THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Here commences “The Way of the Cross:” The House of Pilate where our Jesus receives the sentence of death, is the FIRST STATION.
Our Redeemer is consigned by the Governor’s order into the hands of the Jews. The soldiers seize Him, and drag Him from the court. They strip Him of the scarlet cloak and bid Him clothe Himself with His own garments as before the scourging. The cross is ready and they put it on His wounded shoulders. The place where the new Isaac loads himself with the wood of his sacrifice, is the SECOND STATION.
To Calvary! This is the word of command, and it is obeyed: soldiers, executioners, priests, scribes, people — these form the procession. Jesus moves slowly on, but after a few paces, exhausted by the loss of Blood and by his Sufferings, he falls under the weight of His cross. It is the first fall, and marks the THIRD STATION. He falls, not so much by the weight of His cross, as by that of our sins!
The soldiers roughly lay their hands on Him, and force Him up again. Scarcely has He resumed his steps, than He is met by His afflicted Mother. The Valiant Woman whose love is stronger than death, was not to be absent at such an hour as this. She must see her Son, follow Him, keep close to Him, even to His last breath. No tongue could tell the poignancy of her grief. The anxiety she has endured during the last few days has exhausted her strength. All the sufferings of Jesus have been made known to her by a divine revelation. She has shared each one of them with Him. But now she cannot endure to be absent and makes her way through the crowd. The sacrifice is near its consummation: no human power could keep such a Mother from her Jesus. The faithful Magdalene is by her side, bathed in tears. John, Mary (the mother of James the Less) and Salome, (the mother of John) are also with her: they weep for their Divine Master, she for her Son. Jesus sees her, but cannot comfort her, for all this is but the beginning of what He is to endure. Oh, what an additional suffering was this for His loving Heart, to see His Mother agonising with sorrow! The executioners observe the Mother of their Victim, but it would be too much mercy in them to allow her to speak to Him. She may follow, if she please, with the crowd. It is more than she could have expected, to have been allowed this Meeting, which we venerate as the FOURTH STATION of the Way of the Cross.
But from this to the last there is a long distance, for there is a law that criminals are to be executed outside the city walls. The Jews are afraid of Jesus expiring before reaching the place of sacrifice. Just at this time, they behold a man coming from the country: his name is Simon of Cyrene. They order him to help Jesus to carry His cross. It is out of a motive of cruelty to our Lord, but it gives Simon the honour of sharing with Him the fatigue of bearing the instrument of the world’s salvation. The spot where this happens is the FIFTH STATION.
A little further on, an incident occurs which strikes the executioners themselves with astonishment. A woman makes her way through the crowd, and setting the soldiers at defiance, comes close up to Jesus. She holds her veil in her hands, and with it respectfully wipes the face of our Lord, for it is covered with blood, sweat and spittle. She loves Jesus and cares not what may happen to her, so she can offer Him this slight comfort. Her love receives its reward: she finds her Veil miraculously impressed with the likeness of Jesus’ face. This courageous act of Veronica marks the SIXTH STATION of the Way of the Cross.
Jesus grows weaker at each step: He falls a second time. It is the SEVENTH STATION. Again do the soldiers violently raise Him up, and push Him along the road. It is easy to follow in His footsteps, for a streak of blood shows where He has passed.
A group of women is following close behind the soldiers. They heed not the insults heaped on them. Their compassion makes them brave. But the last brutal treatment shown to Jesus is more than they can bear in silence. They utter a cry of pitiful lamentation. Our Saviour is pleased with these women, who, in spite of the weakness of their sex, are showing more courage than all the men of Jerusalem put together. He affectionately turns towards them, and tells them what a terrible chastisement is to follow the crime they are now witnessing. The chief Priests and Scribes recognise the dignity of the Prophet that had so often spoken to them: they listen with indignation, and, at this the EIGHTH STATION of the Great Way, they hear these words: “Daughters of Jerusalem! Weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold the days will come when they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the womb that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck. Then will they begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us! And to the hills: Cover us!”
At last, they reach the foot of the hill. Calvary is steep, but is the place of Jesus’ sacrifice. He begins the ascent, but falls a third time: the hallowed spot is counted as the NINTH STATION.
A third time the soldiers force Jesus to rise and continue His painful journey to the summit of the hill, which is to serve as the altar for the holocaust that is to surpass all others in holiness and power. The executioners seize the cross and lay it on the ground, preparatory to their nailing the Divine Victim to it. According to a custom practised both by the Romans and the Jews, a cup containing wine and myrrh is offered to Jesus. This drink, which had the bitterness of gall, was given as a narcotic, in order to deaden, in some degree, the feeling of the criminal, and lessen his pain. Jesus raises to His lips the cup, which was proffered him rather from custom than from any idea of kindness, but He drinks not its contents, for He wishes to feel the full intensity of the sufferings He accepts for our sakes. Then the executioners, having violently stripped Him of his garments which had fastened to His wounds, lead Him to the cross. The place where He was thus stripped of His garments, and where the cup of bitter drink was presented to Him, is venerated as the TENTH STATION of the Way of the Cross.
The executioners lead Jesus to the spot where the cross is lying on the ground: it is the ELEVENTH STATION. Like a lamb destined for a holocaust, He lays Himself on the wood that is to serve as the altar. They violently stretch His hands and feet to the places marked for them, and fasten them with nails to the wood. The Blood gushes forth from these four life-giving founts, in which our souls are to find their purification. This is the fourth Blood shedding. Mary hears the strokes of the hammer, and every blow wounds her heart. Magdalene’s grief is intensified by her incapability of helping her tortured Master.
Jesus is heard to speak: it is His first Word on Calvary: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” Infinite goodness of our Creator! He has come into this world, which is the work of His hands, and men nail Him to a cross: and on that cross He prays for them, and in His prayer He seems to excuse them! The Victim is fastened to the wood on which He is to die. But the cross is not to be left, as it is, lying on the ground. Isaias has foretold that the Root of Jesse is to be raised up as a Standard of all nations. Yes, our Crucified God must be raised up, and, by that elevation, purify the polluted atmosphere of this world, infested as it is by the spirits of wickedness. He is the Mediator between God and men. He is our High Priest, our Intercessor: He is lifted up between earth and heaven, making reconciliation between them.
Not far from the spot where the cross now lies on the ground, they have made a hole in the rock, in which to fix it, so that all may have a sight of Him that hangs upon it. It is the TWELFTH STATION. It needs a great effort to raise and plant the Tree of the world’s Redemption. The soldiers lift it up, and then with impatient vehemence let it fall into the hole. The shock tears the four wounds. Oh! see Him now exposed naked before the multitude, this good Jesus who is come to clothe the nakedness that sin has caused in us! The soldiers have done their work, and now they claim His garments. They tear them into four lots, and each takes a share: but a strange feeling induces them to respect His tunic which was without a seam, and, as we are told by a pious tradition, was woven by the hand of His Blessed Mother.” Let us not cut it,” say they, “but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be.” It is a symbol of the unity of the Church, which is never to be broken under any pretext whatsoever. Above our Redeemer’s head there are written these words, in Hebrew, Greek and Latin: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. The people read this inscription, and say it to each other. Without wishing it, they are once more proclaiming the royalty of the Son of David. The enemies of Jesus are quick enough to perceive this: they hasten to Pilate and beseech him to have the title changed. The only answer he deigns to make them is: “What I have written, I have written.”
His enemies pass before Him, making insulting gestures, and saying: “You that destroy the temple of God, and in three days rebuilds it, save yourself! If you be the Son of God, come down from the cross!” The Chief Priests and the Ancients continue the blasphemy, but adding their own emphasis to it: “He saved others. Himself he cannot save! If he be King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God. Let Him now deliver him, if He will have him, for he said: ‘I am the Son of God.” The two thieves, who were crucified with Him, insult Him in like manner. It is the Sixth hour, or, as we call it, midday. The sun immediately withdraws his light, and darkness covers the face of the earth. The stars appear in the heavens, and a gloomy silence pervades throughout the world. All is silent as death. The thief whose cross was at the right of Jesus’, feels himself touched with repentance and hope. Turning to his companion, he upbraids him for what he had been saying: “Do you not fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we, indeed, justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man has done no evil.” Turning his head towards our Saviour’s cross, he thus prays to Him: “Lord! Remember me, when you will come into your kingdom!” Jesus is pleased to find in this poor criminal the faith he had vainly sought for from Israel: He thus grants his humble prayer: “Amen I say to you, this day you will be with me me in Paradise.” It is the second of Jesus’ Words on the Cross. The happy penitent is filled with joy, and awaits in patient silence the blissful moment when death will set him free.
Meanwhile Mary draws near to the cross on which hangs her Son. She recognises Him in spite of all the darkness: her love was her light. The eclipse has dispersed the crowd. All is silent and the soldiers can find no reason for keeping the afflicted Mother from approaching her Son. Jesus looks with tenderest affection on Mary. The sight of her sorrow is a new grief to His sacred Heart. He is dying, and His Mother cannot console or embrace Him. Magdalene, too, is there, distracted with grief. Those feet, which, a few days before, she had anointed with her most precious perfumes, are now pierced through with nails, and the Blood is clotting round the wounds. They are near enough to the ground for her to reach and bathe them with her tears,; but her tears cannot stay the pain. She is come to see the Death of Him that forgave her all her sins. John, the Beloved Disciple, the only Apostle that has followed Jesus to Calvary, is overwhelmed with sorrow. He thinks of the favour bestowed on him last night, when he rested his head on the breast of this dear Master, and the remembrance intensifies his grief. He grieves for the Son, he grieves for the Mother. He little knows the reward he is soon to receive for this his love! Mary of Cleophas has followed the Holy Mother up to the foot of the Cross. At some distance off there stands a group of women, who loved Jesus, and had ministered to Him during His life. The silence is again broken: Jesus speaks His third Word, and it is to His Mother: but He does not call her by that dear name, for it would redouble her pain: “Woman!” He says, “behold your son!” Then looking upon John, He says to him: “Son! Behold your Mother!” What an exchange was here for Mary, but what a blessing it brought upon John, and through him to all mankind! The Mother of God was made our Mother!
It is close upon the Ninth hour — the third hour after midday — and it is the one fixed by the eternal decree of God for the Death of Jesus. The feeling of abandonment which had caused our Redeemer to suffer an agony in the Garden now returns. He has taken on Himself the sins of mankind: the whole weight of God’s justice now presses on His soul. The bitter Chalice of God’s anger, which He is drinking to the very dregs, extorts from His lips this plaintive cry: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” It is the fourth Word. He does not say “My Father!” He speaks as though He were but a poor sinner trembling before the judgement seat of God. A burning thirst elicits from Him the fifth Word: “I thirst,” upon which one of the soldiers presents to His dying lips a sponge full of vinegar,; and this is all the refreshment He receives from that earth on which He daily pours a heavenly dew, and to which He has given ever-flowing fountains and rivers. The moment is at length come, when Jesus is to yield up His soul to His Father. He has fulfilled every single prophecy that had been foretold of Him, even that of His receiving vinegar when parched with thirst. He therefore speaks this His Sixth Word: “It is consummated.” He has, then, but to die.
His Death is to put the finishing stroke to our Redemption, as the Prophet assures us. But He must die as God. This man, worn out by suffering, exhausted by His three hours’ agony, whose few words were scarce audible to them that stood round His cross, now utters a loud cry which is heard at a great distance off, and fills the Centurion, who commands the guard, with fear and astonishment: “Father! Into your hands I commend my spirit!” This is His Seventh and last Word, after which He bows down His head and dies. At this awful moment, the sun re-appears in the heavens, and darkness ceases: but the earth is shaken by an earthquake, and the rocks are split. The space between the cross of Jesus and that of the bad thief is violently rent asunder, and the opening is shown to this day. The Jewish Priests, who are in the Temple, are terrified at seeing the Veil which hides the Holy of Holies torn from top to bottom: the time for figures and types is over, the great realities are come. Many holy personages arise from their graves, and return to life. But it is in Hell itself that the Death of Jesus is most felt. Satan now sees who He is, against whom he has excited all this persecution. He sees,that the Blood which he has caused to be shed has saved mankind and opened the gates of heaven. This Jesus, whom he dared to tempt in the desert, he now recognises as the Son of God, whose Precious Blood has purchased for men a Redemption that was refused to the rebel Angels.
An hour has scarcely elapsed since Jesus died, when a troop of soldiers, led on by a centurion, come up the hill, breaking the silence with their tramp and voices. They are sent by Pilate. The Chief Priests lost no time in returning to the Governor’s house: and he, at their request, has sent these men to break the legs of the three crucified, detach them from their crosses, and bury them before night. The Jews count the days of their week from sunset, so that the great Sabbath-Day is close upon them. The soldiers come to the crosses. They begin with the two thieves, and put an end to their sufferings and life by breaking their legs. Dimas dies in saintly dispositions, for the promise made to him by Jesus is his consolation: his companion dies blaspheming. The soldiers now advance towards Jesus: Mary’s heart sinks within her: what fresh outrage are these men about to offer to the lifeless and bleeding body of her Son? On inspection, they find that He is dead but that no doubt may be left, and no blame for neglect of orders fall upon them, one of the company raises up his spear and thrusts it into the right Side of the divine Victim, even to the Heart, and when he draws his spear out, there gushes forth a stream of Water and Blood. This is the fifth Blood shedding, and the fifth Wound inflicted on our Jesus on the cross. The soul of the Holy Mother is pierced by this cruel spear, and they that are with her redouble their sobs and tears. How is this terrible day to end? Who will take the body of her Jesus from His cross? Who will enable her to give it a last embrace? The soldiers return to the city, and with them Longinus, he that pierced Jesus’ side, but is already feeling within himself the workings of that faith, for which he is one day to lay down his life as a martyr. But two other men are seen coming towards the cross: they are not enemies, they are faithful disciples of Jesus: one is the wealthy counsellor Joseph of Arimathea, the other is Nicodemus, a ruler among the Jews. Mary gratefully welcomes their arrival: they are come to take the body of Jesus from the cross and give it an honourable burial. They have the requisite authorisation, for Pilate has given permission to Joseph to take the body of Jesus. They lose no time in doing so, for the sun is near to setting, and then begins the Sabbath. Within a few yards from where stands the cross, at the foot of the hillock which forms the summit of Calvary, there is a garden, and in this garden a sepulchre cut into the rock. No one has yet been buried in this tomb. It is to be Jesus’ sepulchre.
To here Joseph and Nicodemus carry the sacred body: they lay it on a slab of stone near to the sepulchre. It is here that Mary receives into her arms the body of her Jesus: she kisses each wound and bathes it with her tears. John, Magdalene, and all that are present, compassionate the holy Mother. She resigns it into the hands of the two disciples, for they have but a few moments left. Upon this slab, which even to this day, is called the Stone of the Anointing, and designates the THIRTEENTH STATION of the way of the Cross, Joseph unfolds a piece of linen, and Nicodemus, whose servants have brought a hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes, makes every arrangement for the embalming. They reverently wash the body, for it was covered with Blood. They remove the Crown of Thorns from the Head and, after embalming it with their perfumes, they wrap it in the Winding-Sheet. Mary gives a last embrace to the remains of her Jesus, who is now hidden under these swathing bands of the tomb.
Joseph and Nicodemus take the body into their arms, and enter the sepulchre. It is the FOURTEENTH STATION of the Way of the Cross. It consists of two open cells. It is into the one on the right hand that they enter, and there in a cavity cut into the side of the rock, they lay the body of Jesus. They then retire and, with the assistance of their servants, they close up the entrance of the sepulchre with a large square stone, which Pilate, at the request of the Jews, orders to he fastened with his own seal, and guarded by a patrol of soldiers. The sun is just setting. The great Sabbath with its severe legal prescriptions is just about to begin. Magdalene and the other women carefully notice the place where Jesus’ body has been laid, and return with all speed to Jerusalem that they may have time to purchase and prepare a quantity of materials for a more careful embalming of the body early on the Sunday morning, that is, immediately after the Sabbath is over. The holy Mother takes a farewell look at the tomb in which lies her Jesus, and then follows the rest into the city. John, her adopted son, keeps close to her. He is the guardian of Her, who, without ceasing to be Mother of God, has been made, also, Mother of men.
Faithful Cross, above all others.
One and only noble Tree,
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest Wood, and sweetest Iron;
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Sing the last, the dread affray;
O’er the Cross, the Victor’s trophy,
high triumphal lay,
How, the pains of death enduring,
Earth’s Redeemer won the day.
He, our Maker, deeply grieving
That the first-made Adam fell,
When he ate the fruit forbidden
Whose reward was death and hell,
Marked e’en then this Tree the ruin
Of the first tree to dispel.
Thus the work for our salvation,
He ordained to be done;
To the traitor’s art opposing,
Art yet deeper than his own;
Thence the remedy procuring
When the fatal wound begun.
Therefore, when at length the fulness
Of the appointed time was come,
He was sent, the world’s Creator,
From the Father’s heavenly home,
And was found in human fashion,
Offspring of the Virgin’s womb.
Lo! he lies, an infant weeping,
Where the narrow manger stands,
While the Mother-Maid his members,
Wraps in mean and lowly bands,
And the swaddling clothes is winding
Round his helpless feet and hands.
Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, he meets his Passion,
For that this he freely willed:
On the Cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where his Life-Blood shall be spilled.
He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that Holy Body broken
Blood and Water forth proceed:
Earth and stars, and sky and ocean.
By that flood from stain are freed.
Faithful Cross! above all other,
One and only noble Tree
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be:
Sweetest Wood and sweetest Iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Bend thy boughs, O tree of Glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For a while the ancient rigor,
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend.
Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world’s ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked race preparing
Harbor, like the ark of old;
With the Sacred Blood anointed
From the smitten Lamb that rolled.
To the Trinity be glory,
Everlasting, as is meet;
Equal to the Father, equal
To the Son, and Paraclete:
Trinal Unity, whose praises
All created things!
