Jesus Dies on the Cross

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

After three hours on the cross, the Gospels record that darkness covered the land. Jesus had spoken — of forgiveness, of Paradise, of his God-forsakenness in the words of Psalm 22, of his thirst, of his mother and the beloved disciple. Now, with the cry "It is finished" (John 19:30), and in Luke's account the words "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46), he bows his head and gives up his spirit. The veil of the Temple is torn from top to bottom. The earth shakes. The centurion who stood before him declares: "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mark 15:39).

The death of Jesus is the central event of human history. The Church does not approach it as a tragedy that was later redeemed; it approaches it as the redemption itself. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (John 3:16). This is the moment toward which all of sacred history has moved: the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. The price of human freedom from sin and death is paid in full.

Standing at this station, we stand before the greatest act of love in the history of creation. We cannot fully comprehend it. We can only kneel, as Mary and John and the holy women knelt, and adore. The God who cannot suffer chose to suffer. The God who cannot die chose to die. And in choosing it, he destroyed death's power. The twelfth station is a silence we enter with reverence, knowing that what happened here is the reason for everything that follows.