It was a moving, jarring experience to participate in the Public Stations of the Cross in downtown Madison today. About twenty of us gathered at the Federal Courthouse and traced a path past many of the civic institutions and social service agencies that dot the landscape downtown. We dodged traffic lights, construction zones, groups of school kids on field trips. We received some strange looks from passers-by and occasionally were joined for a few minutes by someone who wanted to listen.

We walked sidewalks that I walk almost daily, passed the food trucks where I might get a bite for lunch, were greeted by homeless people who hang out on Capitol Square. We had to contend with the raucous voices and instruments of Solidarity Sing Along that meets every day outside the Capitol.

As we walked, I wondered about that day 2000 years ago when a procession went out from Pilate’s headquarters to the hill on the edge of the city where Jesus’ crucifixion took place. How many people noticed that procession? How many people wondered what was going on? Would it have been common knowledge, an extraordinary event? Or would it have been business as usual, another in a long series of public executions which had become so common that residents of the city didn’t even pay attention?

Our prayers and meditations connected Jesus’ suffering to the sufferings in our city–to homelessness, poverty, unemployment, and racism. As we walked and stopped to pray and meditate, I kept thinking of all those people in this city who suffer, all those who walk the street day and night, not just for an hour on a mostly sunny April afternoon. I thought of the man who died on our steps last January and all the men who seek shelter inside our walls. As we gathered in Grace’s courtyard garden for the last station, I thought of the folks who gather in the same area, waiting for our Food Pantry to open its doors.

As we walked, I thought of our worship, taking place safely behind the thick walls of our church, mostly protected from the noise and reality of life on Capitol Square. As we walked, I thought of the cross; I thought of Jesus, his loving embrace of the world and of all of the worlds cast-offs. I thought of his arms, stretched out on the hard wood of the cross, reaching out in love to everyone and to every city, reaching out to the sidewalks and the gutters, reaching out to us.

photo by the Rev’d Miranda Hassett

Holy God,
Holy and Mighty,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy upon us.

On Friday, April 11, at noon, Madison Episcopalians will be walking the way of the cross downtown. We invite others to join us in this devotional practice as we prepare for Holy Week. We will begin outside the Federal Courthouse (120 N. Henry St.).

The Stations of the Cross is a traditional Roman Catholic devotional practice in which participants walk fourteen stations that depict scenes from the last hours of Jesus’ life, his death and burial. Visual images are prompts for devotion and at each station prayers and meditations are offered. The roots of this practice go back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. We know that Christian pilgrims came to Jerusalem in the 4th and 5th century and sought out those places mentioned in the gospels in connection with Jesus’ passion.

In keeping with St. Francis of Assisi’s devotion to the imitation of Christ, the Franciscans were the popularizers of the Stations of the Cross in the Middle Ages. Eventually the number of stations was fixed at fourteen. While many of the traditional stations are linked to the gospel accounts, others derive from popular stories and devotions. The medieval hymn Stabat Mater often is sung or recited and at each station the traditional hymn Adoremus te is sung or said:

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Our stations will differ from traditional practice in that we will link them to life in Madison. We will begin at the Federal Courthouse on Henry Street and walk a little over a mile around Capitol Square. Our stations will include the Dane County Jail, the City-County Building, the YWCA, the Wisconsin Veterans’ Museum, as well as the steps of Grace Church where a homeless man died on one of the coldest days of the year. We will end in the courtyard garden at Grace.

Typically, the Stations of the Cross are an intensely personal and individual devotion focused on one’s own entering into Christ’s suffering. We want to reflect on Christ’s suffering more broadly. The community of Madison is struggling in so many ways, with  deepening racial, economic and ethnic divides, poverty and homelessness. It is our hope that by walking the way of the cross in Madison, we will be a witness of Christ’s redemptive and transforming love in this community and in our hearts.

Here’s the Episcopal Way of the Cross (from the Book of Occasional Services) by way of St. Mark’s Pro-Cathedral, Hastings, NE