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The First Station
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Yet I remain apart from you,
For my thoughts are human rather than true.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the contemplative life.
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The Second Station.
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Whilst I’m in earthly freedom enslaved.
You turn to face your Via Dolorosa.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the contemplative life.
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The Third Station.
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The first of falls was from divine to dust,
The reversal in Gethsemane was surely not unjust.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Fourth Station.
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Easter sepulchre, with its golden cross
And embroidered hangings. The holy place
Of lamentation for sin-wrought chaos.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Fifth Station.
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Guide towards us the stranger’s hand
When we’re left for dead in a hostile land.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Sixth Station
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Stay there in reward of her piety,
Impression of the sacred countenance.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Seventh Station.
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He said little, yet with veracity.
I’ve said much, but truth the was never mine.
I thought more of this world than the city
To come. A cock crowed, for a second time.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Eighth Station.
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Blessed are barren women whom the crisis
Of birth never pained, for never knowing
The via dolorosa their children tread.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Ninth Station.
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Breathless, speechless, the way’s to be endured
And suffered in pain; and yet, for us all,
The way to our Golgatha is assured,
Despite another fall, the final fall.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Tenth Station.
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I’m nothing. Gone is the time for pretence.
Against the stripping hand there’s no defence.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Eleventh Station.
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Fruit of the new tree for Adam possessed,
Never forbidden, there for the taking,
Never imposed, but ours upon request,
The antidote to rage hanging above.
Once rid of the venom, we will find love.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Twelfth Station.
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All is accomplished. All is perfected.
There’s a silent watch o’er the paschal lamb
And led by the strangest way allotted
To each, we fall before the great ‘I am’.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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The Thirteenth Station.
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No quick release. Even the Highest Priest
Will be down only when the time is right;
The time for the sanctity of the feast,
As the mockers scurry into the night.
The stations of the cross: an old devotion of the Contemplative Life.
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Santa Eulalia.
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Cathedral to the Catalans, your bell towers preside over a nave of saints, cloister and chapel, all fashioned in the cause of prayer and the contemplative life. I wonder in awe at your supreme functionality.
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Catalonia.
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...the shrieking reed reverberates
Across the Catalonian air
And carries a prayer for the nations.
A short poem inspired by the contemplative life of Gaudi.
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Our Lenten pilgrimage is life.
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Why choose to live if life has no meaning? It is in the nature of those who choose life, therefore, to discover the meaning of life. The search for meaning is the purpose of life and gives us something to live for.
(Contemplations on Lent prompted by the contemplative life and writings of Thomas Merton.)
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