Lent and the Stations of the Cross
Hieronymus Bosch, PD
Dear Friends,
Lent is fully under way, although it feels as though Lent has never truly gone this year. It was in the midst of Lent that the first lockdowns began for us here in the US. My school closed and went remote and so did everything else. People were saying that last Lent was the lentiest Lent ever, but I think that distinction will likely go to this year's. After all, there's more hope now just as much as there is more sorrow and sadness. The vaccines are coming out, the death tolls are going down, and yet the people who died will not come back, not before our Lord does anyhow.
In the midst of this Lent, I had an idea. I've wanted for a while to do a series of poems on the Stations of the Cross. Many people have, but this prayer system is one which lends itself to a wide variety of reflection. So, one more set of poems about it can't really hurt. While I've decided to use the sonnet form for each station, I've also elected to connect using what is called the corona style. In a corona, the last verse of each poem is the first verse of the following one until the final poem whose final line is the same as the first line of the first poem. It is called a corona because it forms a crown of poems each linked to other. So far, I have written the first three stations and will share them with you now.
"Station I: Jesus Is Condemned to Death"
“Take up your cross and follow me,” you said.
We couldn’t know then exactly what you meant,
But then they placed the thorns upon your head,
And mocked you for their mirthless merriment.
Condemned you did not fight their condemnation,
While they passed you back and forth like a child’s game.
Condemned for every person, you are Salvation,
But asking who condemned you, I say my name.
I stood in the crowd and chanted “Crucify!”
I said your blood would be upon my hands.
I drove the nails, I made the Savior cry.
I left the Savior dying, it was my plan.
Condemned he started on his dolorous road,
The cross upon his back his heavy load.
"Station II: Jesus Carries His Cross"
The cross upon his back his heavy load,
He stumbles with it on the sinner’s way.
Straining with each step upon the road,
His mouth is shut, he has nothing left to say
Until his final moments on the cross.
What did he think as he started to drink the cup,
The cup he prayed his Father would allow to pass,
The cup that would see him fall and lifted up?
Did he think of those who had abandoned him?
Or the people who desired to watch him die?
Did he think of me and of my blackest sin,
Which led him to the barren hill so high?
Or did he focus on every single breath
As his feet still led him to the death of death?
"Station III: Jesus Falls the First Time"
As his feet still lead him to the death of death,
He stumbles on the rocks and stones and holes,
The very rocks he once said could be filled with breath
And cry out his name and move us in our souls.
He falls to show us we can rise again,
That our first fall has now been overcome.
In this fall is our original sin,
And he shows us death will one day soon be done.
He falls to the ground, he falls just like a toddler,
Looking for his father, for his mother,
But he fell down to raise up our fallen father,
To loose our first mother from her evil lover.
He lifts the cross and rises to his feet;
He sees the woman Eve was meant to be.
I hope you have a blessed and prayerful Lent.
Sincerely,
David Russell Mosley
