Christ falls beneath His Cross

Saint Luke - Chapter 23

Christ falls beneath his Cross. J-J Tissot

[27] Sequebatur autem illum multa turba populi et mulierum, quae plangebant et lamentabantur eum.
And there followed him a great multitude of people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented him.

From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

The street is terribly steep and the big stones with which it is paved are slippery, so that Jesus, exhausted with fatigue, falls beneath His burden.  Those in attendance on Him are in no mood to give Him any assistance, they only jeer at and insult Him, pouring out opprobrious epithets upon Him.  All around, however, are crowds whose attitude is rather noisy and excited than positively hostile.  "A great company of people followed him", says Saint Luke, and there was nothing surprising in the numbers which had come together, for executions always attract a concourse of people.  Moreover, it was the time of the Passover and, as is well known, that festival was always attended by vast multitudes, all of whom had been from the commencement of the trial deeply interested in the fate of the Prophet about Whom there had been so much discussion.  Jesus as He falls seems in my picture to be appealing to the bystanders for a little help in His need.  Shall we not do well to remember that it was for us that the Saviour suffered so long ago as well as for those living at the time?

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam