64,000 dollar question: What happened to the Stations of the Cross?

I mean, there are only 14 of them, they are in just about every Catholic church......but no one appears to say them any more.

The path to Melbourne Cathedral

The past two weeks I have spent visiting more churches than normal during Lent due to the fact that I am not in West Wales where most of the churches are locked up during the day in case anyone decides they want to get religious.
Here in Melbourne the city churches, at any rate, are open and available but I have yet to see anyone indulging in the Stations of the Cross; I would expect that London or Cardiff would be much the same.

The 'Stations' is one of the most moving and spiritual of our prayers and may be completed without a prayer book of any kind (although I do normally use the CTS purple booklet which is excellent).

Each station automatically brings its own prayer and one only has to genuflect, remember that? And to utter the words: "We adore Thee O Christ and we praise Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world" - then say one Glory be, one Hail Mary and an Our Father before moving on to the next station. It takes about 30 minutes to complete all 14.

Today (Maundy Thursday) I completed the Stations in St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne. The Cathedral was busy with tourists, locals wishing to be shriven of their sins, people just wanting to meditate and pray, workmen and cleaners and about 10 coachloads of Chinese visitors who appeared both amused and perplexed at my attempts to pray the Stations. By now I expect photographs of me trying to focus on the Via Dolorosa to be in many a household in Beijing or Chengdu or wherever they came from. I wonder what they really thought of my efforts.

But the real point is, who does say the Stations today?

Have they gone the way of Benediction, Forty Hours Devotion, Corpus Christi Processions?

Or do hordes of parishioners descend upon their churches after dark in order to carry out this devotion in secret?

Answers on a postcard please!

WHY IS THE HUMAN RACE SO SCARED OF THE CROSS?

No cross no crown!

The cross is the prime symbol of all time and will remain so until the end of time but it seems to be an object of fear among the secular world.

The latest incident involves a group of atheists who are campaigning to have a cross that was erected on the site of the Twin Towers 9/11 atrocity, removed. The cross was constructed from two of the steel girders salvaged from the debris and found already fused into a cross formation.

There have been many incidents of nurses or others wearing  a cross worn on a chain or as a brooch in the workplace and even of a van driver who displayed a Palm cross in his vehicle. All of them were subject to dismissal type procedures.

There has been agitation in Italy and other mainland European countries, to have the crucifix removed from classrooms and public sector offices. What is eating at these people?

If the humanists or atheists wanted to put a logo on their advertising and poster hoardings I wouldn't bat an eyelid; if they wanted to erect 3 dimensional logos on their own land that would be fine provided that it complied with planning regulations.

So why does the material world throw a hissy fit when a cross is displayed?

Of course, we know that a cross without Christ is a contradiction anyway; you can't have the cross without the victim. You cannot have Easter Sunday without first having Good Friday. The bare unadorned cross is really a Protestant emblem but, sadly, there are quite a few Catholic churches who have also opted for the sanitised version - no saving victim.

Archbishop Sheen called the bare cross "effeminate" and so it is. Take away the Man and you are left with two cross sections of wood.

There is an old but good story of a woman who walked into a jewellers store and asked to be shown a chain with a cross on. "Certainly" Said the jeweller. "Would you like a plain one or one with the little man on?"

We have moved so far away from knowledge of the truth, in another twenty years most of the educated world will not even know who Jesus Christ is.

The world is drifting away from the reality of the crucified Christ and adopting a format that does not challenge or require thoughts of redemption, suffering and sacrifice.

That is what the American atheists are scared of......the reality of God's kingdom made apparent through the ordeal, humiliation and torture of His sacrificial Son. And that is why the world fears the cross. The world wants success, triumph, self promotion: it does not want to be reminded of the Good Friday element of redemptive pain, suffering and humiliation.

Libyan enlisted to aid the advance of Christianity!

I mean, of course, St Simon of Cyrene (Cyrene then a town in today's Libya). I have always been fascinated by this shadowy character, an unwilling participant in a brutal crucifixion - did he believe that he shared culpability by his actions I wonder?

I empathise with his reluctance; it must have been the last thing that he wanted, there he was just an innocent bystander standing on the sidelines of the world's greatest drama and suddenly some thuggish Roman soldiers grab hold of his arm saying "'ere you, take a grip on this 'ere cross" or words to that effect. How often have I felt like that, having a desire for quiet anonymity and suddenly some priest whispers in your ear "Do you know how to serve Mass?" or, worse still, "Would you stay behind after Mass and help  fill a few thousand envelopes?"

Of course, those roles are nothing like being asked to assist at a crucifixion where you might well end up being an object of hatred of all parties concerned.
And the request meant that poor unsuspecting Simon would have blood on his hands, literally. He would have to take up a very considerable burden in carrying that cross as Our Lord, by then, must have been as weak as a kitten from the scourging, beatings and subsequent loss of blood.
He was not a Jew, or so it is believed, he wanted no part of some religious political spat between the High Priests and the Romans and, for all we know, he may have been on his way to clinch an all important business deal that would set him up for life or, maybe, a nice lunch with some old buddies.

If there was a vacancy for a patron saint of fall guys, St Simon would be just the ticket and that's one of the reasons that I like him so much, that and the fact that he really represents us all. How often have we been reluctant to get involved in our faith, to stand up in that group of friends in the pub on Friday night and state that abortion is wrong, to ask someone not to blaspheme by using the name of Christ as an expletive, to write to one's Bishop concerning some liturgical abuse? I can fully understand St Simon, I have been there and will be there again no doubt.

But something happened to him once he had taken a hold of the cross and relieved the suffering Christ just a little. The spark of faith took, ignited and grew with God's grace so that, in time, Simon changed from being an unwilling helper to an enthusiatic follower.

There he was, minding his own business and, all of a
sudden he was making a commitment!

The lessons in this scene from the Passion of Christ are many and to me the most important one is enshrined within the deed of 'taking up the cross'. For Simon it proved to be a blessing and so it is for us all. When we suffer a bereavement, get made redundant or when the consultant tells us that we have cancer it is a cross that we unwillingly shoulder but shoulder it we do and we receive God's blessing as a result.
If there is any sense to be made of the disaster in the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami or the New Zealand earthquake it is in the cross that those souls have unwillingly (like St Simon) shouldered (to help reduce the suffering of Christ?). It is suffering that is redemptive, the shedding of blood that opens up the road to salvation.
We are all innocent bystanders who, inexplicably, receive God's love for us in the form of a cross. If we can carry it, it will set us free. We can all be Simon of Cyrenes.
The time we should worry is when we do not have a cross to bear. Pity the lottery winner, the healthy athlete, the banker, the person who is so successful in all that they touch and do. They just do not know what they are missing.

THE FIFTH STATION

The Cyrenean helps Jesus to carry His cross

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee.

R. Because by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

Here, Simon of Cyrene on his arrival from his day's work was made to carry the cross after Jesus.
Jesus all bruised and disfigured, still lives on amongst us under the form of suffering humanity.
Let us then be charitably disposed, after the example of the Cyrenean, and help Jesus to carry His cross by relieving the poor, visiting the sick and consoling the afflicted.
        
"As long as you did this to My least brethren you did it for Me"

Let us be kind and helpful to all in trouble, sympathetic and indulgent. It is our bounden duty to hold out the right hand of fellowship to all in temptation:

                       "Considering thyself lest thou also be tempted"