Michelle Francl-Donnay

It seems early in Lent to be contemplating the Stations of the Cross; we are a month away from Holy Week, from the readings of the Passion on Palm Dominicus and Good Friday. All the same the mystery of Christ's passion and expiry is not reserved to i day or one season, but is etched deep into our liturgies and our lives.

As we come face to face with Christ, the Living Breadstuff, in the Stations the first words nosotros utter are: "Nosotros proclaim your death, O Lord…"

"Take upwardly your cross daily and follow me," we hear Jesus ask of us in Luke'southward Gospel.

The Stations of the Cross are an ancient devotion, reaching back to the earliest days of the Church when pilgrims would go to Jerusalem to visit the holy places. Small local versions were eventually synthetic then that anyone could contemplate the mysteries, even if y'all couldn't get to Jerusalem.

There is a physicality to this devotion that reminds us again and again that God became one of united states, even unto death.

Contemplating the Via Crucis — the way of the cross — slowly and deliberately over these concluding iv weeks of Lent teaches me much about how to deport my cross, not simply during Holy Week, but daily.

Walk with Jesus through Jerusalem to Calvary.

I.  Jesus is condemned to decease.

1. Jesus is condemned to death.
(Cathedral Chapel)

"What is truth?" Pilate asks. The Give-and-take that thundered through the void and brought the universe into being stands silent at this, withal those who have ears know His answer: I am the Way. I am the Truth.

The way can be hard to come across, the truth hard to hear, in the chaos of the world. I imagine Pilate amid the cacophony, beset by the chief priests, by the crowd and surely even past his own advisors, struggling to hear what Jesus has to say, unable to see who Jesus is.

I am the Truth. Pilate turns away. Jesus is unmoved.  I am the Way.

Resources:

Read John 18:33-19:16.

Reflect Where are you in the oversupply? Can yous see Jesus equally He is?

Pray Jesuit Father John Tetlow's prayer for the Second Calendar week of Lent

II. Jesus takes up his cross.

ii. Jesus carries his cantankerous.
(St. Donato Church building, Philadelphia)

The triumph has crumbled into scandal. The crowd that once pressed against Him, pleading for healing, pulls dorsum. There is goose egg left in this world that He can cling to only the cantankerous.

"The cross is the guardian of the whole world," cries the photogogikon, the hymn of light that welcomes the dawn on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. This alone will be our stone of refuge, our healing, our salvation. Would we cling to the cross, even at present?

Resources

Read: 1 Corinthians ii:1-v.

Reflect: Where do you need the protection of the cross?  What crosses would you willingly hold close?

Pray: The cross is the guardian of the whole globe; the cross is the beauty of the Church; the cantankerous is the might of kings; the cantankerous is the confirmation of the faithful; the cross is the glory of angels and the ruining of demons.

— Photogogikon from Matins for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

Iii.  Jesus falls the kickoff fourth dimension.

3. Jesus falls the outset time.
(Holy Trinity Church, Morrisville)

…information technology is a narrow gate and a difficult road that leads to life. This is the narrow style, a steep and torturous path, not metaphor nor innuendo, but writ upon globe and flesh.

Christ comes, not wearing His humanity every bit a cloak, but incarnate and utterly vulnerable. He empties himself; face down in the reality of this road which leads to decease — and to life.

To exist humble is to know the earth, to accept lain in the dust. Nosotros were born from dust, we return to dust, we are hallowed by the dust of this difficult route. We are humbled by this dust.

Read from Paul's letter of the alphabet to the Philippians ii:five-8

Reflect: How do I share in Christ's humility? Can I see humility as life giving?

Pray:

Jesus Christ, may your decease be my life
and in your dying may I larn how to live.
May your struggles be my balance,
Your human weakness my backbone,
Your embarrassment my accolade,
Your passion my delight,
Your sadness my joy,
in your humiliation may I exist exalted.
In a discussion, may I observe all my blessings in your trials.
Amen.

—  Blessed Peter Faber, South.J., from Hearts on Fire

IV.  Mary meets Jesus.

4. Jesus meets his mother.
(St. Mark Church building, Bristol)

This is the second Annunciation. Mary labors again to say, "let this be done according to Your will."  The mood at the crucifixion had to have been ugly. Surely someone must have urged the women to leave, wanting to shield them from possible violence, from the scandal — wanting to spare Mary from having to spotter her child suffer and dice.

But Mary stayed. Both tradition and scripture say she stayed to the biting cease, drinking the dregs of the cup her Son had begged to be spared. This is what she said yes to all those many years agone. To staying. To being a witness to faith and to hope, among fright and despair. To martyrdom.

Read John 19:25-27

Reflect: Can we let Jesus become on?  Tin can we stand up in witness to hope even in the midst of fright and despair?

Pray: For my life, I covet the jeers and mockery of Calvary; the boring agony of your Son,
the contempt, the discredit, the infamy of His Cross. I wish to stand at your side,
nearly sorrowful Virgin, strengthening my spirit with your tears, consummating my
sacrifice with your martyrdom, sustaining my heart with your solitude, loving my
God and your God with the immolation of my being.

— Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J.

Five. They press Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross.

v. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to deport his cross.
(St. Jerome Church, Philadelphia)

Jesus says to the states in Luke's Gospel: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and accept up their cross daily and follow me." In this moment on the walk to Calvary, nosotros detect ourselves challenged to exercise more even than this.

Simon of Cyrene is confronted not with his own cross, just someone else's cross.  He is asked to shoulder some not just some of Jesus' concrete brunt, but to share the burden of public shame. To acquiesce to compassion in the face of mockery, with a mere moment's find, when surely he had other business to be well-nigh.

Read Mark 15:21

Reverberate: Can I pick up the crosses that belong to my neighbor? Am I compassionate only when I have the fourth dimension and energy, or will I allow myself to exist pressed into service to carry a cantankerous that is not my own — on a moment's observe?

Pray:

Teach me how to be compassionate to the suffering,
to the poor, the blind, the lame, and the lepers;

prove me how you lot revealed your deepest emotions,
as when yous shed tears,
or when you felt sorrow and anguish
to the betoken of sweating claret
and needed an angel to console yous.

Above all, I want to learn
how you supported the extreme pain of the cross,
including the abandonment of your Father.

— Male parent Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

VI.  Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

vi. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
(Our Lady of Calvary Church, Philadelphia)

Hands reach out from the crowd, seeking the confront of God, holding information technology tenderly inside hand and centre. Become what y'all seek.

St. Augustine, reflecting on the Eucharist, points out: "You are proverb "Amen" to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When yous hear "The body of Christ," you reply "Amen." Be a member of Christ's body, then, and so that your "Amen" may ring true! … Be what you see; receive what you are."

Exist the face of Christ in the crowd, exist the face of Christ the suffering seek. Become what you receive.

Read the story of the woman who anoints Christ before his Passion. Mark xiv:3-ix Reflect: Where practice I see the face of Christ in my daily life? How practise I come up to the Eucharist? How practice I prove the image of the face up of Christ to those I encounter in daily life?

Pray:

O God of eternal glory,
You anointed Jesus your servant
To bear our sins,
To encourage the weary,
To raise upwards and restore the fallen.
Keep before our eye
The splendor of the paschal mystery of Christ,
And, by our sharing in the passion and resurrection,
Seal our lives with the victorious sign
Of his obedience and exaltation.
Amen.
— from a prayer for Passion Sun, in "Opening Prayers:  Collects in Contemporary Linguistic communication"

VII.  Jesus falls the 2d fourth dimension.

7. Jesus falls the 2d time.
(St. Martha Church, Philadelphia)

In the midst of a jostling crowd, the Savior of all sprawls, gasping, in the street.

Concluding Lent, flying from one railroad train to some other at the meridian of rush hour, I came face to confront with a human being standing frozen on the steps up from the Market-Frankford platform. The crowd flowed around him, about every bit if he were a frieze pulled from some modernistic version of the stations. I paused, and joined them.

Not one of u.s. said to him, "Let me assist." Not 1 of united states of america asked, "Can I help?" Jesus is collapsed before us, on street corners, tucked confronting the walls in alleys.

Read the story of the man who finds a stranger browbeaten in the ditch. Luke 10:30-35

Reflect: Would I have helped Jesus up from the ground that twenty-four hour period in Jerusalem? Volition I assistance life him at present? How?

Pray:

In Christ y'all draw well-nigh to us,
God of mercy and compassion,
Lifting usa out of decease,
Binding upwardly our wounds,
And nursing our spirits back to health.
Permit such tenderness as Yours compel us to go and practice besides.  Amen.
— From a Prayer for the fifteenthursday Sunday in Ordinary time in "Opening Prayers:  Collects in Contemporary Linguistic communication"

8. Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem.

8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.
(St. Anselm Church, Philadelphia)

Weep, Jesus tells them, weep. "Pray get-go for the gift of tears, so as to soften through contrition the wildness that dwells in your soul," wrote the fourth century desert hermit Evagrius. The gift of tears in prayer was 1 that the early on desert fathers held dear and that the tradition of our Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters continues to cherish:  the purpose of the tassel on the end of an Orthodox prayer rope is to soak upward the tears of one's prayer.

We weep not for Jesus, but for what we accept washed that has brought him to this moment.  Nosotros cry that our tears might soak the ground, soften information technology, until this dry and barren land can once again bear fruit.

Read Luke 23:28-31

Reflect: Can I weep for my sins? What softens my heart?

Pray:

Hear my prayer, O Lord,

To my cry hearken,

To my tears be non deaf.

— From Psalm 39, translated past Robert Change

Nine. Jesus falls the third time.

9. Jesus falls a 3rd fourth dimension.
(Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Morton)

In the early days of the Church, catechumens were plunged three times into the waters of baptism. 3 little deaths, from which they would finally arise, cleansed from sin.

Our Savior stumbles on the stones we take set on the road to Calvary. We who fell once, in Adam, are now redeemed by the One who lies here in the grit, face up down in what He called forth from the chaos in cosmos. Not once, but three times for our sins, he falls. Nosotros are offered here a total measure of grace for our faults, hard won and alluvion, from which we volition rise, redeemed.

Read Psalm 31:xi-xv

Reflect: Can I contemplate the depth and breadth of Christ's dear for me, that he would taste of dust and death in this manner?

Pray:

From the depths I have cried out to you lot, O Lord;
Lord, hear my vocalization. Allow your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplication.
If you, Lord, were to marker iniquities, who, O Lord, shall stand up?
Just with y'all is forgiveness, that y'all may be revered. I trust in the Lord;
My soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen wait for the dawn.
More than than watchmen await for the dawn, let Israel hope in the Lord.
For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
— De Profundis (Psalm 130, which in Latin begins de profundis, Out of the depths…)

Ten.  Jesus is stripped of his garments.

10. Jesus' wearing apparel are taken away.
(St. Mary Magdalen, Media)


I hear the dissonance of my ain life in this line from Mark'due south account of the Passion: "And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own wearing apparel, and led him out to crucify him." In one breath I honour Jesus as Male monarch, offer to cloak him in majestic violet, lining the streets with palms to keep the dust downwards.  In the next, I mock what was done for me, falling again into sin.

Read Mark 15:20

Reflect: How do I come across Christ clothed in my life? Can I recognize that I am simultaneously redeemed and a sinner, wrapped in the Light and fallen in the grit?

Pray:

O God, I dear thee, I love thee —
Not out of hope of heaven for me
Nor fearing not to love and be
In the everlasting burning.
Thou, m, my Jesus, after me
Didst reach thine artillery out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nails, and lance,

Mocked and marred countenance,
Sorrows passing number,
Sweat and care and cumber,
Yea and death, and this for me,
And thou couldst see me sinning:
Then I, why should not I dearest thee,
Jesu, so much in honey with me?
Not for heaven's sake;
not to be out of hell by loving thee;
Not for any gains I see;
Just but the fashion that g didst me
I do honey and I will love thee:
What must I dear thee, Lord, for then?
For being my king and God. Amen.
— St. Francis Xavier, as translated past Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

XI. Jesus is crucified.

xi. Jesus is nailed to the cross.
(St. John the Evangelist, Morrisville)

Clarity can be a terrible grace. To meet ourselves as we are, to appreciate the wonder of our being, and the ravages wrought by sin, both can exist hard graces to seek.  There is the obvious sense in which nosotros see in the Passion how the damage sin has wrought spreads out to encompass even the nearly innocent. Sin and decease intertwined, cruelly and bluntly staked out for all to see on a hill in Jerusalem.

If nosotros can scrape off the crud that clouds our eyes when we expect at Jesus' death, nosotros might comprehend that the best of ourselves also hangs before us. Frightened, seemingly abandoned by the Begetter, taunted, Jesus — fully God — could have at any point alleged an finish to the proceedings. Walked off the cross in a blaze of celebrity, in a miracle that might take brought all of Jerusalem to its knees.

Instead, fully human, he showed us what nosotros could be, what we could endure, and why. That in powerlessness lies our ultimate strength.

Read Mark 15:24-32

Reflect: Can I run into how strength lies in emptiness? Tin can I pray for the terrible grace to see that what is poured out here, washes me clean?

Pray: The Anima Christi (The Soul of Christ)

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Trunk of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
H2o from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O Good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds hibernate me.
Permit me not to be separated from you.
From the wicked foe, defend me.
At the hour of my death, telephone call me
and bid me come up to you
That with your saints I may praise you
For ever and ever.
Amen.

XII.  Jesus dies.

12. Jesus dies on the cross.
(Our Lady of Peace, Milmont Park)

The aforementioned breath that rippled over the waters at Creation ceases. It is a moment of extraordinary noise: the Give-and-take that brought the world into existence, that sustained it with the breath of the Spirit, has died, is silent for this unendurable moment. Jesus is dead. Yet God stands firm from eternity, eternal. Rock and fortress, immutable.

I cannot assistance merely think the response was physical. The very world heaved, the universe convulsed, unable to bear the distance between the two realities.

Read Matthew 27:45-56

Reflect: What might information technology be similar to exist insufficient of the presence of God? To cry out as Jesus does on the cross, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?": "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"

Pray: Psalm 22:2-12 (from which Jesus' last words are taken)

My God, my God, why take you lot forsaken me?

Why are y'all so far from saving me,
and so far from my cries of ache?

My God, I cry out by twenty-four hour period, but you practice not answer,
by night, but I detect no rest.

Nevertheless you are enthroned as the Holy One;
yous are the one Israel praises.

In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.

To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by anybody, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

"He trusts in the Lord," they say,
"let the Lord rescue him.
Allow him deliver him,
since he delights in him."

Still you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you, even at my female parent's breast.

From birth I was bandage on you;
from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and at that place is no one to assist.

XIII. Jesus is taken from the cross.

13. The torso of Jesus is taken down from the cross.
(St. Ann, Bristol)

Jesus lies over his mother'southward lap, a weight pulling her off balance equally in the terminal days earlier his birth. She who one time held God within her is left holding only promise in her raw, gaping centre.

The Passion never fails to pull me off balance. Eighteen Easters ago I was enormously pregnant, unbalanced, unwieldy, unsure. We eagerly concord up hope in the Incarnation, gazing on the child lifted from his mother's womb, but to see promise in this weight Mary balances for us is a pure, unadulterated grace, one we tin can hardly comport to pray for, for information technology is a sight we can hardly bear to behold.

Read Luke 2:33-38

Reflect: Similar the prophetess Anna, where do I see dawning hope in the darkness?  How can hope pull united states of america off balance, sending us unexpectedly tumbling into new life?

Pray The Benedictus (The Canticle of Zechariah)

Blessed be the Lord,
The God of Israel;
He has come to His people and set up them costless.
He has raised up for us a mighty Saviour,
Built-in of the house of His servant David.

Through His holy prophets He promised of old
That He would save united states from our enemies,
From the hands of all who hate usa.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
And to remember His holy Covenant.

This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham:
To prepare u.s.a. free from the easily of our enemies,
Gratuitous to worship Him without fear,
Holy and righteous in His sight
All the days of our life.

Y'all, My kid shall be called
The prophet of the Near Loftier,
For you will become before the Lord to prepare His fashion,
To give his people noesis of salvation
By the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender pity of our Lord
The dawn from on loftier shall suspension upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness
And the shadow of death,
And to guide our anxiety into the way of peace.
Amen.

XIV. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

xiv. Jesus is laid in the tomb.
(St. Monica, Berwyn)

We struggle to concord on to what cannot be grasped, to enclose what cannot be contained. God with us. God inside united states. God gone forth to save us.

God empties himself  — for us. Tin can we stand in this emptiness, and let go our grasp on what binds united states of america to this world, and bind ourselves instead into the indelible reality of God creating us, God with the states, God inside us:  Male parent, Son and Spirit.

Read Matthew 27:57-61

Reflect: Where exercise I see God at work in the world, and within me?

Pray

Glory to the Begetter,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the first.
is now, and volition be forever.
Amen.