The Sacred Wound of Our Lord's Shoulder
The Carrying of the Cross
The soldiers tear the purple robe from Him, which
has already stuck to His wounds. The blood starts to flow
once more; He gives a great shudder. They replace His own clothes, which become stained with red. The Cross is ready, they place it on His shoulders. By what miracle of
strength does He remain standing beneath
its burden? It is not in fact, the whole Cross, but
only the great horizontal beam, which He must carry to Golgotha, but still it weighs nearly 125
pounds. The vertical is already planted on Calvary.
A view of the Dorsal (Back) area of the Holy
Shroud, with Jesus' Head to the right of the screen and His feet to the left.
There are on the Shroud clear traces of excoriation on the back and the knees. The right
knee seems to be more contused, and shows in the region of the patella a number of excoriation
which vary in size and shape, and have jagged edges. A little above and on the outer side,
there are two round wounds, about a centimeter in diameter.
The left knee also shows various contused wounds, but they
are less evident and less numerous.
 It is
specially in the dorsal image of the Shroud that we find
marks of the carrying of the Cross. On the right shoulder, in
the outer part of the sub-scapular region,
there is a broad excoriation area,
which is in the form of a rectangle of about 10 x 9 centimeters.
One can also see in the frontal image that this area extends forwards into the outer clavicular region with broad patches of excoriation. The area at the back seems to be made
up of an accumulation of excoriation.
They are superimposed on the numerous wounds of the flagellation,
which seem to be as if it were bruised and widened by them, when compared with those along
side them. It would appear that some weighty body, and one with a furrowed surface and
loosely fastened, must have lain on this shoulder and have bruised, reopened and widened
the wounds of the scourging.
Jesus painfully puts
one foot before the other, and He often falls. He falls to His knees which are soon
all raw. The soldiers who form the escort lift Him up, and
are not too brutal about it, for they feel He might easily die on the way.
His shoulders are covered with raw places, which
open up again, and get larger and deeper with each step He
takes. He is worn out. On His
seamless coat there is a large patch of blood which gets even larger till it reaches right
down His back.
He falls again and this time at full length; the
beam falls off Him; will He be
able to get up again? Luckily at this moment one Simon of Cyrene
passes by. The soldiers make him carry the Cross the rest of the way. There is at last only the slope of Golgotha to be climbed, and they make their painful way to the top
of the hill. Jesus sinks to the ground and the crucifixion begins.
The Prayer
"O Loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I a
miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder on which Thou
didst bear Thy heavy Cross, which so tore Thy Flesh and laid bare Thy Bones as to inflict
on Thee an anguish greater than any other Wound of Thy Most Blessed Body. I adore Thee, O
Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee and give Thee thanks for this most sacred
and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain and by the crushing burden of
Thy heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial
sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Thy Cross. "
Amen
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