FOURTEENTH HOUR (From 6 to 7 AM) Jesus before Caiphas again, who confirms His condemnation to death and sends Him to Pilate

FOURTEENTH HOUR (From 6 to 7 AM) Jesus before Caiphas again, who confirms His condemnation to death and sends Him to Pilate

My sorrowful Jesus, You are now out of the prison; You are so exhausted
that You stagger at each step. I want to place myself at your side in order to
sustain You, when I see that You are about to fall.
But I see that the soldiers take You before Caiphas; and You, O my Jesus,
reappear in their midst like a Sun, and even though disfigured, You spread
light everywhere. I now see that Caiphas is overjoyed in seeing You reduced
so badly. At the reflections of your Light, he becomes more blinded, and in
his fury, he asks You again: “So, are You really the true Son of God?”
And You, my Love, with supreme majesty, with the grace of your word, and
with your usual sweet and moving tone, such as to enrapture the hearts,
answer: “Yes, I am the true Son of God.”

And your enemies, though feeling all the power of your word within
themselves, suffocating everything, wanting to know nothing else – in one
voice, cry out: “He is guilty to death. He is guilty to death!”
Caiphas confirms the sentence to death, and sends You to Pilate. And You,
my condemned Jesus, accept this sentence with so much love and
resignation, as to almost snatch it from the iniquitous Pontiff. You repair
for all the sins committed deliberately and with all malice, and for those
who, instead of afflicting themselves because of evil, rejoice and exult over
sin itself, and this leads them to blindness and to suffocating any
enlightenment and grace. My Life, Jesus, your reparations and prayers
echo in my heart, and I repair and pray together with You.

My sweet Love, I see that, having lost any bit of esteem for You, seeing You
sentenced to death, the soldiers grab You, add ropes and chains, and bind
You so tightly as to almost prevent any movement of your Divine Person;
and pushing You and dragging You, they put You out of the palace of
Caiphas.

Crowds of people await You – but no one to defend You. And You, my
Divine Sun, come out into their midst, wanting to envelop everyone with
your Light. As You move the first steps, wanting to enclose all the steps of
creatures within yours, You pray and repair for those who move the first
steps to operate with evil purposes – some to take revenge, some to steal,
some to betray, some to kill, and more. Oh, how all these sins wound your
Heart! And in order to prevent so much evil, You pray, You repair, and
You offer all of Yourself.

But, as I follow You, I see that at the moment of descending from the
palace of Caiphas, You, my Sun, Jesus, meet beautiful Mary, our sweet
Mama. Your gazes meet and wound each other; and even though You feel
relieved in seeing each other, yet new sorrows arise: for You, in seeing the
beautiful Mama pierced, pale and wrapped in mourning; and for dear
Mama, in seeing You, Divine Sun, eclipsed and covered with so much
opprobrium - crying and wrapped in Blood. But You cannot enjoy the
exchange of your gazes for too long, and with the sorrow of being unable
to say even a word to each other, your Hearts say everything; and one
fused within the other, You stop looking at each other, because the soldiers
are pushing You.

So, trampled upon and dragged, You arrive at Pilate. My Jesus, I unite
myself to your pierced Mama in following You, to fuse myself in You
together with Her. And You, give me your gaze of love, and bless me.

Reflections and Practices

Jesus goes out to the light of the day and is brought before Caiphas. With
firmness He confirms that He is the Son of God.
When we go out, do we let ourselves be directed by Jesus? Is our composure
an example for others, and our steps like magnets which call souls around
Jesus? The whole life of Jesus is a continuous cry for souls. If we conform
to His Will - that is, if our feet call souls as they walk, if our heartbeats,
echoing the divine heartbeats, harmonize with them and ask for souls, and
so on with all the rest - as we operate in this way, we will form the very
Humanity of Jesus within ourselves. Therefore, every additional cry for
souls that we make, is an additional mark that we receive from our Jesus. Is
our life always the same, or do we change it for the worse, depending on
the encounters that we have?

My Jesus, sanctity which has no equal, guide me, and let also my outward
appearance manifest all your divine life.