A Way of Living

You will show me the path of life,

the fullness of joy in your presence,

at your right hand happiness for ever.

~Psalm 15:11

The way of the cross has become more than a way of dying. It has spawned a devotion all its own, instructing us in a way of living. Within the Stations of the Cross, as they have become known, we focus on the "stations," those freeze-frame stops along the Good Friday road, unpacking each final lesson Jesus was teaching. We might also remember that the proper term for this devotion is The Way of the Cross, with its emphasis not on stopping but on pilgrimage. The journey toward the tomb teaches us well, precisely because we are all presently taking that journey. The Way of the Cross, in one form or another, is everyone's way. That's why Jesus, in his great mercy, was moved to take it ahead of us.

...How do we undertake our own Way of the Cross? Do we accept our sufferings under duress? Do we turn our unexpected and conscripted service into a life of discipleship? Do we recognize the pain of others as our own pain, because it is first of all the suffering of Christ, of whose Body we are a part? Can we find the courage to reveal the compassion of Christ, even in places where it is unwelcome and perhaps dangerous?

~from The Rosary by Alice Camille

Dear Lord, may I always rejoice to walk the Way of the Cross with You, our Crucified and Risen Savior.  Amen.

Update on The Way of the Cross at the Colosseum

The Way of the Cross at the Vatican Web site includes images for all the stations; each one opens in a new window. The Catholic News Service (CNS) blog has published the entire service, both text and images, on a single page, along with an informative article explaining this year's Way of the Cross, "Pope's Way of the Cross: 2010 service focuses on essentials of faith". Zenit has also published a no-frills text version of this Way of the Cross, which can be easily copied and pasted into a document.

Way of the Cross at the Colosseum in Rome

Also on the Vatican Web site is the Way of the Cross to be led by Pope Benedict XVI tomorrow, Good Friday, at the Colosseum in Rome. The meditations and prayers were written by Cardinal Camillo Ruini this year. The following prayer is included in his brief introduction to these traditional Stations.

Lord God, almighty Father, you know all things and you see, hidden within our hearts, our great need for you. Grant each of us the humility to acknowledge this need. Free our mind from the pretension, wrong-headed and even ridiculous, that we can master the mystery which embraces us. Free our will from the presumption, equally naïve and unfounded, that we can create our own happiness and the meaning of our lives. Enlighten and purify our inner eye, and enable us to recognize, free of all hypocrisy, the evil which lies within us. But grant us too, in the light of the cross and resurrection of your only Son, the certainty that, united to him and sustained by him, we too can overcome evil with good. Lord Jesus, help us, in this spirit, to walk behind your cross. Amen.

The Value of Our Daily Suffering

Jesus' sorrowful journey, the Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, is a precious reminder to us to recognize the value of our daily suffering: a lesson not to avoid it with opportunistic pretext or vain excuses; an impetus to make of it instead a gift to him who loved us, in the certainty that in this way we will build a new culture of love and cooperate in the divine work of salvation.

May Mary, who…followed Jesus on the way of the Cross, and whom we will find on Calvary, be for us a model in this gift of ourselves: may she help us to understand the value of our suffering and offer it to the Father joined with Christ's suffering.

~Pope John Paul II, March 5, 1989

Dear Mary, Mother of Sorrows, let me not waste whatever suffering will be mine this day. Show me how to unite it with your Son's suffering, as you did, for the life of the world. Amen.

Fourth Station, Adrienne von Speyr

Father, you entrusted your Son to me by your Spirit. And as I have given him back to you daily and hourly, I give him back to you now once more, knowing that his suffering is nothing other than the expression of your grace, the expression of your love.

It is hard to understand. I do not understand it at all. And yet I know that I must give precisely this, that you require it in this way. And I ask you: Take your son out of my hands -- for he is my Son -- and take at one and the same time everything I myself have given him and which in this farewell hour bears only the name of pain and grief. Take it, dispose of it, let my suffering become as heavy as you will, I know (your Son has taught me this) that this is how I must pray in this hour.

Mary on the Way of the Cross,
Prayer to the Father
by Adrienne von Speyr
in With God and With Men

Here Our Lady plainly states that she does not understand…but she knows. She knows, she says, because Her Son has taught her. Her Son! Jesus, whom as a little child she taught to pray -- the Word, who learned from her lips verses from the Sacred Scriptures, especially those so dear to her heart -- the young man, who increased in wisdom and favor with God and man while living a humble life in Nazareth and being obedient to Mary and Joseph. This Son, her one and only Son, who took flesh in her womb when she uttered "Be it done unto me" has taught his mother to surrender everything with him in his prayer of total abandonment, "Father, Into your hands." Mary's suffering is heavy indeed as she meets her beloved Son climbing the mount of lovers. Her suffering will become even heavier as she kneels at the foot of His cross, utterly bereft as she receives the body of her dead child. She does not understand...but she knows...

Virgin of all virgins best,

Listen to my fond request

Let me share thy grief divine.

Fourth Station, by Hubert Von Zeller

Mary, teach me at this station the true meaning of compassion. Show me what lies beyond the emotion of human pity, and lead me to that supernatural view of natural suffering which invites my active and Godward co-operation. Let me come out from the shelter of my life, and meet the miseries of thy Son's mystical body in the spirit with which you went out to meet your Son. Mary, pray for me that I may see in those who suffer -- whether physically or morally, innocently or deservedly -- the presence of Christ whose pains you willingly chose to share.

Hubert Van Zeller in The Way of the Cross

Fourth Station, by Hans Urs von Balthasar

Jesus Meets His Mother

"Mary, our Virgin Mother, on the way to Calvary, you met Jesus carrying his cross. His face showed anguish, and his limbs were weak with pain. He did not complain, and his eyes were full of love. You met him and you understood. With him you climbed the hill of sacrifice, and you shared in his suffering for our salvation. Teach us, Virgin Mother, to recognize your Son in the oppressed, the outcast and the despised. Show us to walk by his side until his face shines with hope and, in the light of the cross, his agony is changed into joy." ~from The Way of the Cross by Hans Urs von Balthasar*

She met him and she understood. How often when I meet others in their suffering I do not understand. Sometimes I am too self-absorbed to understand. I am caught up in my own little world with my own little sufferings, and there's no room in my heart for anyone else and her sufferings. Other times I do not understand because I am preoccupied with resisting. I don't want to see this person suffering as she is and so I fail to understand that this is her God-given way of carrying the Cross with our Lord. Jesus is inviting her to share His suffering through this particular cross, but I want her to have another cross, a less heavy one. Help me, dear Mary, to let go of all that prevents me from understanding. Pray for me, Mother of Sorrows, that your crucified Son may never be a stumbling-block or foolishness for me but rather the power and wisdom of God. Amen! (cf. 1 Cor 1:22-25)

*Every Good Friday, the Holy Father walks the fourteen stations of the Cross around the Colosseum in Rome. These meditations were written by Hans Urs von Balthasar and used by Pope John Paul II on Good Friday 1988. Meditations from previous years can be viewed at the Vatican Web site.