For the first
three days in Holy Week, I am basing my homilies on the devotion that we call
the Way of the Cross. I like this
title better than the more common Stations of the Cross, because it emphasizes
the journey. The stations are part
of something bigger—the way we all walk this week towards the cross.
As I said
yesterday, as early as the fourth century Christian pilgrims processed through
the streets of Jerusalem imitating Jesus’ journey towards the cross as a means
of personal devotion. Over the
years, this practice has been symbolically adapted locally throughout the
world. By the early 1700’s the
number of stations had been regularized at 14.
Six of those 14 stations
aren’t mentioned at all in Scripture.
They are the invention of pious folk, born purely out of legend.
Why? What was missing from the Biblical
record that faithful people felt a need to include?
Yesterday I
mentioned the three stations that tell of Jesus’ stumbling or falling,
illustrating the full humanity of Jesus.
Today, let’s
look at the other three:
Fourth
station. Jesus meets his afflicted
mother.
Sixth
station. A woman wipes the face of
Jesus
Thirteenth
station. The body of Jesus is placed
in the arms of his mother.
What was missing
from the Biblical record? Women,
apparently.
Women, of
course, are mentioned from time to time in the Gospel accounts. But with one exception, not as part of
Jesus’ journey from his trial to his crucifixion. In Luke’s passion Gospel which
we heard on Sunday, Jesus laments over the “women of Jerusalem.”
"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and
for your children,” he says. This
passage occurs only in Luke. It is
the subject of the eighth station.
But the women are only passive recipients of Jesus’ words. They do not interact with Jesus at
all.
Of the three
stations where women interact with Jesus, two are about Mary. It is understandable that Jesus’
relationship with Mary would be embellished and expanded and that the pious
would imagine her close accompaniment of Jesus along the way to the cross. She was loyal, loving and brave.
But the woman
who wipes the face of Jesus. It’s
a wonderful and fascinating addition to the story. There is absolutely not the remotest source for this event
in Scripture. Yet legend has even
given her a name, Veronica. When Jesus
falls, she pities him. She feels
compassion for him. She cares for
him. She wipes his face. Or, in another telling of the legend,
she gives him her veil and he wipes his face and returns the veil bearing his
image on it.
She cares for
him. She tries to help him,
provide comfort. His appearance
was marred says the devotion for this station. Yet still she pitied him. She cared for him.
At a time when
others were mocking, condemning, despising, rejecting, taunting, whipping
Jesus, she cared for him.
Surely there
were others, back then. Maybe not
many, but some, men and women who felt compassion for Jesus, who tried to offer
comfort. Let us remember them as
we walk the way of the cross this year.
