Stations of the Cross - Lent 2017
Alleviating Poverty
Alleviating Poverty
Introduction
A key component of the Justice and Peace Commission Action Plan is to challenge the avoidable causes of poverty, focussing on working conditions and low pay and on the difficulties faced by benefit recipients and the demonization of benefit recipients. We will do this by raising awareness of poverty in our Diocese, by campaigning for a real living wage as against the government national living wage, and lobbying local MPs and where appropriate, local and national companies throughout the Diocese.
Prayer is an important part of all the Commission’s work and this resource is produced to encourage parishes on each Sunday of Lent to reflect on the suffering of Jesus in the Way of the Cross, in the context of poverty.
"A man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’" (Mk 10:17).
Jesus answered this burning question, which arises in the innermost core of our being, by walking the way of the Cross. The call to follow Jesus is addressed to all, especially to the young and to those who are tried by poverty, division, wars or injustice and who fight to be signs of hope and builders of peace in the midst of their communities.
We therefore place ourselves before you with love, we present our sufferings to you, we turn our gaze and our heart to your Holy Cross.
A key component of the Justice and Peace Commission Action Plan is to challenge the avoidable causes of poverty, focussing on working conditions and low pay and on the difficulties faced by benefit recipients and the demonization of benefit recipients. We will do this by raising awareness of poverty in our Diocese, by campaigning for a real living wage as against the government national living wage, and lobbying local MPs and where appropriate, local and national companies throughout the Diocese.
Prayer is an important part of all the Commission’s work and this resource is produced to encourage parishes on each Sunday of Lent to reflect on the suffering of Jesus in the Way of the Cross, in the context of poverty.
"A man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’" (Mk 10:17).
Jesus answered this burning question, which arises in the innermost core of our being, by walking the way of the Cross. The call to follow Jesus is addressed to all, especially to the young and to those who are tried by poverty, division, wars or injustice and who fight to be signs of hope and builders of peace in the midst of their communities.
We therefore place ourselves before you with love, we present our sufferings to you, we turn our gaze and our heart to your Holy Cross.
1st Sunday of Lent
I Station: Jesus is condemned to death
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark 15:12-13, 15
Pilate again said to them, "Then what shall I do with the man whom you call the King of the Jews?" And they cried out again, "Crucify him." Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas; and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
From Pilate, the man with power, Jesus ought to have obtained justice. Pilate did indeed have the power to recognize Jesus’ innocence and free him. But the Roman Governor preferred to serve the logic of his personal interests and he yielded to political and social pressures. He condemned an innocent man in order to please the crowd, without satisfying truth. He handed Jesus over to the torment of the Cross, knowing that he was innocent ... and then he washed his hands.
In today’s world, there are many "Pilates" who keep their hands on the levers of power and make use of them in order to serve the strongest.
Reflection: What does it mean to be condemned – and to be condemned unjustly? We see poverty, injustice and unfairness all around us, the scale of the problem is too difficult for us to deal with and (like Pilate) we wash our hands of it. Let us remove our blinkers because wherever there is suffering and injustice we cannot remain outsiders or uninvolved.
Action: Do you know of any local or national organisation in your parish who you think may not be paying the national living wage. If so please contact the Commission with details so we can challenge them. Are the paid workers in your parish, eg, hall caretaker, parish secretary etc., paid the national living wage?
I Station: Jesus is condemned to death
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark 15:12-13, 15
Pilate again said to them, "Then what shall I do with the man whom you call the King of the Jews?" And they cried out again, "Crucify him." Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas; and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
From Pilate, the man with power, Jesus ought to have obtained justice. Pilate did indeed have the power to recognize Jesus’ innocence and free him. But the Roman Governor preferred to serve the logic of his personal interests and he yielded to political and social pressures. He condemned an innocent man in order to please the crowd, without satisfying truth. He handed Jesus over to the torment of the Cross, knowing that he was innocent ... and then he washed his hands.
In today’s world, there are many "Pilates" who keep their hands on the levers of power and make use of them in order to serve the strongest.
Reflection: What does it mean to be condemned – and to be condemned unjustly? We see poverty, injustice and unfairness all around us, the scale of the problem is too difficult for us to deal with and (like Pilate) we wash our hands of it. Let us remove our blinkers because wherever there is suffering and injustice we cannot remain outsiders or uninvolved.
Action: Do you know of any local or national organisation in your parish who you think may not be paying the national living wage. If so please contact the Commission with details so we can challenge them. Are the paid workers in your parish, eg, hall caretaker, parish secretary etc., paid the national living wage?
2nd Sunday of Lent
IV Station: Jesus meets his mother
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 2:34-35, 51b
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." His mother kept all these things in her heart.
Wounded and suffering, carrying mankind’s Cross, Jesus meets his mother and, in her face, all mankind. Jesus suffers on seeing his mother suffer, as does Mary on seeing her Son suffer. But from this shared suffering a new humanity is born.
Reflection: Many mothers, like Mary, suffer on seeing their children suffer particularly those families facing poverty. In particular, mothers worry about the impact that growing up in poverty can have on a child. Children growing up in poverty can frequently miss out on what most of us consider essential: a decent diet, a warm home, birthday treats, school trips, books, and somewhere safe to play. Growing up in poverty can also affect on children’s future life chances. Latest statistics show that only 38 per cent of children entitled to free school meals achieve 5 GCSEs A*–C, including English and Maths; 65 per cent of other children achieve this benchmark.
Action: Consider joining "Barnados". This charity believes that poverty is the single greatest threat to the wellbeing of children and families. You could donate, be a fundraiser volunteer, help in a shop, or perhaps work with children and young people on one of their programmes.
IV Station: Jesus meets his mother
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 2:34-35, 51b
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." His mother kept all these things in her heart.
Wounded and suffering, carrying mankind’s Cross, Jesus meets his mother and, in her face, all mankind. Jesus suffers on seeing his mother suffer, as does Mary on seeing her Son suffer. But from this shared suffering a new humanity is born.
Reflection: Many mothers, like Mary, suffer on seeing their children suffer particularly those families facing poverty. In particular, mothers worry about the impact that growing up in poverty can have on a child. Children growing up in poverty can frequently miss out on what most of us consider essential: a decent diet, a warm home, birthday treats, school trips, books, and somewhere safe to play. Growing up in poverty can also affect on children’s future life chances. Latest statistics show that only 38 per cent of children entitled to free school meals achieve 5 GCSEs A*–C, including English and Maths; 65 per cent of other children achieve this benchmark.
Action: Consider joining "Barnados". This charity believes that poverty is the single greatest threat to the wellbeing of children and families. You could donate, be a fundraiser volunteer, help in a shop, or perhaps work with children and young people on one of their programmes.
3rd Sunday of Lent
V Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the Cross
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 23:26
As they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the Cross, to carry it behind Jesus.
Jesus’ meeting with Simon of Cyrene took place in silence, providing us with a lesson for our lives: God does not want suffering and he does not accept evil. The same is true of the human being. But suffering, accepted in faith, is transformed into a path of salvation. Then we accept it as Jesus did, and we help to carry it as Simon of Cyrene did.
Reflection: One of the main causes of poverty is unemployment with the lack of a regular income leading to the inability to be able to maintain the basic needs, including fundamental provisions such as eating healthy foods, buying into health care and providing adequate heating for the home. While there are many types of poverty, the reasons behind poverty are always a lack of money. Nowadays, most people in poverty live in a home where someone works. Low paid workers may suffer much the same hardships.
Action: How then can we be like Simon of Cyrene and help a fellow human being who is unemployed? Do you know of someone in your parish? Can you help them by finding out about education and training opportunities in your area? Help then write a CV? Teach them interview skills. Give them a reference ?
V Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the Cross
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 23:26
As they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the Cross, to carry it behind Jesus.
Jesus’ meeting with Simon of Cyrene took place in silence, providing us with a lesson for our lives: God does not want suffering and he does not accept evil. The same is true of the human being. But suffering, accepted in faith, is transformed into a path of salvation. Then we accept it as Jesus did, and we help to carry it as Simon of Cyrene did.
Reflection: One of the main causes of poverty is unemployment with the lack of a regular income leading to the inability to be able to maintain the basic needs, including fundamental provisions such as eating healthy foods, buying into health care and providing adequate heating for the home. While there are many types of poverty, the reasons behind poverty are always a lack of money. Nowadays, most people in poverty live in a home where someone works. Low paid workers may suffer much the same hardships.
Action: How then can we be like Simon of Cyrene and help a fellow human being who is unemployed? Do you know of someone in your parish? Can you help them by finding out about education and training opportunities in your area? Help then write a CV? Teach them interview skills. Give them a reference ?
4th Sunday of Lent
VIII Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem who weep for him
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 23:27-28
There followed behind him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."
On the path to Calvary, the Lord meets the women of Jerusalem. These women are weeping at the Lord’s sufferings as if he were suffering without hope. All they can see in the Cross is the wood, sign of a curse, whereas the Lord chose it as a means of Redemption and Salvation. In the Passion and Crucifixion, Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many. Thus he gave relief to those who were oppressed under the yoke and he consoled the afflicted. He wiped away the tears of the women of Jerusalem and opened their eyes to Paschal truth.
Reflection: Our world is full of afflicted mothers, of women whose dignity has been wounded, abused by discrimination, injustice and suffering. Gender inequality has a direct impact on poverty.Policies that support women’s ability to work, and for those who wish to care for their children at home, are critical to moving women and their children out of poverty. This is important because work is the best pathway out of poverty, which disproportionately affects women as in the main they are responsible for child care. The reason that issues such as child care continue to be a struggle is because women’s experiences or perspectives are frequently invisible to policymakers.
Action: Write to your MP stressing the link between inequality and poverty and ask them what they are doing to alleviate gender discrimination, particularly on employment.
VIII Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem who weep for him
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 23:27-28
There followed behind him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."
On the path to Calvary, the Lord meets the women of Jerusalem. These women are weeping at the Lord’s sufferings as if he were suffering without hope. All they can see in the Cross is the wood, sign of a curse, whereas the Lord chose it as a means of Redemption and Salvation. In the Passion and Crucifixion, Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many. Thus he gave relief to those who were oppressed under the yoke and he consoled the afflicted. He wiped away the tears of the women of Jerusalem and opened their eyes to Paschal truth.
Reflection: Our world is full of afflicted mothers, of women whose dignity has been wounded, abused by discrimination, injustice and suffering. Gender inequality has a direct impact on poverty.Policies that support women’s ability to work, and for those who wish to care for their children at home, are critical to moving women and their children out of poverty. This is important because work is the best pathway out of poverty, which disproportionately affects women as in the main they are responsible for child care. The reason that issues such as child care continue to be a struggle is because women’s experiences or perspectives are frequently invisible to policymakers.
Action: Write to your MP stressing the link between inequality and poverty and ask them what they are doing to alleviate gender discrimination, particularly on employment.
5th Sunday of Lent
X Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John 19:23
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another: “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it”. This was to fulfil what the Scripture says: “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my tunic they cast lots”. And that is what the soldiers did.
They didn’t leave even a patch of cloth to cover Jesus’ body. They stripped him naked. He was without his cloak, his tunic, any garment whatsoever. They stripped him as an act of utter humiliation.
In Jesus, innocent, stripped and tortured, we see the outraged dignity of all the innocent, especially the little ones. God did not prevent his naked body from being exposed on the cross. He did this in order to redeem every abuse wrongly concealed, and to show that he is irrevocably and unreservedly on the side of victims.
Reflection: Jesus was indeed humiliated and stripped of his dignity but throughout is on the side of victims. In our modern world some 2.4 million people are trafficked globally at any given time. In his Pastoral Letter launching his initiative of raising awareness of modern slavery across the Diocese, Bishop Patrick pointed out that it is easy to think that human trafficking, a kind of modern slavery happens elsewhere, but not where I live.
He outlined the story of a young girl held captive as an unpaid domestic slave in Nottingham. Another human stripped of her dignity.
Action: Like Jesus, be on the side of the victim and attend Bishop Patrick’s training sessions on raising awareness of modern slavery and hear how you can identify slavery in your area and how to report it. If you have missed the session in your county, contact Louise Cooke at jpnottingham@nrcdt.org.uk for information.
X Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John 19:23
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another: “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it”. This was to fulfil what the Scripture says: “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my tunic they cast lots”. And that is what the soldiers did.
They didn’t leave even a patch of cloth to cover Jesus’ body. They stripped him naked. He was without his cloak, his tunic, any garment whatsoever. They stripped him as an act of utter humiliation.
In Jesus, innocent, stripped and tortured, we see the outraged dignity of all the innocent, especially the little ones. God did not prevent his naked body from being exposed on the cross. He did this in order to redeem every abuse wrongly concealed, and to show that he is irrevocably and unreservedly on the side of victims.
Reflection: Jesus was indeed humiliated and stripped of his dignity but throughout is on the side of victims. In our modern world some 2.4 million people are trafficked globally at any given time. In his Pastoral Letter launching his initiative of raising awareness of modern slavery across the Diocese, Bishop Patrick pointed out that it is easy to think that human trafficking, a kind of modern slavery happens elsewhere, but not where I live.
He outlined the story of a young girl held captive as an unpaid domestic slave in Nottingham. Another human stripped of her dignity.
Action: Like Jesus, be on the side of the victim and attend Bishop Patrick’s training sessions on raising awareness of modern slavery and hear how you can identify slavery in your area and how to report it. If you have missed the session in your county, contact Louise Cooke at jpnottingham@nrcdt.org.uk for information.
Palm Sunday
XII Station: Jesus dies on the cross
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 23:46
Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And having said this, he breathed his last.
And they crucified him! The punishment reserved for the despicable, for traitors and rebellious slaves. This is the punishment meted out to our Lord Jesus: coarse nails, spasms of pain, the anguish of his mother, the shame of being associated with two thieves, his garments divided like spoils among the soldiers, the cruel jeers of passers-by: “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him!”
Jesus does not come down, he does not leave the cross. He stays there, obedient to the Father’s will to the very end. He loves and he forgives.
Reflection: Today many of our brothers and sisters, like Jesus, are nailed to a bed of pain, in homes where there is insufficient money for food and heating. It is a time of hardship, with bitter days of solitude and even despair with the situation getting worse with ongoing welfare reform plans. For example, there is to be no increase in working age benefits until at least 2020 and from April 2017 many of the child related benefits are to be limited to two children in the family.
Action: Support the work of the Justice and Peace Commission by joining their campaign to challenge the avoidable causes of poverty. Register with the Commission at jpnottingham@nrcdt.org.uk to receive material to lobby your MP and regular communications.
XII Station: Jesus dies on the cross
We adore you, O Christ and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke 23:46
Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And having said this, he breathed his last.
And they crucified him! The punishment reserved for the despicable, for traitors and rebellious slaves. This is the punishment meted out to our Lord Jesus: coarse nails, spasms of pain, the anguish of his mother, the shame of being associated with two thieves, his garments divided like spoils among the soldiers, the cruel jeers of passers-by: “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him!”
Jesus does not come down, he does not leave the cross. He stays there, obedient to the Father’s will to the very end. He loves and he forgives.
Reflection: Today many of our brothers and sisters, like Jesus, are nailed to a bed of pain, in homes where there is insufficient money for food and heating. It is a time of hardship, with bitter days of solitude and even despair with the situation getting worse with ongoing welfare reform plans. For example, there is to be no increase in working age benefits until at least 2020 and from April 2017 many of the child related benefits are to be limited to two children in the family.
Action: Support the work of the Justice and Peace Commission by joining their campaign to challenge the avoidable causes of poverty. Register with the Commission at jpnottingham@nrcdt.org.uk to receive material to lobby your MP and regular communications.
