Station XIII: Jesus' Body is Removed from the Cross

"And when evening had come, Joseph of Arimathea, prominent member of the Sanhedrin, arrived and boldly went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate released the corpse to Joseph, who bought a shroud, and took Jesus down from the cross . . . "(Mk. 15). How violently was he nailed to the cross. How tenderly did his friends remove him. Tradition, ever conscious of Mary's presence, has passed on the sight of the mother receiving her martyred son. Michaelangelo's masterpiece, the Piet, has fixed this scene of indescribable pathos.

"We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all. Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who could have thought any more of his destiny? When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people"(Isa. 53).

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