I

• The soul that hangs upon the cross will feel the weight of every sin the world has known. Three hours of darkness fall, and even the sun will veil its face in grief. The Son cries out, forsaken, and the earth itself will tremble at the cry.
• Yet in that cry the price is paid; the veil is torn from top to bottom. The soldier’s spear will pierce the side, and blood and water flow as witness that the Lamb is slain.
• When the women come at dawn and find the stone rolled away, their spices will fall useless to the ground. The angels ask, “Why seek the living among the dead?” Sorrow turns to terror, then to wonder that death itself is dead.
• Mary stands beneath the cross and watches love itself bleed out. Seven swords become one final blade; no word escapes her lips, yet all the world’s grief is gathered in her silence. The Mother of Sorrows learns the cost of her first yes.
• On the night before the Passion, in the garden, sweat becomes blood. The strongest of the twelve all sleep while the Stronger One prays alone. The kiss of the betrayer comes before the kiss of peace; thirty silver coins buy the silence of a friend.

                                                                                  II

• The soul that hangs upon the cross will feel the weight of every sin the world has known. Three hours of darkness fall, and even the sun will veil its face in grief. The Son cries out, forsaken, and the earth itself will tremble at the cry.
• Yet in that cry the price is paid; the veil is torn from top to bottom. The soldier’s spear will pierce the side, and blood and water flow as witness that the Lamb is slain.
• When the women come at dawn and find the stone rolled away, their spices will fall useless to the ground. The angels ask, “Why seek the living among the dead?” Sorrow turns to terror, then to wonder that death itself is dead.

                                                                                  III

• Peter swears he will die before he will deny. The ♥♥♥♥ crows twice while the disciple weeps outside. The rock on which the Church will stand crumbles into sand beneath the weight of fear.
• Three times the question, three times the lie; the third time Jesus looks, and love itself breaks Peter’s heart. Bitter tears will water the soil where one day he will feed the sheep he once abandoned.

                                                                                  IV

• Judas walks into the night with the taste of bread still on his tongue. Thirty pieces of silver burn colder than the moon. When he sees what he has done, the rope becomes his only sacrament.
• The field of blood buys nothing but regret; even the priests will not touch the price of innocence betrayed. What profit is it to gain the whole world and lose one’s own soul?

                                                                                  V

• On the Via Dolorosa the King falls three times beneath the cross. Each fall is ours; each wound is ours. A stranger is forced to carry what we could not bear.
• Veronica wipes the face condemned to spit and scorn; the cloth receives the image that no mirror ever could. Love leaves its mark on linen and on hearts that dare to see.