Who among us has not walked the Way of Sorrow? Who has not been betrayed and “crucified”? And who has not caused sorrow in others by betraying and crucifying them?

The old Roman Catholic tradition of the “Stations of the Cross” can be a powerful aid to us in our suffering. This spiritual practice is a meditation on fourteen dimensions of the Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow Jesus walked from the halls of Governor Pontius Pilate and the screaming mob towards Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, where he was crucified between two thieves.

The Stations focus on both the physical and mental anguish Jesus suffered in his Sacred Passion and then connect us to the suffering in our own lives and the lives of others, bringing us consolation and courage. If we move deeply enough into our own spiritual and bodily deaths, we may also experience resurrection and transformation.

I’m passionately in love with saguaro cactus and considered them my friends long before I learned that the neighboring Tohono O’odham people have always done so. One lovely spring, as I hiked  through the Sonoran Desert looking for wildflowers, I began to see the “Cosmic Christ” more and more in these majestic saguaros. As we drew closer to “Holy Week”, the seven days before Easter, I began to see my beloved saguaros embodying the fourteen Stations of the Cross everywhere I looked, and I photographed them as I prayed with them.

What do you see when you meditate on these photos of Via Saguaro?

1. Jesus is Condemned to Death

 

Standing alone, abandoned by his friends, with no one to speak on his behalf, Jesus is falsely accused and condemned to death.

When I point the finger and blame others, I condemn Jesus all over again, and I condemn myself. How can I learn to point the finger more honestly at myself and accept responsibility for my own faults and failings?

2. Jesus Accepts His Cross

 

Jesus reaches out and embraces the cross laid upon his shoulders, lovingly carrying the heavy burden of our own crosses as well.

Do I sometimes make mountains out of mole hills and complain about the slightest inconveniences? How can I stop sweating the small stuff and shoulder the burdens of my life and those of others in heroic holy surrender?

3. Jesus Falls the First Time

 

In his vulnerability, Jesus falls under the weight of the cross, but he gets up again and continues to walk on his way.

I fall under the weight of my own crosses, too. How can I be ashamed when the Son of God showed me his own weakness?

4. Jesus Meets His Mother

 

Mary faithfully follows her beloved son along his path of pain and suffers with him. We call her Mater Dolorosa, the Mother of Sorrows. It is often harder to watch the ones we love suffer than to suffer ourselves.

Imagine the anguish in Jesus as he sees his mother anguishing over him. As I witness the pain of someone I love, how can I understand that my own pain participates in the Sacred Passion of Jesus and the sorrow of the Mother of Sorrows? Do I know that my pain can also be redemptive?

5. Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

 

As Jesus weakens further, with so far yet to go, the Roman soldiers force a bystander called Simon of Cyrene to help him carry the cross.

Who has helped me carry my crosses? Have I expressed my gratitude? And who in my life right now needs my help to carry a heavy cross?

6. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

 

Another helping hand, this time a willing one, a womanly one. Legend has it that Veronica stepped out of the crowd and wiped the bloody face of Jesus, some say leaving the imprint of his Holy Face on her veil.

Am I this willing and helpful, ready to take courage and stand out from the herd and its blind bigotry and violence to offer compassion and understanding?

 

7. Jesus Falls the Second Time

 

Another fall. Sprawled in the dust. The acrid smell in his nostrils. How can Jesus go on?

How can I go on? How much more can I take? Do I hear taunting and jeering in my ears? (Or am I the one taunting and jeering?) Who am I to feel ashamed for not suffering “better” when Jesus, too, kept stumbling along the way?

 

8. Jesus Consoles the Women of Jerusalem

 

Women from the city follow Jesus along his way, mourning and lamenting. Despite his suffering, Jesus turns to them and says, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep rather for yourselves and for your children.”

How am I like the women of Jerusalem in need of consolation? And how am I like Jesus, reaching out to comfort others? Fully acknowledging my own need, how can I rise above it and give more to others who need more than I do?

 

9. Jesus Falls the Third Time

 

Utterly exhausted now, drained of life’s energy and life’s blood, Jesus falls yet again and can barely move.

How often have I felt like this, unable to get up and carry on? How can I be humble enough to fall like Jesus over and over and finally carry on again? How can I inspire others to do the same?

 

10. Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

 

The sacredness and beauty of human nakedness turns into humiliation. Some sources say Jesus was crucified naked, not in a loin cloth as usually depicted.

How have I been stripped and humiliated? How have I stripped others of their human dignity in my thoughts, words, and deeds? How can I find healing for myself and bring healing to others in their humiliation and rejection?

 

11. Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

 

The sound of hammers, the crunch of breaking bones, new spurts of blood. As Psalm 21 laments, “They have pierced my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones.”

How have they “nailed” me? How have I swung the hammer and nailed others? Not as graphically as the nailing of Jesus perhaps, but more psychologically?

 

12. Jesus Dies on the Cross

Before he bows his head and dies, Jesus utters seven last “words” from the cross:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“Woman, behold your son” (to Mary). “Behold your mother” (to John).

“This day you will be with me in Paradise” (to the “Good Thief”).

“I thirst.”

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

“It is consummated.”

“Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Which of these “words” speaks most to me today? Which of these do I need to speak to comfort another? What’s left to “do” in my life before I can say it is “consummated”? Whom do I need to forgive?

 

13. Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

 

Loving hands lay the broken body of Jesus in the arms of his mother: Mater Dolorosa, Mother of Sorrows, Michelangelo’s Pieta. Once again, the great sorrow of the one who witnesses. The grief of the one who stands by, sits by the bedside, holds the hand of the loved one.

What loss am I grieving now? Or is it “anticipatory grief”? Am I in the wailing and “keening” stage? Am I numb to my pain? Or am I in the “still” after stage?

 

14. Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

 

Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, the good Pharisee who went to see Jesus by night for fear of being seen, carry one hundred pounds of aromatic spices, “a mixture of myrrh and aloes,” anoint the body of Jesus, and lay it in the tomb.

Now it is truly “finished.” Over and done with. On Good Friday at least I could attend to the dying and the burying. I could “do” something. Holy Saturday is such an empty day. Nothing to do now. Except wait. But what am I waiting for?