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The Fourth Sorrowful Mystery - The Carrying of the Cross

CHAPTER 17

Jesus Is Made To Carry His Cross.

And the soldiers took off the purple cloak from Him, and put His own garments on Him, and they led
Him out
to crucify Him. And bearing His own cross, He went forth. And going out, they found a man who
passed by, coming out of the country, one Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and of Rufus.
Him they laid hold of and forced to take up His cross, to carry after Jesus.

And there followed Him a great multitude of people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented Him.
But Jesus turning to them, said: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over Me, but weep for
yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days shall come wherein they will say: 'Blessed
are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck: Then
shall they begin to say to the mountains: 'Fall upon us!' and to the hills, 'Cover us!' For if in
the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?"

Matthew 27:31-32; Mark 15:20-21; Luke 23:26-31


Jesus' Interior Prayer and Lamentation

[O Jerusalem ,] thy prophets have seen false and foolish things for thee, and they have not laid
open thy iniquity, to excite thee to penance. But they have seen for thee false revelations.
Therefore shall thy children faint away as the wounded in the streets of the city, and thy
sucklings shall breathe out their souls in the bosoms of their mothers.

The Lord shall command against Jacob; his enemies shall be round about him, and the enemy shall
prevail. The virgins and young men shall go into captivity. The priests and ancients shall pine
away in the city while they seek their food, to relieve their souls. Abroad