The Cross, place of Jesus’ death, has become the Tree of Life for us. Reflecting on this great mystery, Fr Euan Marley offers a Pro-Life Stations of the Cross – meditations to help us support life with gentleness and strength at its most difficult and dangerous moments, through the loving power of Christ’s Cross.
Image: Stations of the Cross (Portugal), by Rangan Datta (Wiki Creative Commons)
1 Pilate condemns Jesus to die
It is not easy for lawyers to turn against the law. The law is not about personal judgement, yet here the law is clear. Pilate is doing wrong, even by the standards of Roman law. Other factors come into play. Fear of the mob, the desire for political advantage. So an innocent man dies. Some admire Pilate for his doubt, yet those who do wrong while knowing they are doing wrong are the worst sinners of all. Ignorance is an excuse (in Church law, but not in state law) but Pilate was not ignorant.
2 Jesus accepts his cross
The Cross represents the death of every human being, in the Cross the fundamental reality of life is revealed. Yet the cross particularly represents the unjust death of the innocent. Innocence originally meant not being a source of harm. It is only in self defence that killing can be justified. Yet Christ was innocent in every sense. He cannot be a source of harm to anyone. So in death, he is closest to the victims of unjust death, who receive the gift of Christ most fully.
3 Jesus falls for the first time
It is better to stand and to fall, than never to have stood. It is better to have lived a life of choice, between good and evil, between heaven and hell. Even though Our Lord said of Judas, “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” It was still better for all humanity that we have a choice, and Judas made his choice.
4 Jesus meets his mother, Mary
She was the lover of Christ from the first moment of his existence as a human being. She loved with a love that penetrated her womanhood and reached out to his being. Though her human spirit could not reach the human spirt of Jesus in the first moments of his conception, in the power of God’s Holy Spirit she touched the centre of his being. In the same way, by our faith, we too may know that God’s spirit is touching the souls of the newly conceived, of those who suffer dementia and all human beings. This is why we must not love by human power but by the power of God’s spirit.
5 Simon of Cyrene helps carry the cross
It is clear that Simon had become a Christian, as we see him identified in terms of his sons, Alexander and Rufus, known to the first readers of the Gospel of St Mark. The faith, Simon found in touching the cross, he shared with his sons. Which means that in touching the cross, Simon became more fully a father to his sons. There is no true fatherhood, without the cross.
6 Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
A little charity, small mercies, gestures of love and care. Love is often a matter of small things. Yet this does not mean that love is small in itself. The small things can mean so much, they are instruments of eternal love, and the infinite and endless love of God will always come into our world in the small good things we may do for each other.
7 Jesus falls for the second time
Children fall a lot. We have all seen a child running in such blithe confidence and joy, and over they go, and instantly their smile turns to tears. Yet there is usually someone to comfort them. Comfort used to mean, making someone strong by sharing strength with them. It should not mean fearing pain so much that we would take life from them. This is how the taking of life is justified, and called an act of compassion. Children need to be comforted, and the best way to do that is to teach them that there is more to life than being comfortable.
8 Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
Be careful who you weep for. We might feel that tears make us good people, but often we are not really compassionate, merely uneasy in the presence of pain. Then we might tell ourselves the old lie, that we can’t care for people because we care too much.
9 Jesus falls for the third time
We can learn to step over those who lie on the ground. They are no more than obstacles in our way. If Jesus had died on the way to the cross, the Romans might well have left his body there. So look down and care, see what lies at your feet. Never despise the fallen.
10 Jesus is stripped of his clothes
This is an age of relics. Objects which have been touched by celebrities are of great value. This is not why the soldiers took his clothes. They were for use. Yet the love of Christ penetrates our world, right down to the lowliest item of produce. Every thing made with love is a relic of Jesus Our Lord.
11 Jesus is nailed to the cross
It is the body that we must love, not because it is the most important part of a human being, but because it is through the body that our love and our hatred become real. If we do not love human beings through their body, we will hate them through their body. The nails that held Jesus to the Cross were the inverse of his miracles of healing, being contrivances of death.
12 Jesus dies on the cross
In the great silence of death, it seems that even Jesus was to be silent forever, yet he speaks still. He speaks in love and compassion, he comforts us still. He always was with the father, and the father was always with him, and so he rose, so he speaks in love and truth, so he is the voice that is for life always, a voice that speaks in silence even from the Cross.
13 Jesus is taken down from the cross
Do we bury the dead our of respect or out of fear? For Christians it is neither. We bury the dead in hope, and Christ is our hope.
14 Jesus is placed in the tomb
Tomb rhymes with womb, a happy coincidence in English. From the womb life comes, and in Christ life comes from the tomb as well. He was the holy seed buried in the ground, and from him comes all forms of life. So each baby in the womb is like Christ in the ground, and each birth is like a resurrection. How can we claim to long for the Resurrection, if we do not allow the unborn to be born?