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I
II
III
IV
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Videns autem Pilátus quia nihil profíceret, sed magis tumúltus fíeret: accépta aqua, lavit manus coram pópulo, dicens: Ínnocens ego sum a sánguine justi hujus: vos vidéritis. Et respóndens univérsus pópulus, dixit: Sanguis ejus super nos, et super fílios nostros. Tunc dimísit illis Barábbam: Jesum autem flagellátum trádidit eis ut crucifigerétur. “So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released for them Barab'bas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.” (St. Matthew 27.24-26) Judgment is no more mine than it was Pilate’s. Lord, open my heart to pray for all those condemned to die. Am I not numbered among them?
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Jesus takes
up his Cross
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Cuius
animam gementem,
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And
he said to all,
“If any man
would come after
me, let him
deny himself
and take up
his cross daily
and follow me.
For whoever
would save his
life will lose
it; and whoever
loses his life
for my sake,
he will save
it. For what
does it profit
a man if he
gains the whole
world and loses
or forfeits
himself?”
(St.
Luke 9.23-25) You had lost so much blood! How could you have borne it? The way to the height of that sad summit of suffering was a gauntlet of pain and abuse, mockery, derision, and violence to your flesh — and still, still you choose the Cross? Alike, we who fled, and those who stayed — we, who took no violence to our flesh, and they who brought such violence to yours ... alike we bore down upon you as insufferable weight in the Cross. You could have fled, called down your Angels, passed through their midst — but you stayed because of us, as we fled because of you. And still you stay! — in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar!
And still we
flee you!
Fearing violence
to our desires
through submission
to grace; fearing
that same guilt
by association
that would call
us, in you,
to hold fast
to our vows,
fleeing the
hatred of the
world that would
rush in upon
us as our own
sins rushed
in upon you.
Give me, O,
Christ, to become
like unto Thee,
to take
my first
steps through
that gauntlet
of grace that
leads me beyond
that suffering
height ... that
I may die for
Thee ... as
Thou hast died
for me!
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O
quam tristis et
afflicta |
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The world applauded as you fell ... endlessly through the empty corridors of my life that end abruptly now, here at your knees. Did you see my feet before you as you lay on the ground? Did you look up on my indifference, bloodied and dazed? I know you did! I saw you! Homeless and ravaged with addiction, you laid at my feet and looked up at me from the squalor of my selfishness, uttering no word of reproach —as I stepped over you on my way to work. I have seen your eyes a thousand times ... from doorways and dumpsters ... and a thousand times I passed you by. For all my grief on this first fall you know ... you know that falling once will not suffice. I have brought the very Son of God to His knees ... and still it will not do! Still I am not convinced, that you will pour your life out in your love ... for me. You must topple this god I have made of myself, vanquish this idol again and again. I will see if yet you love me so! What will it take? But I will follow you ... to see if so you love me still —despite my countless sins that press you down against the pavement of my hardened heart. Could one fall suffice, I would never have sinned again ...
O, Pie, Jesu, Domine
... !
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Quae maerebat
et dolebat,
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O, Mary! The Beginning and the End now stands here before you ... ! “The Alpha and the Omega. The First and the Last!” As in the beginning at Bethlehem, so here at the end — He lies before you again, in need, naked and weak, His face in your hands and pressed to your lips! A Light to everlasting life, a night to everlasting death, He is the beginning and the end once again ... the beginning that was an end is now the end that is a beginning. There are no dreams in this night, but the fulfillment of all! From paradox to paradox He passes through the shadow and light in our lives ... ceaselessly bringing us from shadow to light. But here, in this Station He pauses, for He has succumbed to your grief ... What did He seek, O Mother, from that storm filled with sorrow? What word did you speak? It could only be one. With the same word you welcomed, and now you relinquish, Whom in time and eternity you ever loved most. “Fiat!” ... “Fiat”... the whispered assent — in the beginning — to the voice of an Angel; “Fiat”, the whispered assent — at the end — to the will of the Father ... and the rage of the mob. Whom you embraced in unspeakable love in your arms ... you now surrender to the clamor and darkness of death. Daughter of Abraham! You do not hold back whom most you love, but immolate your only begotten in a holocaust of grief commingled with love — and the fire on Moriah is but an ember in your heart, a smoldering wick on the hill of the Place of the Skull where the world will take Him to number all of His bones! “Mulier, ecce filius tuus!” — “Woman, behold thy Son!” O, Mary, daughter of Abraham ... your children are numbered beyond the stars in the vault of the firmament of night, beyond the shifting sands at the edge of the ebb of all tides, beyond the dreams of the Patriarchs who prophesied this night! You surrender the One and in the One receive many ... can you count them, number them through the cavalcade of all time?
Only your love,
Mary, verges upon
the love of your
Son, for
your
surrender was
His, and
His
surrender was
yours —
Mother and Son surrendered
to us,
immolated for
us in one will. |
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Quis est
homo qui non fleret,
Is
there one who would
not weep, |
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The world did not simply seek the death of your Son ... but His shame! He must not die before He can be publicly reviled. He has yet to satisfy the blood-lust of the mob, the vindication of the self-righteous. The soldiers had not yet vented, exhausted, their cruelty upon Him, and the crowds still gathered far ahead, each with a handful, a mouthful, of shame to heap upon Him as He passed. His blood was not enough. They sought more; to shatter the dignity of His beautiful humanity. Oh, Mary, they would rip Him from your womb even as they tear Him from your heart! The immolation must be complete, and when the conflagration passes, they would have even the cinders ground into the soil, scattered to the wind. But first He must wend His sorrowful way through the tumultuous crowd, a trail of blood at His feet until He can move no more. “You! ... Simon! ... You must bear this malefactors Cross, otherwise he will die before we can slake our full vengeance!” Simon blenches, but is forced withal to the Cross, to carry our shame placed upon Him without sin. The scourges, the buffets, the filth of mankind are hurled at Simon, too, and the weight of the Cross now bears down upon him. The Cross and the to-be-Crucified become his affliction — and he cannot turn away ... or will not! Pray for Us Simon from the plains of Cyrene! You bore the affliction we throw back into the face of the Father! With what love, Mary, you had gazed on the face of the man who took to himself the Cross and the Christ! So gaze on me, under my cross, borne on the shoulders of my Angel, when I fall and have no strength to arise. Look on me, and I will find the strength to endure the buffets of the world and even far darker things ... Trembling, I take refuge under the shadow of your heel! ... quaff deeply of life from the love in your eyes!
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Quis
non posset contristari
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Veronica alone hastened to Christ in His Passion. Everyone else fled. Only you, Mary, with John and the Magdalen now remained, pressed back by the shields of the might of Rome. Simon looks on, buttressing the Cross that would crush the Son, the Cross to which he came under the hands of violent men, but here another comes, not under duress, but compelled by compassion. From that profane furor of the fevered crowd, unheeded by steeled hearts of stone, she comes an angel with shadow from the fierce Semitic sun. A winding-cloth, as it were, spun from her veil and pressed past the thorns. Veronica .... you are the vera icon — the true image — pressing your veil to Jesus' bleeding face you find it etched within your trembling hands. The image of the face of God! Vera icon in the midst of men!
You are an icon
bearer twice in
truth. In your hands
the incorruptible
face of God, in
your heart the unblemished
mirror of mercy,
image of the Mother
of Mercy and the
Son of God.
Vera icon in the
midst of men! Responsory:
And Jesus cried
out and said, “He
who believes in
me, believes not
in me but in Him
who sent me. And
he who sees me sees
Him who sent me.
I have come as light
into the world,
that whoever believes
in me may not remain
in darkness.
(St. John 12)
Thou hast said,
“Seek ye my face.”
My heart says to
thee, “Thy face,
LORD, do I seek.”
Hide not thy face
from me. Turn not
thy servant away
in anger, thou who
hast been my help.
Cast me not off,
forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!”
(Psalm 27) |
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Pro peccatis
suae gentis
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Veníte
ad me omnes qui
laborátis, et oneráti
estis, et ego refíciam
vos. Tóllite jugum
meum super vos,
et díscite a me,
quia mitis sum,
et húmilis corde:
et inveniétis réquiem
animábus vestris.
Jugum enim meum
suáve est, et onus
meum leve.
Let
us pray: As Son of God and Son of Mary, you were possessed of the most perfect human body! Tattered, torn, bruised and brutalized, it now lies under the Cross, and scarce would I recognize you beneath the rancor that violates the most sacred of flesh, the foul breath of all evil obscuring, subduing, all beauty and grace in a litany of sin ...
You did not succumb
to the weight or
the blows that bore
you down, the withering
malice that would
not leave you unscathed,
untrammeled — it
was not physical
weakness that made
you fall twice —
but the burden of
lovelessness, that
weight beyond measure. Have mercy on me ... in my failure to love. Thee, O Christ! ... and the least of these in whom we crucify you twice!
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Vidit suum
dulcem Natum
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“And
there followed him
a great multitude
of the people, and
of women who bewailed
and lamented him.
But Jesus turning
to them said, “Daughters
of Jerusalem, do
not weep for me,
but weep for yourselves
and for your children.”
(St. Luke 23.27-28)
Let
us pray: Most of them must have understood it at once. Any parent will understand it immediately. It was not only for their own sins that they should weep — but for the sins of their children. What parent has not known the agony of a wandering and wayward child whose selfish sins (and all sin is selfish) have left behind them a wake of destruction and shattered lives that in turn have left a wake of sin and sorrow after them! What parent has not feared for the salvation of their own flesh in light of unrepentant sin? And all sin ... all sin ... the sin of all time ... is now laid upon the bleeding shoulders of the Son of God Who stops before them. Bearing not simply all sins past, or even all sins present .... but all the sins of all the world for all of time ... He bears the sins yet to be, the sins of those not yet present, but in the generations to spring forth from the wombs of these holy women. Their sons, their daughters, even now, before their eyes, torment the Christ — as will their children's children unto the last man, the last woman, standing at the chasm of the end of all time. "Weep for them! So many ... so many, know not what they do! But here you see it before you, O, holy women who would lament Me instead of your own children, who I know are as dear to you as I am to Mary."
This Station is,
as it were, a hall
of mirrors reflecting
ad infinitum
... in which we
see ourselves, and
ourselves replicated
endlessly beyond
us — each image
bearing down on
the weight of the
Cross.
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Eia,
Mater, fons
amoris |
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O vos omnes qui transítis per viam, atténdite, et vidéte si est dolor sicut dolor meus! quóniam vindemiávit me, ut locútus est Dóminus, in die iræ furóris sui. De excélso misit ignem in óssibus meis, et erudívit me: expándit rete pédibus meis, convértit me retrórsum; pósuit me desolátam, tota die mœróre conféctam. Vigilávit jugum iniquitátum meárum; in manu ejus convolútæ sunt, et impósitæ collo meo. Infirmáta est virtus mea: dedit me Dóminus in manu de qua non pótero súrgere.
“Is
it nothing
to you,
all you
who pass
by? Look
and see
if there
is any sorrow
like my
sorrow which
was brought
upon me,
which the
LORD inflicted
on the day
of his fierce
anger. “From
on high
he sent
fire; into
my bones
he made
it descend;
he spread
a net for
my feet;
he turned
me back;
he has left
me stunned,
faint all
the day
long. My
transgressions
were bound
into a yoke;
by his hand
they were
fastened
together;
they were
set upon
my neck;
he caused
my strength
to fail;
the Lord
gave me
into the
hands of
those whom
I cannot
withstand.”
(Lamentations
1.12-14)
Let us pray:
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Sancta Mater,
istud agas, |
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Mílites ergo cum crucifixíssent eum, accepérunt vestiménta jus (et fecérunt quátuor partes, unicuíque míliti partem) et túnicam. Erat autem túnica inconsútilis, désuper contéxta per totum.
“When
the soldiers had
crucified Jesus
they took his garments
and made four parts,
one for each soldier;
also his tunic.
But the tunic was
without seam, woven
from top to bottom”
(St.
John 19.23) Let us pray: O, my Jesus ... chastity! Robed in the splendor and glory of the Father you came into this world, naked in that beautiful innocence that never left you. And now the soldiers remove your garments, revealing what they hold to be your shame, for flesh was, as it is now, not part of the beautiful dignity of your Person, but the object of shame through the world's violation of it. It is sold, displayed, used, abused, and then discarded. The mockery of this station is multiplied without number in the world, in every "strip club", in every "X-rated" movie, in every salacious novel pandering to the most base and perverse shadow in the human soul. Did they not strip you for their perverse pleasure, too? Hold you up to laughter, the applause, the satisfaction, the blood-lust of the crowd? Each time I disrobe anyone with my eyes, in my thoughts ... each time I am "entertained" by the rape of modesty in another ... give me to see you before the wanton gaze of those who used you and abused you and shamed you to their own ends O, my Jesus ... chastity! Give me this most beautiful gift of purity ... knowing that whenever I honor the modesty, dignity, and beauty of another ... even the least of them ... I honor you!
Responsory
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Tui Nati
vulnerati,
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Et postquam venérunt in locum qui vocátur Calváriæ, ibi crucifixérunt eum: et latrónes, unum a dextris, et álterum a sinístris. Jesus autem dicébat: Pater, dimítte illis: non enim sciunt quid fáciunt. “And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (St. Luke 23.33-34)
And now you open them once more in an act of love and compassion greater than any other. The same love that opened them to the blind, opens them to the blind once again ... who do not see, do not understand, what they do. Willingly you open them to be transfixed by my sin — it was not the force of soldiers' calloused fists, but the force of love that unfolded your hands beneath the shattering blow in the towering hatred and hammer. You did not resist what in a word you could have vanquished!
Teach me, my Jesus,
to be like unto
thee: meek before
hatred, returning
love for spite,
and blessing for
malediction! ...
to suffer evil without
reproach, to immolate
myself in my suffering
— beneath the hands
of men more evil
than me — in an
offering to Thee,
O, God ... my
God ... Who
has not forsaken
me! Into Whose Hands
I commend my cause
... and commit my
spirit!
Responsory |
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Fac me tecum
pie flere, |
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Cum vidísset ergo Jesus matrem, et discípulum stantem, quem diligébat, dicit matri suæ: Múlier, ecce fílius tuus. Deínde dicit discípulo: Ecce mater tua. Et ex illa hora accépit eam discípulus in sua. Póstea sciens Jesus quia ómnia consummáta sunt, ut consummarétur Scriptúra, dixit: Sítio.
“When
Jesus saw his mother,
and the disciple
whom he loved standing
near, he said to
his mother, “Woman,
behold, your son!”
Then he said to
the disciple, “Behold,
your mother!” And
from that hour the
disciple took her
to his own home.
After this Jesus,
knowing that all
was now finished,
said (to fulfill
the scripture),
“I thirst.”
(St. John 19.26-28.) O, my Jesus, in this mirror I see reflected the incomprehensible icon of your great love for me. Through the Incarnation you emptied yourself of your Divinity to assume the flesh and blood of man — and as though this outpouring were not enough, that life you assumed now pours forth from you, a libation in blood, as you empty yourself once again ... now surrendering your humanity in blood to the darkness of death. You have given all. Your Divinity and your humanity — and both, that we may share in your life as God! Surrendering both, you were poured out utterly — that we may come to the fullness of life through your death. Utter desolation. Utter abandonment. The total dereliction of God and Man in the God made Man. It is not taken from you. You surrender it. It is yours to surrender, and it is yours to take up again! For all our evil devices we have taken nothing from you but what you willingly surrender, and because it was not in our power to take, it is not in our power to restore. We are not gods after all ... not by us, but for our sake, all has now been accomplished. By our malice, our sin, have we brought you to this death — but not by our power. Your meekness has vanquished the might of all men! In dying you overthrew death itself!
It is no more.
Behold, my Lord
and my God, from
this moment hence
I surrender to you
all that I am, all
that I have! Beyond
the scandal of the
Cross on this hill
of the skull, even
now I behold a gathering
light and it reveals
endless fields that
are yet white to
harvest! You have
come in your going.
I go, too, with
you ... so now,
Lord ... send me
...! |
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Iuxta
Crucem tecum stare,
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Sed unus mílitum láncea latus ejus apéruit, et contínuo exívit sanguis et aqua. Et qui vidit, testimónium perhíbuit: et verum est testimónium ejus. Et ille scit quia vera dicit: ut et vos credátis. Facta sunt enim hæc ut Scriptúra implerétur: Os non comminuétis ex eo. Et íterum ália Scriptúra dicit: Vidébunt in quem transfixérunt.
“But
one of the soldiers
pierced his side
with a spear, and
at once there came
out blood and water.
He who saw it has
borne witness —
his testimony is
true, and he knows
that he tells the
truth — that you
also may believe.
For these things
took place that
the scripture might
be fulfilled, “Not
a bone of him shall
be broken.” And
again another scripture
says, “They shall
look on him whom
they have pierced.”
(St.
John 19.34-37) Let us pray:
O,
my Mother, in
this picture, in
this mirror I see
the dead body of
your Son. Mary, pray for me that I may cling to the promises of Christ and believe that they will be fulfilled within me, body and soul! “Ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die — I will raise him up on the last day.” Your Son promised. I believe.
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Virgo virginum
praeclara,
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Et accépto córpore, Joseph invólvit illud in síndone munda, et pósuit illud in monuménto suo novo, quod excíderat in petra. Et advólvit saxum magnum ad óstium monuménti, et ábiit. Erant autem ibi María Magdaléne, et áltera María, sedéntes contra sepúlchrum. “And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulcher.” (St. Matthew 27.59-61)
Let
us pray:
On the heights of
Mount Tabor, in
your Transfiguration,
we glimpsed the
truth that has pursued
us since: how much
is concealed from
us, both in light
and darkness ...
things are never
quite what they
seem and from this
moment forth, nothing
will be the same
again. Alleluia! Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! Dominus Deus Sabaoth ... Qui erat, Qui est, et Qui venturus est! Alleluia!* By: A Poor Clare Colettine Nun __________________________________________________________________________ *Alleluia! Holy! Holy! Holy! The Lord, God of Hosts, Who was, Who is, and Who is to come (Apocalypse 1.8) (The Stations of the Cross depicted above were photographed at Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Parish, Newton, MA by the Boston Catholic Journal)
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