Stations of the Cross 2005
The First Station: Jesus is condemned to death
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Lord, it's too late for you to be quiet, you have spoken too much; you have fought too much;
You were not sensible, you know, you exaggerated; it was bound to happen.
You called the better people a brood of vipers,
You told them that their hearts were black sepulchers with fine exteriors,
You chose the decaying lepers,
You spoke fearlessly with unacceptable strangers,
You ate with notorious sinners, you said streetwalkers would be first in Paradise.
You got on well with the poor, the bums, the crippled.
You belittled religious regulations.
Your interpretation of the Law reduced it to one little commandment: to Love.
Now they are avenging themselves.
They have taken steps against you; they have approached the authorities, and action will follow.
Lord, I know that is I try to live a little like you, I shall be condemned.
I am afraid.
They are already singling me out.
Some smile at me, others laugh, some are shocked, and several of my friends are about to drop me.
I am afraid to stop,
I am afraid to listen to men's wisdom,
It whispers: you must go forward little by little, everything can't be taken literally, it's better to come to terms with one's adversary...
And yet, Lord, I know you are right.
Help me to fight,
Help me to speak,
Help me to live your Gospel to the end
to the folly of the Cross.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
Second Station: Jesus Carries His Cross
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Lord, here is your cross.
Your Cross! As if it were your Cross!
You had no cross and you came to get ours, and all through your life, and along the road to Calvary, you took upon you, one by one, the sins of the world.
You have to go forward,
and bend
and suffer.
The Cross must be carried.
Lord you walk on silently; is it true, then, that there is a time for speaking and a time for silence?
Is it true that there is a time for struggling and another for the silent bearing of our sins and the sins of the world?
Lord, I would rather fight the cross; to bear it is hard. The more I progress, and the more I see evil in the world, the heavier the Cross is on my shoulders.
Lord, help me understand that the most generous deed is nothing unless it is also silently redemptive.
And since you want me for this long way of the Cross,
at the dawning of each day, help me to set forth.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
The Third Station: Jesus falls the first time
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He fell.
For a moment he staggered, then fell prostrate,
God in the dust.
And so, Lord, I follow you, setting out with confidence, and now I have fallen.
I thought I had given myself irrevocably to you, but I caught site of a flower on the foot path.
I left you, I left the cumbersome Cross, and here I am off the road, possessed of a few faded petals and my solitude.
And the others, Lord, pass along the road, broken, exhausted.
And crosses are in the making and backs are bending.
I am no longer there to fight evil and to help men drag their loads,
I am off the road.
Lord, help me not only follow after you but to keep steadily on. Keep me from sudden weakness that leaves me stupefied and empty, far from the place where you are shaping the world.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
The Fourth Station, Jesus meets his mother.
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Lord, I pity your poor mother.
She follows,
She follows you,
She follows mankind on the way to the cross.
She walks off in a crowd, unknown, but she doesn't take her eyes off of you.
Every gesture of yours, every sigh, every blow dealt you, every wound, pierces her heart.
She knows your sufferings,
She suffers your sufferings,
And without coming near you, without touching you, without speaking to you, Lord with you she save the world.
Often, mingled with the crowd, I accompany men on their way of the cross.
And I am crushed by evil.
I feel incapable of saving the world; it is too heavy and rotten, and every new day, at the turn of the road I become acquainted with new injustices and new impurities.
Lord, show me your mother, Mary.
The useless one, the ineffectual one in the sight of men,
but eh co-redemptorix in the sight of God.
Help me to walk among men, eager to know their miseries and sins.
May I never avert my eyes,
may I never close my heart,
that in welcoming the sufferings of the world, with Mary, your mother, I may suffer and redeem.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
The Fifth Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry his cross
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He passed by the road;
they pressed him into service,
the first to come along, a stranger.
Lord, you accepted his help. You did not want the help of a friend, the solace of a gesture of love, the generous impulse of one who cared.
You chose the help of an indifferent and timid fellow.
Lord all powerful, you sought the help of a powerless man.
By your own choosing you are in need of us.
Lord, I need others.
The way of man is too hard to be trodden alone.
But I avoid the hands outstretched to help me,
I want to act alone,
I want to fight alone,
I want to succeed alone.
And yet, beside me walk a friend, a spouse, a brother, a neighbor, a fellow worker.
You have placed them near me, Lord, and too often I ignore them.
And yet it is together hat we shall save the world.
Lord, even if they are requisitioned, grant that I may see, that I may accept, all the Simons on my road.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
The Sixth Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
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For a long time, her eyes were on you; She suffered from your suffering.
Unable to bear it any longer, she pushed the soldiers aside, and with a cloth of fine linen wiped your face.
Were your bleeding features imprinted on her cloth? Maybe.
In her heart, surely.
Lord, I need to contemplate you at great length, disinterestedly, as a little brother admires and loves his big brother.
For I want to resemble you; and for that I must first look at you.
If you want, I shall become a little like you, since friends who love each other become one.
But, Lord, too often I carelessly pass in front of you, or am bored when I stop and look at you.
And to others I must be a sad caricature of you.
Forgive my body, eager for pleasures; it does not bring your presence to others.
Forgive my clouded eyes: in them others cannot see your light.
Forgive my embittered heart: in it others do not see your love.
Nevertheless, Lord, come to me; my door in open.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
Seventh Station: Jesus falls for the second time
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Lord, you are spent.
Again you have fallen to the ground.
This time you fall not only from the weight of the cross but from exhaustion.
Recurrent suffering numbs the will.
My sins, Lord, are dulling my conscience.
I get used to evil very quickly:
A little self indulgence here,
a small unfaithfulness there,
an unwise action further on,
and my vision becomes obscured; I no longer see stumbling blocks, I no longer see other people on my road,
My ears gradually close; I no longer hear the complaints of men.
I find myself on the ground, on the plain, far from the road you laid out for me.
Lord, I beseech you, keep me young in my efforts,
Spare me the bondage of habit, which lulls to sleep and kills.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
Eighth Station: Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
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They weep.
They sob.
It is easy to understand if you see what men have done to him.
And they are helpless, they cannot interfere,
So they weep, they weep in pity.
Lord, you have seen them, you have heard them,
But you said: "Weep, first for your sins."
To pity your sufferings and the sufferings of the world I manage very well, Lord.
But to weep for my own sins, that's another matter.
I'd as like bemoan those of others.
It's easier.
I'm well up on that; the whole world passes every day before my tribunal.
I've found plenty of guilt: in politics, economics, slums, alcohol, movies, industry. I see it in many people: in laissez-faire Christians, in priests who don't understand a thing, and in many others, Lord, may others.
All in all, in just about the whole world, save me.
Lord, teach me that I am a sinner.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
Ninth Station: Jesus Falls the Third Time
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Again you do not move, for all the soldier's beating.
Lord, are you dead?
No, but utterly spent.
A minute of terrible anxiety.
But you begin again, just as you are, Lord, and walk on. One step, then another...
Lord, you have fallen a third time, but this time close to Calvary.
Again.
I fall every time.
But I'll never get there.
But I've said before Lord, please forgive me, for you were right with me, you were just testing my trust.
If I become discouraged, I am lost.
If I keep up the fight, I am saved.
For you fell a third time, but you has nearly reached Calvary.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
The Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments
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You had nothing left but your own cloak;
You were fond of it, your own Mother had woven it for you.
But, this too, had to go.
Only one thing is needful Lord, your Cross.
Nothing now comes between you and your cross;
You are finally going to be united forever,
And together you will save the world.
And so, Lord, I must give up all these trappings which hinder me from your sight.
This "possessing" which stifles the ":being" in me and separates me from others.
Thus, Lord, little by little all in my life must die which is not an expression of your will.
I don't like it Lord, it is always a question of dying!
How demanding you are!
I give, and you want more.
I'd like to keep a few trifles,
A few trifles I cling to and can't bring myself to offer you.
But if you want al Lord, take all.
Strip me, yourself, of my last garment.
For well I know that we must die to deserve life,
as the seed must die to yield the golden grain.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the Cross
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Lord, you stretch out at full length on the Cross.
There.
Without a doubt, it is made for you.
You cover it entirely, and to adhere to it more surely, you allow men to nail you carefully to it.
Lord, it was work well done, conscientiously done.
Now, you fit your cross exactly, as as the mechanic's carefully filed parts fit the engineer's blueprint.
There had to be this precision.
Thus, Lord, I must gather my body, my heart, my spirit,
and stretch myself at full length on the Cross of the present moment.
I haven't the right to choose the wood of my passion.
The Cross is ready, to my measure.
You present it to me each day, each minute, and I must lie on it.
It isn't easy. The present moment is so limited that there is no room to turn around.
And yet, Lord, I can meet you nowhere else.
It's there you await me.
It's there that together we shall save our brothers.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist
The Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the cross
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A few hours more,
a few minutes more, a few instants more.
For thirty-three years it has been going on.
For thirty-three years you have lived fully, minute after minute.
You can no longer escape now; you are there, at the end of your life, at the end of your road.
You are at the last extremity, at the edge of a precipice.
You must take the last step,
The last step of love,
the last step that ends in death.
You hesitate.
Three hours are long, three hours of agony;
Longer than three years of life,
Longer than thirty years of life.
You must decide, Lord, all is ready around you.
You are there, motionless, on your cross.
You have renounced all activity other than embracing these crossed planks for which you were made.
And yet, there is still life in your nailed body.
Let mortal flesh die, and make way for Eternity.
Now, life slips from each limb, one by one, finding refuge in his still beating heart,
Immeasurable heart,
overflowing heart,
heart heavy as the world, the world of sins and miseries that it bears.
Lord, one more effort.
Mankind is there, waiting unknowingly for the cry of its Savior.
Your brothers are there; they need you.
Your Father bends over you, already holding out his arms.
Lord, save us,
Save us.
See.
He has already taken his heavy heart,
and
slowly,
laboriously,
Alone between heaven and earth,
In the awesome night,
with passionate love,
he has gathered all the sin of the world,
and in a cry,
he has given ALL.
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
Christ just died for us.
Lord help me to die for you.
Help me to die for them.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist
Thirteenth Station: Jesus is taken down from the Cross
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Your work is done.
You can leave your cross.
You can come down to rest, you have surely earned it.
Slowly you slip down, like a man weary of labor and drowsy with sleep.
Your mother takes you into her arms.
You rest in peace.
Over your face, calm and serve, there passes a ray of joy. All is accomplished.
You have made your mother suffer, but she is proud of you.
"sleep now, my little one, your mother is watching you."
Thus each night my day ended, I fall asleep.
What a state I am in sometimes, Lord.
But, alas, it is not always in serving the Father that I have become soiled and tired.
Mary, will you be willing, even so, to watch over me every night?
My body weighed down with its failures, but my heart asks forgiveness.
Don't forget, you are the refuge of sinners.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me, a poor sinner.
Grant that through the merits of your son, I may never fall asleep without receiving the forgiveness of our Father.
That, each night, resting in peace in your arms, I may learn how to die.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the tomb
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Let's forget it now,
And all go home.
He is buried and the stone is in place.
His family is in tears, his friends are lost.
This time it is really over.
Lord, it is not over.
"You are in agony till the end of time." I know.
Men tread in relays the way of the cross.
The resurrection will only be completed when they have reached the end of the Way.
I am on the road; I have a small share in your suffering and others have theirs.
Together we help you to carry the burden that you have assumed and made divine.
There lies my hope, Lord, and my invincible trust.
There is not a fraction of my little suffering that you have not already lived and transformed into infinite redemption.
When the road is hard and monotonous,
When it leads to the grave, I know that beyond the grave you are waiting for me in your glory.
Lord, help me to faithfully travel along my road, at my proper place in the vastness of humanity.
Help me, above all to recognize you and to help you in all my pilgrim brothers.
For it would be a lie to weep before your lifeless image if I did not follow you living on the road men travel.
(From Prayers, by Abbe Michel Quoist)
