Before the station, pray: I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read Luke 23: 27-31
A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us’, and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

The women were convinced of Christ’s holiness. And this holy man was bleeding, covered in sweat and dirt, and near death. But he was still holy. Christ tells them not to weep for him, but for themselves, for their children, and for the world. If we weep, we weep for the world. Weeping, is itself a form of prayer for the world around us.

Just outside the gates of the city, Jesus opens himself to the world. He knows that the world will hurt; he knows that the world will suffer; he knows that the world pits brother against brother and poverty against greed. He knows that the world will weep. In our humanity, we weep, and in our tears, we drown, and in our work and in our life and in our faith, we find the hope for a world yet to be. Father, forgive.

Jesus, I weep—for my own self, for my church, for the world. May my tears become drops of nourishment and waters of life as I claim our part in bringing Creation into full being in your name. Amen.

Before the station, pray: I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read Matthew 27: 27-31
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Here, the procession arrives at the Gate of Judgment, the place where the authorities would pronounce the final judgment on those convicted of crimes. This was the last point of hope. This was the place where many sentences were converted or lessened. Jesus knew that this would not be the case for him. Barrabbas has already been pardoned. There was no hope.

This time Jesus does not fall under the weight of his cross but, rather, the weight of the world. It is just too much to bear. And he falls. He falls at the gate. There is no going back. There is only going forward. The only thing left for the world is hope. Father, forgive.

Jesus, when all hope is lost, remind me to look to you, the hope for all things yet to be. Amen.

Before the station, pray: I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read John 13: 3-17
Jesus…got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him…Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.

Tradition identifies Veronica as the woman who Jesus had healed of a blood disorder (Luke 8: 43-48) who comes to be with him on the day of his crucifixion. This was a woman so moved by the compassion that she had been shown that she knows no other way to respond except with that same compassion. As she steps toward Jesus, she wipes the sweat from his face and the imprint, the image of Jesus, is left on the cloth. In her compassion, Veronica was able to look through death and despair to the real image of Christ and, in doing so, found it in herself.

The derivation of her name is from the words Vera (Latin, “true”) and Icon (Greek, “image”). Being human, being made in the true image of God, means that we are called to show compassion to others, who are also the “image of God”. We can no longer dismiss our shortcomings as “merely human”. Being human means being made in the image of God. Being human is what we are called to be. Father, forgive.

Jesus, remind me again and again what it means to be human, what it means to be made in your image, that my life might be an imprint of your image for the world to see. Amen.

Before the station, pray: I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read Mark 16: 15-22
Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort…Then they led him out to crucify him. They compelled a passerby, who was coming in from the country, to carry the cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the
                                                       place of a skull).

We really know very little about Simon—is he black, brown, white, olive-skinned? Does it matter? He was from Libya—a foreigner to the city of Jerusalem. Anonymously plucked out of the crowd to help a bleeding dying man, he stooped and hoisted the cross that Jesus was carrying to his own shoulder. Even at this late hour, God has orchestrated a Divine reversal in what the world expected.

We are asked to contemplate how we are being asked to help Jesus carry the cross. This means letting go of all of our fears, our prejudices, and justifications that hold us back from connecting with others, from completing the circle of God’s creation that is love. Father, forgive.

Jesus, may I be the one that carries your cross, that steps forward into the difficult venues of your love. In the name of the One who shows me what it means to be your Disciple. Amen.

Before the station, pray: I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read Luke 1: 35-55

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”…Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

She loved her son…loved him with the deepest love that any mother would. After all, this was the child that she carried in her womb, birthed into the world in the rough hues of that cold desert night shielded only by a stable, or a cave, or a grotto, or something of the like. This was the child that she nurtured and saw grow into a successful young man. And now here he is…carrying the cross like a common criminal…bleeding and exhausted…but she is held back from approaching him. What she is called to do is atrocious. She must give him up.

But what about God? This is God’s child—one that God created and loved and with perfect love gave him to the world as a part of Godself. And this perfect love, this part of God, is being rejected by those to whom he was given.

But even in this we are called to forgiveness, the forgiveness that God showed us through the deepest love of a mother’s heart. Father, forgive.

Jesus, may your love, and that of your mother, be the spark of my zeal in the cause of spreading justice and peace throughout the human family. In the name of the One who brings all unity. Amen.

Before the station, pray: We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read Matthew 27: 27-31
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Jesus was exhausted and trembling under the weight of the cross-beam. He could not take it any longer and fell to the ground, face down in the dust and dirt of the well-traveled path. Someone jerked him up from his moment’s rest and prodded him on. And the world stands and watches, seemingly unmoved by the visceral treatment of one who was once so renowned. “Hail, King of the Jews”, now fallen, now face down in the dust and dirt of the well-traveled path.

Where are we? Do we lay there in the pathway of forgotten footprints? Do we stand by the sidelines too afraid to move? We must get up and get going. It is time to follow. Father, forgive.

Jesus, may your courage be my stamina for getting up again and again, realizing that only the weak fall once. In the name of the One who raises me up on eagle’s wings. Amen.

Before the station, pray: I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Read John 19: 16-17
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.

And Jesus, carrying his own cross, starts his “Way of the Cross”. Weak and alone, but with great dignity, Jesus emerges from the fortress. And yet…there was so much that he still had to accomplish. It was almost too great to bear.

This wooden cross was a tree—a tree that God created, that God nurtured, that God showered with the joy of life—a tree that would become the instrument of Christ’s death. We are asked, then, to bear the cross, to bear the instrument of death. We are asked to bear life.

Sadhu Sundar Singh says that “if we do not bear the cross of the Master, we will have to bear the cross of the world, with all of its earthly goods.” Which cross is yours to bear? Father, forgive.

Jesus, may your willingness to carry your cross be my strength in losing my life that I may find it. In the name of the One who bears all things. Amen.