The Way Of The Cross
Crown Of Thorns, by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890)
THE WAY OF THE CROSS (Latin Via Crucis) is a series of fourteen meditations on the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
The devotion has its roots in ancient pilgrimages to the Holy Land, but was popularised as a chapel prayer by Francis of Assisi (?1182-1226) and the Order he founded.
Today, it is followed chiefly during Lent and Passiontide, as Christians attempt to come to terms with the significance of the death of the incarnate Son of God.
This is something we can never adequately understand or appreciate, something which always bursts the boundaries of imagination or emotion. All that is left is to tell the story again and again.
TELL ME the old, old story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
Tell me the story simply, as to a little child,
For I am weak and weary, and helpless and defiled.Tell me the old, old story, tell me the old, old story,
Tell me the old, old story, of Jesus and His love.Tell me the story slowly, that I may take it in,
That wonderful redemption, God’s remedy for sin.
Tell me the story often, for I forget so soon;
The early dew of morning has passed away at noon.Tell me the old, old story, tell me the old, old story,
Tell me the old, old story, of Jesus and His love.
The theme of the Way Of The Cross is simple: “taking up our cross” (see Mt 16:24), that is, imitating Jesus’s self-denial both for the sake of others and for the sake of our own everlasting life.
PROPOUND to your eyes and heart the example of the holy Jesus upon the cross; he endured more for thee, than thou canst either for thyself or him: and remember, that if we put to suffer, and do suffer in a good cause, or in a good manner, so that in any sense your sufferings be conformable to his sufferings, or can be capable of being united to his, we shall reign together with him. The high way of the cross, which – the King of sufferings hath trodden before us, is – the way to ease, to a kingdom, and to felicity.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667). Holy Living. Chapter II, Section V: Against Impatience.
I have prepared my own version, using the list of wholly Scriptural “stations” proposed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 (here). For each one, there are some prayers taken from the Book of Common Prayer, a suitable passage of Scripture, and a hymn.
Lest there be any doubt, there is not one word of this devotion which offends against Scripture or the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. No images are venerated, and no saint is invoked.
"[Politicians] are employed in framing laws and statutes for preventing crimes, and keeping the disorderly multitude within bounds; and at the same time, by personally discountenancing public worship, they are weakening, they are even abolishing, among the multitude, that moral restraint which is of more general influence upon manners than all the laws they frame."
I FIND, by experience, that by often seeing her Portrait, & that of her Dearest Son, I many times recall Him & His Merits, her & her Perfections, to my mind, which before was void of such Heavenly Guests.
I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty,
March 14th, 2010 at 4:54 am
I like the scriptural stations of the cross as a Good Friday meditation. I also lie the old Good Friday Reproaches–nothing like hearing them gut-wrenching, hair-raising Byzantine chanting plus ison.
March 14th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Hi Death Bredon,
I’m glad you liked them. Obviously, if you did all fourteen hymns for real, in a church, you’d probably still be there on Easter Even! Perhaps to frame the prayers with “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross” and “My Song Is Love Unknown” would be enough.
It occurred to me, re-reading through the Reproaches at your prompt, that the Chorale Herzliebster Jesu (here) expresses the same sentiment. Perhaps this would be another way for Anglican Churches to rediscover their message, through music every bit as heart-rending.