Lent Day 33. The Shadow of the Cross.
Today on day 33 of Lent, Zoanna Pearson gives some history of the African country of Liberia and the aftermath of its Civil War in the 1980s & 90s.
Today on day 33 of Lent, Zoanna Pearson gives some history of the African country of Liberia and the aftermath of its Civil War in the 1980s & 90s.
As a protestant, I had heard of the Stations of the Cross but didn’t know anything about it until I decided to investigate it this year.
The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, refers to a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The stations grew out of imitations of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which is a traditional processional route symbolizing the actual path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary. The objective of the stations is to help the Christian faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage through contemplation of the Passion Story of Christ. It’s one of the most popular devotions and the stations can be found in many Western Christian churches, including Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and Roman Catholic.
The Stations of the Cross originated in pilgrimage to Jerusalem and a desire to reproduce the Via Dolorosa. Imitating holy places was not a new concept. For example, the religious complex of Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, replicated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred sites, including the Mount of Olives and Valley of Josaphat.
Usually, a series of fourteen images will be arranged in numbered order along a path, and the faithful travel from image to image, in order, stopping at each station to say the selected prayers and reflections. This is done individually or in a procession usually on Good Friday, in a spirit of reparation for the sufferings and insults that Jesus endured during his crucifixion. As a physical devotion involving standing, kneeling, and genuflections, the Stations of the Cross are tied with the Christian themes of repentance and mortification of the flesh.
The style, form, and placement of the stations vary widely. The typical stations are small plaques with reliefs or paintings placed around a church nave. Modern minimalist stations can be simple crosses with a numeral in the center. Occasionally the faithful might say the stations of the cross without there being any image, such as when the pope leads the stations of the cross around the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday.
Obviously, as a Protestant, I was puzzled about station six. Who was Veronica? According to Catholic tradition, Veronica was a pious woman of Jerusalem who was moved with pity upon seeing Jesus carrying his cross to Golgotha. As Jesus passed, Veronica wiped his faith. A miracle occurred when an impression of Jesus’s face was left upon the cloth called The Veil of Veronica.
And, I never knew that Jesus fell three times as featured in stations three, seven, and nine.
In 1991, Pope John Paul II introduced “Scriptural or Biblical Stations of the Cross.” These fourteen stations are tied to scriptures from the Passion story in the gospels.
You might try meditating on these scriptures at each station. You can use the artwork below.
If you want to pray the stations using the scriptures listed above, there are lots of resources online:
The next time you wear a necklace with featuring a cross, I hope you’ll remember the Passion Story and the Stations of the Cross. May you find Holy Week this year meaningful with the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.
by Debora Buerk
Editor
Here & Now
Selah Community
“Experimental Theology” blog by Richard Beck, March 28, 2022
Wikipedia
Lent (noun). From the Old English lencten meaning springtime or spring. “The fast of Lent,” comes from the West Germanic for “long-days,” or “lengthening of the day.”
Lent (n.) the “period between Ash Wednesday and Easter,” from the late 14th century Lenten (n.) In the Christian calendar (early 12th century), “the forty days of fasting before Easter.” Also from the Old English lencten meaning springtime or spring. “The fast of Lent,” comes from the West Germanic for “long-days,” or “lengthening of the day.”
In the Christian church, Lent is a time to meditate and reflect on the life of Jesus Christ: his life, affliction, atonement, death, burial, and resurrection. Lent’s length refers to the forty days he spent in the wilderness being tempted by Satan before beginning his public ministry (Matthew 4).
Lent is about our relationship with Christ. Like all relationships, it has seasons of trial and deprivation, as well as seasons of joy. Lent helps us see where our wants have become distorted into needs. It’s the humble acknowledgment that our appetites can and should make us more forgiving.
Lent is a promise to walk with Jesus. To put our hand in His trustingly, no matter what it requires—into the wilderness or to the cross. Lent is the time to renew our promise to follow Jesus. Just as Naomi said to Ruth, “Wither thou goest, I will go.” (Ruth 1:16 KJV)
The trap of Lent is legalism. The spiritual practice of fasting from food, a vice, a bad habit, or a pleasure. Lent should not be confused with New Year’s resolutions. Nor is it a self-improvement project.
Lent is a time of repentance—an awareness that sin separates us from God and what it cost Jesus Christ to reunite us. Perhaps Lent might be a time to give up our resolutions and instead listen for God’s leading.
by Debora Buerk
Selah Community
Excerpt from
Reflections: A Journey through Lent into Easter
Debora Buerk, Editor
Available on Amazon
By Mary Pandiani
Executive Director
Selah Center
Ash Wednesday is the day on which the season of Lent begins. It is named for the ashes used in the service to make the sign of the cross on one’s forehead. Created from last year’s Palm Sunday palms, the ashes are used to remind worshipers that all humans are mortal, hence the phrase used at committal services in cemeteries: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This phrase, in turn, is based in part on Genesis 3:19, the concluding words of God’s words to Adam who hides in shame, recognizing the separation from God that entered human experience and history in the Garden of Eden:
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for
out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust, you shall return
Genesis 3:19
The use of ashes is based on the practice in biblical times of imposing ashes as a sign of penitence and mourning about that separation. We are mourning sin that so easily entangles us and our world, the separation that leads to human mortality, resulting in death.
Lent is a period of forty days of spiritual preparation for Easter. The forty days are taken from Jesus’ forty days of temptation in the wilderness before His ministry began. The counting of the days excludes Sundays, which are regarded as “little Easters,” thus the total of 47 days. The English word “Lent” comes from a German word which means “spring.” The observance of a 40-day period of preparation for Easter in the Christian Church can be traced back as far as 325 AD. The name “Lent” came much later. Historically, it has especially involved the spiritual discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
In present time, regardless of a particular church tradition, the season becomes a time of reflection and intention to honor the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. It provides a time to consider one’s own life in light of a relationship with the Holy Mystery we call God, knowing we are being invited, again and again, into a transforming communion. No longer separated, we linger in this place of prayer, fasting, and giving of ourselves to God and others. The faint hope of Easter, ever present, builds through the season, preparing our hearts to receive the gift of God’s self in Jesus the Christ, an ongoing discovery of what resurrection offers us all.
For Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
Jan Richardson
Painted Prayer Book