We all know about Simon of Cyrene, the fortunate soul who was compelled by the Roman guard to help carry Our Lord’s Cross. They just picked him out of the crowd. And for that simple event, he was written into salvation history.

But have you ever thought of who it was that carried Our Lord from the Cross to the Tomb? After all, some men had to carry him. We don’t know who they were, but how blessed they must have surely been. They, along with Our Lady, Mary of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, St. John and Joseph of Arimithea. Less than a dozen people in total. They were the last ones to see Jesus’s face and his dead body as they laid him in the Tomb, the last sorrow of Our Lady’s seven sorrows. The next significant event would the Resurrection itself, captured by the Shroud of Turn.

The formation of the Shroud’s image would take several billion watts of light radiation, which exceeds the maximum output of any source of UV radiation known today. If the accompanying heat energy had been present, the cloth would have vaporized in less than 1/40 billionth of a second. (Source)

Tomorrow we unveil that face again on Parliament Hill, hoping to attract that unassuming bystander who, being there in that place and at that time, encounters the Risen Lord.

Only in the Risen Lord will we reawaken our own dignity and freedom as creatures of the everlasting God. Political freedom is the bottom rung on the ladder, however necessary and important it is. But true freedom is the freedom from death and the corruption of sin.

Every man dies. But not every man lives.

See you tomorrow on the Hill.

In her Immaculate Heart,

John Pacheco
St. Joan of Arc Community