The liturgy for Palm Sunday invites us to follow our Lord through Holy Week “from the glory of the palms to the glory of the resurrection by way of the dark road of suffering and death”.
One way of drawing near to Christ this week is through participating in an ancient form of devotion known as the Stations of the Cross. This holy practice dates as far back as 381 AD when a Spanish pilgrim, Egeria, made a pilgrimage from the Mount of Olives to the Church of The Holy Sepulchre, built over the place of Jesus crucifixion and burial. Today, the stations are commonly used as a pilgrimage as the individual moves from station to station. This year our pilgrimage will look different than it has in the past, but we trust it will be no less powerful and transformative and offer this resource for you to use in your homes and families.
Throughout Scripture, in both Old and New Testaments, God's people are called to remember. But they are not called to remember events for the sake of the event. They are called to remember because those events are part of who they are and what they will become. It is in this mode of remembering, of re-presenting the events of the past as part of a living story that has not yet ended, a story in which we still participate, that the events become more than dates and places. They become markers of a journey as those who were no people become a people (Ex 6:7, 1 Peter 2:10), as those who grope awkwardly in the darkness come into the light of God's presence (Isa 9:2, John 8:12), as those who were far off draw ever nearer to God and his grace.
At each station, take time to recall and meditate on a specific event from Christ's last day. Specific prayers and reflections may be read silently or recited. Take your time as you pause to recall that particular moment in our Lord’s Passion, remember those whose lives are particularly touched by this moment in our Lord’s suffering, and ask his mercy upon them. As you move through the stations pray that we may grow in our identification with his patience and perseverance and that it would be reflected in our own lives.
In this time of isolation, when so many of our practices have to be altered, we can still be a people of remembrance. In our individual remembrances we make a collective journey and in the process draw closer to God and each other.