I returned recently from the Holy Land and Jerusalem where I was co-leading an Ecumenical pilgrimage with Bishop Paul Hendricks, the Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark. One of the devotions of the pilgrimage was to walk the Via Dolorosa and to pray the 14 Stations of Cross as we went. It was profoundly moving to follow in Jesus’s steps and allow our imaginations to be sanctified and meditating on the Passion, singing a hymn as we moved from station to station to pray and reflect.
The tradition of following Jesus’s steps to the Cross is ancient and has taken many forms. One sequence of the Stations of the Cross incorporates traditional and extra-Biblical elements of devotion as it invites us to imagine Jesus’s face being wiped by Veronica and Christ falling three times under the weight of his Cross. This is powerful and resonant for many people and is an act of we might call sacred imagination but without Scriptural warrant. In 1991 John Paul II introduced a sequence of stations that is grounded more deeply in the Biblical narrative and has proved in the years since a popular devotion that appeals to many from different Christian traditions. The Church of England has incorporated these Biblical stations into our own provisions for Lent and Holy Week in Common Worship and I wish to commend them to you in these Bishop Christopher writes… last few days before Easter. They will enrich your Biblical imagination and deepen your encounter with Christ. The provisions are available online here.
Jesus’s journey to the Resurrection was only through the Cross and the tomb. We, too, cannot truly encounter the joy of Resurrection without first entering the Passion. It is simply not possible to leap in any meaningful way from Palm Sunday to Easter morning and the Stations of the Cross – along with the devotions of the great piece of unbroken liturgy that is the Triduum on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil – help us to make this journey. We do so in full knowledge that Christ is Risen. None of those who accompanied Christ to the Cross knew this to be the case – we live in a fullness of hope that they were yet to know.
The light of the Resurrection, however, banishes the shadow of the Cross and the darkness of the tomb. As we follow Jesus to the Cross and beyond into the new life he gives us, we discover that we might live in that Christ’s light freely and joyfully, our pain and difficulty transfigured, our sin forgiven. I wish you and those you love a joyful Eastertide.
+Christopher Southwark
