LENT: STATIONS OF THE CROSS

THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS

During Lent Christians celebrate the Stations of the Cross in devout commemoration of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the first Good Friday.  Present at Christ’s journey to his death was the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Watching her Son die, she suffered with him.  To the melody of the ancient Stabat Mater hymn, the following lyrics may be sung:

First Station: Jesus is condemned to death

Though he knew that Christ was blameless

Pilate in a deed most shameless

To the cross him did condemn

Second Station: Jesus takes up his cross

With contempt the rabble varmints

Robed the King in royal garments

To deride his royalty

Third Station: Jesus falls the first time

Weakened by the brutal flaying

Yet the wicked rule obeying

Jesus fell beneath the cross

Fourth station: Jesus meets his mother, Mary

When he met his holy Mother

Who had served him as no other

Eyes at eyes in silence gazed

Fifth Station: Simon helps Jesus carry the cross

Seeing Jesus in his meekness

Tremble from exhausted weakness

Simon helped him bear his cross

Sixth Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

The image of his holy face

Never after was erased

From Veronica’s soothing cloth

Seventh Station: Jesus falls the second time

For the second time he stumbled

Flattened by the cross he crumbled

Yet he rose despite the pain

Eighth Station: Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem

Mothers of Jerusalem

Wept until he counselled them:

Save your weeping for your own

Ninth Station: Jesus falls the third time

Once again he tripped and fell

Still amid the taunts of hell

Rose and bore the cross again

Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments

Lily of all purity

How they shamed thy dignity

When they tore thy garments off

Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross

Hideous nails through hands and feet

Still the Lamb refused to bleat

As his mother‘s heart was pierced

Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the cross

When she stayed close by his side

For the time until he died

She sustained him by her love

Thirteenth Station: Jesus is taken down from the cross

When they took him down they laid him

In her arms a cradle made him

For her Son, the King of kings

Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the sepulchre

Joseph’s sepulchre received him

He was dead – yet she believed him

Three days on he rose from death

Luky Whittle - 1998

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STATIONS OF THE CROSS? VISIT
http://www.catholic.org/prayers/station.php

With thanks to youtube and catholic.org