Description
“A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, a man to make people screen their faces; he was despised and we took no account of him”
Isaiah 53:3
The image of the crucified Lord is in a special way before the eyes of the Christian, who has a great suffering, a great burden to bear. The divine ‘Man of Sorrows’, also walks by your side, dear brothers and sisters. This Christ, marked by suffering and the Cross, also stands for us before the throne of God as the Risen One with the transfigured wounds. Suffering and death were not the end for Christ, and neither are they the end of the person who believes in Christ. Suffering and death bear within themselves the promise of definitive resurrection and eternal happiness.
Christian faith and Christian hope see beyond death. They do not, however, pass over the present life. In those who are given to believe in the Lord grow the powers to accept and bear their own suffering and burden. They also receive the strength to carry the suffering and the load of their fellow men and women and to help them overcome it. “Bear one another’s burdens”, the Apostle Paul says, ” thus you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). For that very reason, the church must show that she is the place where the elderly, ill and disabled people feel secure, understood and supported because her centre is Christ, the “Man of Sorrows” and the Lord who rose transfigured by suffering and death.
Taken from The Way of Christ by Pope John Paul II – The Man of Sorrows (p 37)
