STATION 8: JESUS CONSOLES THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM

A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ People will beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and plead with the hills, ‘Bury us.’ For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
— Luke 23:27-31 (New Living Translation)

Station 8

He sees them—
even now.
Even in pain,
even as blood drips and the crowd jeers,
Jesus notices the women
who are weeping for him.

And he speaks.

Not with bitterness,
not with despair,
but with a warning soaked in compassion.

Don’t weep for me, he says.
Weep for yourselves.
Weep for your children.
Weep for what happens
when power goes unchecked,
when injustice is normalized,
when violence becomes routine.

Even in agony,
Jesus refuses to center himself.
His love is outward-facing.
His mission never wavers.

He is not asking for pity—
he is inviting transformation.
He is calling them—calling us—
to look deeper,
to let our tears become action,
our mourning become movement,
our grief become grace.

Let us pray.

Jesus of fierce compassion, you turned to the women of Jerusalem and met their sorrow with truth.

You call us to more than mourning. You call us to awareness. To repentance. To change.

We pray for all who suffer from the systems we uphold — for those who have been silenced, oppressed, or ignored.

We pray for mothers who grieve, for children caught in violence, for families torn apart by injustice.

Give us hearts that don’t just weep — but respond. Eyes that don’t just see— but spirits that act.

And give us courage to speak truth, even when the world marches on in ignorance.

Amen.