by Vincent | Mar 11, 2015 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion, Stations of The Cross
We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
It’s a station about awareness. I heard a woman speak once about her young son who lives with Autism. She said she went to a local supermarket to do her shopping and as she was leaving the shop her son held onto the door of the shop and would not let go. He began to scream and lash out. She tried to get him to leave but to no avail. He screamed and drew massive attention to them both. As she tried to hold on to his hand the bags of groceries she was carrying fell from her hands and their contents poured out across the pavement. All the while the child held the door, refused to budge and shouted. She tried to gather the bits and pieces and put them into the bag, whose handles had broken. As all this went on, people walked past her on the street – all but one – a man who walked up to her as she was bent over gathering her shopping with one hand and trying to keep hold of her child with the other. He looked down at her and said “You’d want to put some manners on that child”. He walked on and she said she collapsed on the street and cried.
The Cross comes in many shapes and forms and is always uninvited and unwelcome. People try to meet it in different ways. This woman, burdened beneath the weight of a cross not of her own making, needed support rather than criticism, a lift up rather than a put down and compassion rather than condemnation.
As we see the cross placed on Jesus’ shoulders, maybe we could let our gaze and empathy wander to the shop door and to a young mother dealing with a very difficult situation.
Oh, that today we would listen to his voice, let us harden not our hearts.
by Vincent | Mar 10, 2015 | General Interest, Reflections, Religion, Stations of The Cross
We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
Everything in Pilate wanted to let Jesus go free. “I find no case against him” – “If he were not a criminal we’d not be handing him over to you”. “I will let him go but have him punished first” “If you let him go, you are no friend of Caesar’s” “Here is your king” “We have no King …..” “Shall I release for you the King of the Jews?” “Not this man Barrabbas” “I wash my hands of this man’s blood” “Let his blood be on us and our children” There was no winning over of this crowd and it was somewhere in the crowd that Pilate lost his nerve. The deed was done – an innocent man condemned. Pilate asked for a bowl and a towel and washed his hands of the decision but he had to live with its reality. The mob ruled the day.
The “mob” is dangerous. Many good people get condemned in its glare and many “pilates” allow the wrong decision to be made. There are people we don’t talk to and who don’t talk to us. Why? Is it that they’ve done anything to us or vice versa? Many times it’s neither. We get caught up in someone else’s row and their hostility becomes ours.
There are many ways of condemning someone to death and few of them involve coffins or graveyards. The death of isolation is a slow death and many are condemned to it by an unjust and uncertain judge – that judge can all too easily be me! I find myself passing sentence on someone because of who he is or isn’t. what he does or doesn’t do, where he lives, the colour of skin, religious views and no more than Pilate, deep down I know this should not be happening. People that we’ve convinced ourselves are right (who most likely are wrong) sway our views and weaken our nerve. We pass sentence.
There’s something in this Station, calling us to get a backbone of our own and to make decisions about people and situations that are based on fact and personal reflection rather than the roar of careless and bloodthirsty crowd.
“I find no case against him”. He or she has done nothing to me to make me ignore or mistreat in any way. Then why does it happen.
At this First Station Lord, deliver us from the mob ……
Oh that today we would listen to his voice. Let us harden not our hearts.
