It’s only when Lent and Holy Week come around again that I realise how valuable I find the Stations of the Cross. Although I always look at the Stations images whenever I visit a church, I tend to overlook the practice until the week before Easter.
And yet they are such a powerful reminder not just of Christ’s Passion, but of a journey that faces us all.
I’m a somewhat discontented person by nature, and prone to envying others. Why can’t I go off to the south of France for three months like a neighbour I know? Why can’t I have a brand-new kitchen costing £5,000, as a pal is having? Why can’t I have as robust health as some of those hardier folk of my age? Why do I have to wake at 3am, brooding on my problems?
Discontentment is not an entirely negative force, because it can nudge you to be more ambitious, to improve and do better. But it is toxic when it’s disproportionate or narcissistic. And strange as it seems, a contemplation of the Stations of the Cross is a very grounding experience in reminding me that however glossy a life appears on the outside, everyone has their troubles and worries: everyone has a cross to bear, and everyone encounters suffering. Even if you don’t see what that cross is, it’s there somewhere.
The person with the gleaming new bathroom may have private afflictions and even depressions that you don’t know about. Those who can fly off to exotic locations may have had difficulties that you can’t even guess at. And if there are people who have the gift of good health in old age, there are many others who have not had the privilege of surviving into the senior years.
And, as the first Station of the Cross reminds us – “Jesus is condemned to death” – we are all on a journey towards death, and contemplating this is a fine spiritual exercise.
Accepting the Cross calls to mind the pains and difficulties we will endure. Falling the first time, the second time, the third time is a reminder of the failures and failings we experience.
It’s so anguishing to see someone we love suffer – an apt reflection for the Fourth Station, when Jesus meets his mother. But there are good people along the way of our lives who help us, as with Simon of Cyrene and St Veronica.
The Stations of the Cross is such an old devotion, originally promoted in imitation of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, when ordinary people couldn’t travel to the Holy Land. They have been a source of holiness for generations, and despite the sorrowing theme they are a comfort yet.
The comfort lies in the message, not just of redemption, but of reassurance that we are not alone in our pains, worries, fears and distress. The Way of the Cross is part of the human condition.
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Charles, Duke of Orléans, who died in 1465, was a French aristocrat who spent 24 years in English captivity, after surviving the Battle of Agincourt. He used his prison time well, writing 500 poems in English and French. His poem entitled “Spring” is one of the loveliest harbingers of this sweet season:
The year has changed his mantle cold
Of wind, of rain, of bitter air;
And he goes clad in cloth of gold,
Of laughing suns and season fair;
No bird or beast of wood or wold
But doth with cry or song declare
The year lays down his mantle cold
All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,
The pleasant summer livery wear
With silver studs on broidered vair*;
The world puts off its raiment old
The year lays down his mantle cold.
We hope, indeed, that the year is now laying down his mantle cold!
…….
Last week, referring to the late Stephen Hawking, I remarked that he had died at the age of 74 – when he had been told he would not live beyond the age of 21. I erred: Professor Hawking was 76 at his death, not 74. So he outlived the experts by 55 years, not a mere 53!
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