The fourth station: Jesus meets his mother, according to Mary’s memories

The sixth station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, according to Veronica’s memories

The eighth station: the women console Jesus, according to the memories of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law

The twelfth station: Jesus dies on the cross according to the memories of Mary Magdalene

The thirteenth station: Jesus is taken down from the cross, according to the memories of Mary, his mother

The fifteenth station: Jesus is raised from the dead, according to the memories of Mary Magdalene

This Lent let us take this time to be with the women on the way of the cross and enter into their minds and hearts. In particular, let us focus on the wound in each of their hearts as a way to enter into their heart-suffering, that of others, and perhaps our own.  I will be offering you my reflections on what I imagine they may have been thinking and feeling. I invite you to imagine what you think they may have been thinking and feeling. After each station, let us take a moment to pray silently.

Invitation to quiet

Let us take a moment and see at which station of the cross we are drawn to pray this Lent.

What is our attraction? What is the wound in our heart? How are we begging God for healing?

What is the wound in another’s heart? How are we reaching out to that person with compassion?

The fourth station: Jesus meets his mother, according to Mary’s memories

 

At first it was unthinkable, that my son would be condemned to death and carry his cross.

I felt insulted and enraged. I felt so helpless and alone. My heart was wounded by the knowledge that my son had been unjustly condemned to death. And then John came over and asked me if I wanted to join him on the way to Golgotha. Off we went.  I went with him because I had to be with him.

I saw Jesus fall and wanted to go to him. I wasn't sure whether he would want me to make myself known. But then he stopped. Our eyes met, his bloodshot eyes, eyes that had seen guards beating, whipping, and tying him. He was choosing to live in the present moment with Yahweh. What he said to me in no words contained all he had ever said and all that we both knew but never spoke of, though we never knew that the suffering we both experienced in our sensitivity to life would have such bitter consequences.

I could see how sleepless he was, how strained by all that had happened. Tears flooded my heart. And yet, I had the distinct impression that he was not looking to me for sympathy. At a deep level of his being, he was living the line from the prophet Second Isaiah: "In quietness and in trust shall be your strength" (Is. 30:15,NRSV). And from his calm, I drew strength. 

As he moved on, I found myself pondering the song of Hannah when she first handed her son Samuel over to Yahweh for the whole of his life shortly after his birth:

My heart exults in the Most High,
my strength is exalted in my God.
My lips renounce all that is evil,
because I rejoice in your salvation.
O God, you put to death and give life;
you cast down to the grave and raise up.
You make poor and make rich;
you bring low, you also exalt.
You raise up the poor from the dust;
you lift the needy from the ash heap,
to seat them with those of renown
and inherit a seat of honor.[1]

Is birth so different from death? I chose to be a woman wrapped in silence, pondering all that was happening in Yahweh's presence. And in my heart I prayed with and for others in horrendous situations feeling powerless.   

Let us take a moment and pray for las Madres de El Salvador who have chosen to pursue nonviolent ways of finding their sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles who have disappeared or been killed; for poor women in Mexico whose sons and husbands have tried to cross the border and either did not make it or made it but got caught; for other women in Latin America whose sons and husbands are the victims of the military and/or the government.

The sixth station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, according to Veronica’s memories

 

My husband was a wool dyer. I always dress well. When I saw Jesus in the synagogue one day, I noticed that he wore a seamless garment. Several years ago, he stood up and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah about he Spirit of Yahweh having anointed him to heal the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1,NRSV ). He spoke to my own broken heart. My husband Silas was having an affair at the time and I did not know how to cope. I wanted to leave him. I felt rejected. Our parents had arranged our wedding, as was the custom. My father, a wealthy merchant, had recognized his father as a hard-working man of character, and felt I would be in good hands to marry his son. The longer we lived together, the more we appreciated each other and enjoyed being with each other.

But then a woman started selling the dyed wool in his tent. She seemed attracted to him. I can understand why. He is handsome and rich. And then he started coming home later and later. Some nights he did not come at all. I was beside myself.

So I spent more time in town. I began hanging out with the crowd that followed Jesus. I heard him proclaim a message of forgiveness and saw him cure the sick. Slowly, slowly, in prayer, I got in touch with my own unwillingness to forgive and my husband’s pain of not feeling worthy of me, even though he was so successful. He needed to count. This was the wound in his heart. In time his mistress moved on and he started coming home for supper again.

Then as I continued to ponder my life in the presence of Yahweh, I discovered my own need to count. I could never get enough attention and affirmation. No one, nothing could satisfy me. This was the wound in my heart. What finally changed me was hearing Jesus talk about loving as he loved, listening as he listened, acting in others’ lives as he would act, gently, peacefully. My heart was on fire to enter into his mind and heart. In my prayer I kept begging for the grace to have mercy on Silas and I felt drawn to say, “I am willing to forgive you and I acknowledge the pain out of which you have acted like this. I share this pain, this need to count. I forgive you for being the way you are. I forgive you for being the way I am. I forgive myself.” And just as my life was taking off due to my personal relationship with Jesus, his was coming to an end.

My heart went out to Jesus, struggling with the weight of the cross, exhausted, overwhelmed. So often when he had visited our home, I had wiped his feet when he arrived, dusty from his walk in the dirt and sand.

My heart went out to him. My hands went out to him. I had the cloth in my hand because I had been cleaning when another woman disciple of Jesus  had come and told me that he had been arrested the night before and condemned to death that morning. I was so upset I went as I was and joined the crowd gathering around him.

My heart went out to him. I took one look at his face, an anguished face, a face full of blood and sweat. The thorns had made marks on his forehead. The whiplashes had left wounds on his cheeks. His lips were cut. His eyes looked as if they had seen worlds.

At first I wiped his face so that he could see, wiping off some of the blood and sweat. Then I realized I had wiped his face to ease his pain, to give him some sense of our being with him and wanting to support him in this horrific moment.

After his death, I realized I had wiped his face to make a portrait, a keepsake, an imprint, a memory of the suffering he endured. And that night I recalled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah which describes another portrait, another imprint, another memory of a suffering servant years ago:

See, my servant shall prosper;
he shall be exalted and lifted up,
and shall be very high.

Just as there were many who were astonished at him
— so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,
And his form beyond that of mortals —

so he shall startle many nations. . .

He had no form or majesty that
we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that
we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering, and acquainted with infirmity;

and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities
And carried our diseases;

yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that
made us whole,

And by his bruises we are healed (Isaiah 52:13-15, 53:2-5, NRSV).

In my heart I prayed with and for women with a strong need for recognition and affirmation that they might let it be transformed for others.

Let us take a moment and pray silently for those who were engaged and those who were married, those in happy marriages, those in broken marriages, and those in healing marriages.

The eighth station: the women console Jesus, according to the memories of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law

 

When I first saw him falling for the second time, I wanted to reach out, take him by the hand, and help him up. Three years ago I had gone to bed with a fever. Was it arthritis, bursitis, or sciatica, coupled with a strep throat, flu, or pneumonia? Everyone who came to visit me had a different diagnosis. I think what was really getting me down was my wounded heart. My daughter Thecla and I had had a big row, and Simon Peter took her side. Who was I to tell them what to do? Maybe I should not have moved in with them. After all, Simon Peter’s mother encouraged him to get a place of their own. But my husband died and their children grew and started families of their own. Thecla and Simon Peter had plenty of room and I tried not to be underfoot. I ached to think there was a rift between us.

I only remembered how Jesus had reached out to me when Simon Peter had told him that I was sick. He came to me at once, took me by the hand, and helped me up. The fever left me. And when Jesus healed my body, he also healed my heart. I apologized at once to Thecla and she to me. As a gesture of reconciliation, I prepared a wonderful dinner for Jesus, Thecla, and Simon Peter (Mk. 1:29-31,NRSV). I was able to get some chickens from a neighbor – a real treat for a family who eat a lot of fish!

After that whenever Simon Peter came home, he told my daughter and me all that Jesus had said and done. But now was this the same Jesus who had healed me? Was this the same man who could calm a storm?

This morning after Jesus’ arrest, Peter had come home distraught. After a fine passover supper last evening, Jesus had taken him, James, and John to the Garden of Olives. He had knelt apart from them and they had fallen asleep. Then they saw torches and guards appeared. Judas betrayed him with a kiss. But Peter followed him at a distance and had been recognized by one of the serving women as a follower of Jesus. Peter denied that he knew Jesus. After that the cock crowed, Jesus turned and looked right at Peter, and Peter remembered what Jesus had predicted: “‘By the time the cock crows today, you will have disowned me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly”  (Luke 22:61-62,JB ). Peter was beside himself. I think he was scandalized by his own weakness. All this he told Thecla and me, and then he asked us if we wanted to go with him to Calvary. We came with him, out of gratitude and a deep desire to support Jesus in his hour of need. I felt so helpless.

A group of us women gathered together and wept to see him in this way. I remembered another time when he himself had wept over Jerusalem’s refusal to believe in him. He said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused (Luke 13:34-35,JB )! And now he himself was being killed by his own people! I felt so sad that someone who had done so much good to so many of us was being put to death.

I looked over at my daughter Thecla standing next to me. I could see the sadness in her eyes, her concern for their son Philemon who ran the inn nearby. He loved to join his patrons for a drink of wine, but lately he was drinking more heavily, getting in fights, talking more loudly when drunk, and not showing up for work. Thecla knows that nothing she could say would change him. He does not grow by criticism. His wife Aquila is waiting patiently for him to want to change. What a heartache for Thecla and Simon Peter! Indeed she wept for their son Philemon and I joined her. It seemed as if Jesus could tell that each of us had a deep sorrow in our lives and was inviting us to grieve and let the healing begin.

In my heart I prayed for those who feel alienated or estranged from a loved one, and for those who look outside themselves to fill the emptiness within. Let us take a moment and pray for childless women, for women with children and grandchildren, for women having difficulties with their in-laws, for women who are alcoholics, for women related to alcoholics, for women with other addictions.

The twelfth station: Jesus dies on the cross according to the memories of Mary Magdalene

Last night when I was serving him and his apostles at table, I overheard him sharing deeply his vision and values. He said that his hour had come, the hour of darkness, but that light would triumph, that he and Yahweh were one (John 16:32,NRSV). And as I watched him dying, I began to ponder death in earnest.

 

At the end
there is only the silence at the center.
We watch, we wait, we practice learning how         
to listen to the silence.

At the end
we are emptied and filled by the silence at the center of
our being.

We watch others go about their daily lives.
We wait as we let go of everything in order to surrender
to the emptiness, the open space deep within.

At the end
there is only one love healing and holding us in its silence.
We watch as the wounds of our lives are healed by peace.
We wait to be held by passion.

At the end
there is only the silence at the center of our lives.
We are emptied and filled by this silent, strong, steady love.
We watch, we wait, we surrender slowly, serenely,
to the light in the dark, to the fire.

He cried out “I am thirsty” (Jn. 19:28, NRSV)! I felt he was speaking to my heart, how I thirst for so much in life. What I seem most to long for is to be treated in special ways. This is a wound in my heart that never quite heals. After he had gotten rid of the seven demons possessing me, I felt he restored my dignity and sense of self-worth. I had followed him everywhere. In fact, I loved to sit at table with him and hear him talk. Often he would rest his eyes on me as he was resting his heart on mine. He always took time to listen to me no matter how tired he was. And when I bathed his dusty feet as he came in after a long day;, he always thanked me. I loved it that his God seemed bigger and deeper than the God our rabbi proclaimed. I thirst for the vast mystery at the heart of our lives. I thirst for the truth of my being. I thirst to feel in communion with all those who have gone before me.

Seeing Jesus crucified tore open my grief. My heart still ached for my father whose lungs had given out, for my mother whose heart had given out, and for my aunt whose hope had given out after my uncle died. One after another had died only a few years apart, leaving me feeling alone and bereft. And now Jesus, who had come to mean so much to me had just died.

In his presence I had come alive again. I rediscovered little things that made me happy – the taste of olives in a side dish, the afterglow of sunset, the afternoon breeze taking the edge off a hot day, and the exquisite array of starts in a night sky. And then I discovered big things that made me happy – the joy of helping others, the peace of resting in his presence, the freedom to be myself disregarding my fear of what others may think. I could not imagine my life without him.   

In my heart I prayed for all those who had died, those who had died alone and those who had died in the arms of loved ones, those who had been killed, those who died by accident, illness, disease, or the violence of others. Let us take a moment and pray for women who are grieving a loss of some kind and for women who choose to companion the bereaved.

The thirteenth station: Jesus is taken down from the cross, according to the memories of Mary, his mother

My heart was aching too deep for words when they took my son down from the cross. As I held his dead body in my arms, I felt the wound in my own heart, the wound of losing a child, the wound of loving a child who was somehow my own and not my own. I felt I was his mother in the flesh but somehow his disciple in the Spirit. And somehow I sensed that this would be the pattern of our days, identifying with him in his suffering and death. But strangely, deeper yet I felt a quiet joy, that he at last was with his Father, the one he had always called “Abba!” And this conviction gave me joy, that all he had lived and died for was now mysteriously fulfilled. He had been about his Father’s business and it was finished.

Of course my heart ached to see him dead. But what gave me comfort was to pray for mothers with dead or dying children, or children who were very sick. Could my prayer be a strength for them in their hour of need? I prayed also for all those who were suffering and seemed to turn to me like the group of his followers, especially the inner circle of his apostles who were reeling with this day’s events. I felt my motherly love and compassion reach out to embrace them, inviting them to continue in their life commitment based on faith, hope, and love. I also prayed for those without faith, hope, or love in all parts of our world -- parents separated from their children, orphans, widows, the poor, and those oppressed by tyrannical governments. And I prayed for others who had been given the death penalty, those who were murderers, the thieves crucified with him, and those who, like my son, had been falsely accused of crimes. I felt in solidarity with all those for whom I prayed.

Letting my pierced heart be opened by others’ concerns and needs, as Simeon had predicted, was like Jesus letting his pierced heart be opened, and blood and water flowed out. I believed that Yahweh was very much at work and longing to bring new life out of death. This movement was imprinted on my heart. It would always be a sign for me of God’s action in our midst.

Let us take a moment and pray for mothers with children -- their own, adopted children, children of second marriages, or developmentally handicapped children. Let us also pray for mothers of aborted children and for women related to convicted criminals.

The fifteenth station: Jesus is raised from the dead, according to the memories of Mary Magdalene

I could hardly believe my eyes, my lord and my friend crucified before us when only a few days ago he had talked about the grain of wheat  falling into the ground and dying in order to make way for new life (Jn. 12:24, NRSV).

He called me by name. People called it an exorcism and claimed I  had been possessed by seven demons. It’’s just that I was full of rage against men, my parents, and mostly unclaimed parts of myself.

He healed me by calling forth my true self. In his presence I could be my best self. The authenticity of his care for me gradually outweighed the intensity of my anger. There was no exorcism, only a slow healing of memories.

He understood me. Yes, he knew my lover-heart. I could love only one man and gave myself to him completely. People called it an affair and claimed I had seduced him as I had the others. In truth, he seduced me, appealing not to my lust but to my capacity for desire, transforming my passion for him into compassion for those he loved. There was no affair, only mutual attraction and affection.

He washed my feet. People called it the last supper and claimed that only the twelve were there. I, too, was there to serve and wait on table with other women disciples. After he had washed their feet, he came out to the kitchen and washed ours. And then he let me wash his feet. I had been so moved overhearing his last discourse that my heart was kindled with love for him.

I understood him. Yes, that is what made the difference. He recognized my worth and saw beneath my makeup and come-on look. As I recall it was some time after the sermon on the mount when I had been listening intently to his words, absorbing his doctrine of adoration, forgiveness, and compassion.

He turned to me one day and asked my advice about the growing rivalry between James and John. That was the beginning of a growing ease he felt to confide in me. You see even though I had my troubles and torments, I also had a gift for the discernment of spirits. Perhaps this gift was developed by my own experiences of the movements of the gentle one and the violent one. In any event, he valued this gift in me. And when he consulted me, I felt neither used nor abused. I knew my dignity and felt my worth.

He called my name again. After the horror of his death and the haunting memory of his pierced side, I couldn’t leave him on the cross so I helped remove him to an empty tomb. Next day we brought spices to anoint his naked body which I had never seen except on the cross. He was no longer there, I thought, though a gardener asked me tenderly why I wept. Strange that I could not recognize his face or his voice. But then he called me by name and I knew he was alive.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."