Praying the Stations of the Cross with St. Joseph
The Second Station - Jesus Accepts the Cross
Hands . . . a child’s hands that grew to become the strong hands of an adult . . . shape, mold, caress the wood in his father’s carpenter shop. Raw wood – cut, sawed, sanded, transformed, by His hands, to become a table, a chair, a chest, a house – things of the living.
Shoulders . . . a carpenter’s shoulders, strong, muscular, broad . . . accept the rough, course, splintery beam. Shoulders . . . lately scourged, stinging with pain from open, bloody wounds. A wooden beam . . . imposed, yet somehow also accepted – a thing of death.
Yet, it is not just a beam of wood he carries on those shoulders and in those hands. But the world . . . all of us, and all of our sins.
The hands, the shoulder,s of the carpenter’s son . . . full of strength, power, glory, grace and redemption.
Let us pray . . . Oh St. Joseph, you used the talents of your human nature for good. Through the work of your hands, you brought joy into the lives of so many by making for them the things they wanted, the things they needed. It saddens and baffles me that others, who were given the same God given talents, used them, not to be co-creators with Him and bring joy and beauty to the world, but rather to inflect pain and death to Jesus. St. Joseph, help me to see my talents, my intellect, my personality, my wit, for what they are, gifts to be shared to give glory to God and benefit to all.
St. Joseph, model of artisans, pray for us.
