STATIONS OF THE CROSS

ON THE WALLS OF MY MIND

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Stations of the Cross On the Walls of My Mind.”

It’s Good Friday. Besides this Good Friday Service - many parishes and churches have the Stations of the Cross - today.  We have 3 of them here at St. Mary’s:  for the kids at 12; for parishioners  at 1:30; and a Hispanic outdoors Stations of the Cross at 5:30 P.M.

If we go inside most Catholic Churches around the world, we see along the walls of each church, a set of 14 Stations of the Cross.

If we go inside Catholic Churches - we sometimes see people making the Stations of the Cross - by themselves - especially during Lent - and with others publically during Lent as well.

And a couple of years ago a lady told me she heard a priest say from the pulpit, “Pick out just one station of the cross - sit under it - and let that station of the cross sink into our being. Or pick out one that says the most to you - and then meditate on,  ‘Why?’”

She said she picked,  “The fourth Station of the Cross.”

She continued, “It became my station.”

She added, “Whenever I came to church, I would sit under that station - on the side aisle usually.  That fourth station: ‘Jesus meets his sorrowful mother’ had particular impact on me, especially because of my mother and how she was there for me when my family fell apart because of my son’s alcoholism.”

ON THE WALLS OF MY MIND

Once more, the title of my homily is, “Stations of the Cross on the Walls of My Mind.”

If we step back in prayer and meditation and thought and memory, all of us can come up with our own personal stations of the cross.

Suggestion: Get a blank piece of paper and draw 14 boxes.  Now think about the Sorrowful mysteries and moments of our life.  I don’t think we would have 14 - maybe 5.  Then draw in a box with stick figures or if you definitely announce, “I can’t draw” - use a few words for the title of a suffering spot or stop or station or place or space - in your life.

It might be Anne Arundel Medical Center - where a loved one died. Or a nursing home or hospice house or your house of a loved one’s house.

Whenever I’m on the Gowanus Parkway in Brooklyn driving  towards Long Island, when I go by the Long Island University Hospital - I feel very deeply - that this hospital was the place where my nephew Michael died at the age of 14  - so very suddenly of cancer. I wasn’t there when he died, but I heard that he said to tell his little sister, Maryna, who wasn’t allowed to go up his room at that time of the evening, “My room is overlooking the parking lot down below. I’ll turn all the lights on in my room and get up on the window sill and wave to you down below.” They stood there in the parking lot,  looked up and saw him waving. He died early the next morning - and the night before was the last time everyone but his dad saw him.

I would also put Moses Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn where my dad died. I’d also put 6^th avenue and 59^th street in Brooklyn where my mom was hit in a hit and run accident - while crossing the street - on her way to church and then to work.

So places of death are stations of the cross for many. So too places where someone said something that devastated us. So too places of divorce.  Does everyone have a First Station where we were condemned by someone else unjustly.

So too places where we fell - one, two, three, many times.

So too places where we were stripped of our dignity.

So too jobs and situations where we were nailed to a cross and we couldn’t escape.

These stations of the cross are sitting there hanging on the walls of our memory.

As we look at the story of our life - triggered by places or movies or songs - or conversations we see these personal stations, these crosses hanging on the walls of our memories.

Warning: these can be too much.  If might be better to do a few of them with trusted - very trusted family members.

Suggestion: I’m talking here about sorrowful mysteries. Maybe draw 5 or 14 boxes of glorious moments, glorious mysteries - or 5 or 14 moments of light and insight in one’s life.

And obviously, don’t do all this at once.

Maybe if they can become rising, resurrection, recovery moments, then the 50  Days after Easter till Pentecost is a good season to do this or take years to do this slowly.

CONCLUSION: GOOD FRIDAY

These are Good Friday reflections.

Today is a Good Friday to walk inside our story and see the moments of our lives and see that Jesus walked the same steps we walked.

Today is a good day to hear one of two of the  last screams of Jesus from the cross.

Hear those screams.  Haven’t we said the same prayer, the same words, made the same scream of  Jesus in our life when we felt abandoned by God, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.”

How many times have we felt there was nothing left and all we could say in our deepest darkness, “Father into your hands I handing over me to you.”

If we do that, then we understand how a Bad Friday - a bad moment in our life can become a Good Moment or  a Good Friday.