Through the humiliation of this third fall, give them the courage and perseverance to take up their cross and follow you.
Amen
http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/stations/stat9.htm
It was a beautiful day today a wonderful day that match my mood!!! I can't believe it today I already got my sons lab results back and praise God we got good results!!! No growth hormone problems hip hip harray!! Thank you Jesus!!!!!!
The Eighth Station:
Jesus Speaks to the Holy Women
My Jesus, I am amazed at Your compassion for others in Your time of need. When I suffer, I have a tendency to think only of myself but You forgot Yourself completely. When You saw the holy women weeping over Your torments, You consoled them and taught them to look deeper into Your Passion. You wanted them to understand that the real evil to cry over was the rejection You suffered from the Chosen people - a people set apart from every other nation, who refused to accept God's Son.
The Act of Redemption would go on and no one would ever be able to take away Your dignity as Son of God, but the evil, greed, jealousy and ambition in the hearts of those who should have recognized You was the issue to grieve over. To be so close to God made man and miss Him completely was the real crime.
My Jesus, I fear I do the same when I strain gnats and then swallow camels - when I take out the splinter in my brother's eye and forget the beam in my own. It is such a gift - this gift of faith. It is such a sublime grace to possess Your own Spirit. Why haven't I advanced in holiness of life? I miss the many disguises you take upon Yourself and see only people, circumstances and human events, not the loving hand of the Father guiding all things. Help all those who are discouraged, sick, lonely and old to recognize Your Presence in their midst.
Amen
Taken from http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/stations/stat8.htm
Happy 6 month Day my little John!!!
To my sweet smiling John,
You are absolutly georgous
Your smiles are contageous
Brothers, sisster, momma, and DaDa all have caught the smiiling bug
In this house you won't be able to go a minute without a kiss and a hug
You feel are hearts with joy with your smiles and your laughter
In your eyes are such excitement and wonder.
I am so greatful God has given me another son
Thank you for enriching our lives Oh sweet smiling John.
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First Reading: Exodus 17: 3 - 7 |
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| 3 | But the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" |
| 4 | So Moses cried to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." |
| 5 | And the LORD said to Moses, "Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go. |
| 6 | Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. |
| 7 | And he called the name of the place Massah and Mer'ibah, because of the faultfinding of the children of Israel, and because they put the LORD to the proof by saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?" |
Psalms:
| Psalms 95: 1 - 2, 6 - 9 |
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| 1 | O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! |
| 2 | Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! |
| 6 | O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! |
| 7 | For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice! |
| 8 | Harden not your hearts, as at Mer'ibah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, |
| 9 | when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. |
Second reading:
| Romans 5: 1 - 2, 5 - 8 |
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| 1 | Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. |
| 2 | Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. |
| 5 | and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. |
| 6 | While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. |
| 7 | Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. |
| 8 | But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. |
Gospel:
| John 4: 5 - 42 |
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| 5 | So he came to a city of Samar'ia, called Sy'char, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. |
| 6 | Jacob's well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. |
| 7 | There came a woman of Samar'ia to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." |
| 8 | For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. |
| 9 | The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samar'ia?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. |
| 10 | Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, `Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." |
| 11 | The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? |
| 12 | Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?" |
| 13 | Jesus said to her, "Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, |
| 14 | but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." |
| 15 | The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." |
| 16 | Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." |
| 17 | The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, `I have no husband'; |
| 18 | for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly." |
| 19 | The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. |
| 20 | Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." |
| 21 | Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. |
| 22 | You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. |
| 23 | But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. |
| 24 | God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." |
| 25 | The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things." |
| 26 | Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." |
| 27 | Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, "What do you wish?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" |
| 28 | So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, |
| 29 | "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" |
The Seventh Station:
Jesus Falls A Second Time
My Jesus, one of the beautiful qualities the people admired in You was Your strength in time of ridicule - Your ability to rise above the occasion. But now, You fall a second time - apparently conquered by the pain of the Cross. People who judged You by appearances made a terrible mistake. What looked like weakness was unparalleled strength!
I often judge by appearances and how wrong I am most of the time. The world judges entirely by this fraudulent method of discerning. It looks down upon those who apparently have given their best and are now in need. It judges the poor as failures, the sick as useless and the aged as a burden. How wrong that kind of judgment is in the light of your second fall! Your greatest moment wasYour weakest one. Your greatest triumph was in failure. Your greatest act of love was in desolation. Your greatest show of power was in that utter lack of strength that threw You to the ground.
Weak and powerful Jesus, give me the grace to see beyond what is visible and be more aware of Your Wisdom in the midst of weakness. Give the aged, sick, handicapped, retarded, deaf and blind the fruit of joy so they may ever be aware of the Father's gift and the vast difference between what the world sees and what the Father sees that they may glory in their weakness so the power of God may be manifest.
Amen
taken from http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/stations/stat7.htm
