Holy Week

Apologies for my absence over the past few days - school holidays means more childcare which we admit we love!
In response to mumofmadboys I did leave GN for a while and rejoined but that was due to a multitude of reasons.
I really enjoyed anniebach's 'words' thread and contributing to this one. Thanks to all for the lovely coments.
A belated Happy Easter to everyone!

" neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to seperate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus Our Lord."

I wish you all, the blessings of the Risen Christ x

Happy Easter to you all and thank you for this thread. I have felt sad this week and happier today - not sure why.

Happy Easter to all who shared this journey.
I have enjoyed the experience so much and been enriched by it.

Happy Easter everyone and thank you to all who have contributed to this thread. It was indeed uplifting.

Happy Easter to everyone especially those who started this post.

He is risen!! Happy Easter to all! May we all know the peace of Christ.xx

Just home from the Easter Vigil,how re-affirming it is!
I remembered all of you in my prayers.Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Fourormore. Xxx

Fourormore did you have a different user name a few years ago? Hope you don't mind me asking.

Thank you for your contribution todayfourormore I found your final sentence of the 13th station very poignant.
It really spoke to me.

I am sorry you felt the need to stay away , I do understand your sadness x

Standing up for our faith is probably the hardest thing for us to do but we must remember God made us and is aware of our humanity and weaknesses. Little actions of love can be seen as us doing the Lord's work and I cannot say how thrilled I am that this thread and Anniebach's Words from the Cross thread have been so warmly received.

My final two Stations:

13th Station: Jesus is taken down from the cross

When someone dies we seem to remember all the good things about them that we hadn't acknowledged while
they were alive.
Lord help me to tell those around me how much I love them, while I still have the opportunity to do so.
Help me live each day as if it were my last, to become a more gentle and loving person through my greater appreciation for those around me.

14th Station: Jesus is placed in the tomb

Joseph of Arimathea, risked his own life by showing how much he loved you by taking your body for burial.
Help me imitate Joseph's love for you by not being afraid to stand up for my faith.

I initially joined GN many years ago and was deeply saddened to see so many 'anti' posters 'having a go' when religion was mentioned in posts. I fully respect everyone has the choice to believe or otherwise but I was very hurt at times when ridiculed when I dared to post.
I admit that sadly I stopped posting or even reading the threads for some considerable time
Thankfully nowadays posters are more accepting which is great.
Happy Easter everyone!!! and of course 'chocolate'!!!

Thank you fourormore for joining us and for sharing x

Thank you MiceElf for the information about Tenebrae - most inspiring.

11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross

At the end of the road your persecutors were not content with the pain they had caused you but furthered it by nailing you to the cross.
In life we constantly hurt people by word and deed. Help us to realise whenever we hurt any one we are nailing you
to the cross. Help us to make amends for all the hurt we have caused others

12th Station: Jesus dies on the cross

In a spirit of total resignation Lord you died on that cross, but not before forgiving all those who had caused your agony.
We find it so hard to forgive those who hurt us but trust that you will forgive us our failings.
How can we ask you to forgive us if we don't forgive others?

What an inspiring Holy Week we have shared.
Thank you to all who have posted in this thread and also the Words from the Cross thread.
Special thanks to Anniebach for starting it all

From a blog written by a friend.

Good Friday
by Ariel

After the frosty silence in the gardens.
After the agony in stony places.
The shouting and the crying.
Prison and palace and reverberation.
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains.
He who was now living is now dead.
We who were living are now dying.
With a little patience.

T S Eliot, The Wasteland, "What the Thunder Said".

And there you see it: the death of every hope. The end of a long journey. Plans, hopes and dreams crumble irrevocably into rubble. As with all wasteland, it looks desolate, but you take away fragments, which can be more powerful than the whole in provoking memories and intentions, and part of the world’s pain. Fragments taken out of context can assume great significance, stand for much more: the ruins of the old Coventry Cathedral are far more striking than the old church in its entirety would ever have been, and Baalbek, fallen columns and chunks of masonry everywhere, is still a wonder. When you’re not handed something perfect on a plate you have to think for yourself.

And do you rebuild? What caused the collapse, exactly? The construction, or the foundations? Was it ever practical in the first place? Do you walk away to start something else in a different place, or set it aside, chalk it up, leave it?

The Crucifixion is one of the things that shattered Christianity for me years ago. I have had arguments with street evangelists who insisted that it was an act of love. I said to them that setting someone up for murder is not in my view an act of love, and if that’s how God treats his nearest and dearest, what hope is there for the rest of us? For whatever reason, the street evangelists didn’t seem to register this, or attempt to counter it, just repeated that it was an act of love and moved on. It raises many questions for me which I have not yet found answers to. Currently I take the view that this was not God's doing, but humanity's; that it was not required by God.

For me the most poignant moment is those words from the cross: Eli, eli, lama sabachthani. I don’t speak Aramaic, but they are close enough to Arabic, which I am more familiar with, and when I pronounce them as if they are Arabic, it brings home that sense of immediacy of that cry from the heart. God, God, why have you forsaken me? That cry is still current, timeless down the ages.

In the Catholic church you can still find the wonderful old traditional service of Tenebrae. It is a short service performed over the Triduum before Easter Sunday. It is hard to find, though locally, the Dominicans do it at Blackfriars Priory in Oxford. I can only say that I find it intensely moving. There is a forthright, powerful beauty in the chant that rips away the accretions of everyday life and brings the immediacy of those events right to me. The Easter story is the hardest, but the loveliest of all the Christian progression, and Tenebrae speaks across the centuries, as the chants shorten, become more urgent, moving towards the inexorable conclusion with the great cry and the crash. It doesn't matter whether you've walked the Lenten path or not. It still has the power to pull you in, make you part of this, shatter plasters over cracks, and fragment the bareness of Lent with what is really behind it. The enormity of that amazing message begins on Holy Thursday morning, impossible to ignore.

And you live, you wait ("we who were living are now dying, with a little patience") until Easter Sunday. We live, in effect, through our own personal harrowing of Hell, through the greyness and sometimes bleakness and hopelessness of Lent, when we walk sunless paths that seem to go on forever, with self-chosen burdens that we sometimes wish we hadn't started, until at last we arrive at that extraordinary moment between doubt and faith, when you wonder about the tomb. What will you find? Will it be empty for you? Is it empty because there is nothing there, or is it empty because it housed a miracle which could not be confined by it?

Amen

Bit earlier posting this evening as I am off in a wee while to The Mass of The Lord's Supper where our Priest will wash the feet of parishioners. A truly moving sight.

Again I must say how great it is to hear that these are of interest of others, but I must stress Travelsasfar that these are not 'official' just my interpretations!
The ninth station makes me think of our elderly especially, but also our disabled friends who are often stripped of their dignity.

9th Station: Jesus falls for the third time

Again Lord you fell under the weight of the cross you were forced to carry.
You had done nothing to deserve that but you endured it without complaint.
Sometimes the crosses we have to carry seem more than we can bear.
Help us to appreciate that the weight of our cross is nowhere near the weight of yours, and to bear our crosses with humility. Help us to trust that we will get through whatever befalls us.

10th Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments

The indignity you faced Lord, when stripped of your garments was horrific.
You were insulted yet accepted what was happening with graciousness.
Help us when we are ridiculed in life to accept it with equal graciousness. Help us to preserve the dignity of others and not fall into the trap of gossip or badmouthing.

"INDIFFERENCE "

When Jesus came to Golgotha,they hanged him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet,and made a Calvary,
They crowned him with a crown of thorns,red were his wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed him by,
They would not hurt a hair of him,they only let him die,
For men had grown more tender , and they would not give him pain,
They only just passed down the street , and left him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried 'Forgive them for they know not what they do,'
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched him through and through,
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.

Sean Wright

I love Easter Hymns, "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross"
"There is a Green Hill" and always a hymn I heard as a child in chapel, - The Old Rugged Cross"

fourormore i have read the stations you have been posting and love the explainations you give for each of them.It has truly helped me understand what each of them mean. Thank you.

Today , Maundy Thursday, is the day when we remember Jesus washing his disciples feet. Please help us serve others particularly today .

I find Easter services so very moving. I cannot sing "There is a green hill far away" without welling up. I am not a regular church goer any more, but the faith I was brought up in is still in me. I cannot shake it off completely. I shall go to church on Easter morning while we are away. I usually do, (I go alone as none of our party 'do religion') and come away feeling uplifted. I shall be thinking of you Annie.

Amen

I was so touched by all the comments but especially those from Jangran99 and Tessagee. Thank you!
When I wrote these Stations (several years ago) I was 'going through the motions of the Church year' and felt that there seemed to be no meaning for me as an individual?
I'm sure it was my interpretation and that I was being affected by what was going on around me at that time. However, I am using them every year now and they still seem relevant, even though my situation is different.
It is lovely to feel they are of some use to others as well.

Tonight's Stations ..

7th Station: Jesus falls for the second time

Lord, as your strength weakened you fell for the second time. Yet again, you did not seek attention, but in spite of extreme pain you quietly struggled to your feet and continued on your journey.
Help us Lord, when we fall in life, not to seek attention, not to complain about our lot and not to seek to appear as martyrs, but to pick ourselves up knowing that your love and support for us is unfailing.

8th Station: Jesus meets the distraught women

Lord, in spite of the intense agony you were enduring, you stopped to comfort and encourage the women of Jerusalem.
Help me Lord, to identify those in distress around me. Help to comfort and encourage them as you did.
Help me to put aside my own problems and focus upon those in need of comfort and support.