The 10th Station: Jesus’s clothes are taken away.
According to Forbes, Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) currently have the highest net worths on the planet. Google indicates that Musk sits roughly at 225.4 billion dollars while Bezos is roughly at 177.6 billion dollars.
Interestingly, a famous person’s net worth is one of the first facts which appear on a Google search. What does this say about our culture? It means that people are often searching for this information. It means that our culture is obsessed with wealth and the wealth of others.
The 10th station tells us that Jesus’s clothes are taken away. His wealth was stripped away from Him on the road to Calvary.
St. Thomas Aquinas reflected on the reality of Christ’s poverty on the road to Calvary. He noted that Jesus had no wealth, no honor, no power, and no pleasure on the Cross. He was stripped of everything that the world promotes as of first importance.
Jesus’s “net worth” was reduced to $0.00.
Aquinas then noted, “Whoever wishes to live perfectly should do nothing but disdain what Christ disdained on the cross and desire what he desired.”
The 10th station demands that we reevaluate what is of highest worth to us. Is it power, wealth, honor, or pleasure? Is it our clothes or our car? Is it our retirement plan or our vacation spot? Is it our net worth?
Or, is it something much more profound than any of these?
Is what Jesus desired on the Cross of greatest worth to you?
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you; because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”
Fr. Luke Daghir