How can God understand what it feels like to go through a divorce? Can Jesus really know how lost and helpless I feel when my daughter is having such a hard time at school? Does He know how ashamed I am of what I’ve done in my life?
There are so many questions that we ask God, whether aloud in our prayers, or as a silent cry from the place deep within where we store our grief and shame and anger. So often we feel alone—we don’t want to burden our friends or family with our problems, or we carry our grief not actually knowing where to lay it down.
Some years ago, I moved through the Stations of the Cross and was blind-sided with sorrow and powerlessness. The grief and isolation that I endured during horrible periods in my life washed over me, choking my voice and blinding my sight with tears. And—just like that—I discovered that a movement through the last moments of our Savior’s life offered a balm to my brokenness I could not find anywhere else.
Mother Angelica in her book, Suffering and Burnout, encourages us to reach up to Jesus as we offer our pain to Him. As we reach out, we rest that anguish in the holes of His feet, His hands, His side. Our pain is a gift, blackened with grief and trauma, that we cry to Jesus to help us carry. And, through the Stations of the Cross, we receive a template if you will of our movement through heartbreak.
So, how can the fourteen Stations of the Cross be that balm of companionship and healing that we need? Well, we are creatures who respond in various ways to stimuli—both within and without ourselves. The Stations of the Cross draw in the five senses of our self-expression: sight, sound, hearing, touch, and taste. In Ignatian Prayer, we crack open our imaginations, allowing more intimate and immediate access to communication. We allow our sensibilities freedom to roam about, explore, absorb.
Taking this brief understanding of Ignatian Prayer, let us take the first station in which Jesus is condemned to death. We imagine Him standing in a room full of people who hate Him, people who betray Him, people who demand His death. We listen to their yelling, their jeering, their shrieking against Him. We feel the heat of tension. We smell the air of sweat, the breath of those taunting Him. And—within that movement of our imaginations—we reflect on those times in our lives when we have been rejected or betrayed or falsely maligned. As we witness the scene of Jesus before His accusers unfold, we allow ourselves the time and space to be present there. We watch His responses, and we remember our own. His loneliness begins to look like our own loneliness. Slowly, our pain finds companionship in the pain of our Lord, and we see that we are not alone.
We can also look at that first Station from a different approach. Again, we see Jesus standing at the center of the crowded room. Instead of our imagining ourselves in His place or standing beside Him amidst the accusations, we look to the crowd. We see their faces as they scream out. We hear the growling of their voices. And we remember when we have been angry, hateful, sarcastic. We reflect on those times we allowed the anger of our neighbor to incite our own; those times we participated in gossip; those times we posted on text threads, Facebook, or Twitter with words and accusations that we would never dare to say to a person’s face. And we are struck with the shame and guilt of our actions. We recognize ourselves in the crowd, and we are awash with repentance. We sit in that space of grief and ask forgiveness of the One who knows the blunt end of betrayal. The Stations of the Cross offer an opportunity to explore our own feelings and experiences as we witness the movements and actions of Jesus. We allow it time and patience and space to unfold on its own; we cannot rush this process. And each time we come to Jesus and walk beside Him, He shows us something new about ourselves and those Golgotha events. The absolutely beautiful piece that begins to grow is our understanding of Him and our love for Him. In time, we find consolation that we aren’t alone in our betrayal; we aren’t alone in our physical pain; we aren’t alone in our shame.
The healing begins.
—The Rev. Janie Koch
All Saints Episcopal Church, McAlester