Fr. Clever reflects on the power of the Stations of the Cross
How did Jesus getting brutally murdered on the cross bring salvation to humanity?
By him sanctifying everything he touches, even suffering.
“When Jesus dies on the cross, he puts the order of creation that we understand on its head,” said Father Gregory Clever, associate pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Columbia. “He sanctifies suffering and death.”
Less than a week before Ash Wednesday, Fr. Clever led a discussion of the Stations of the Cross in Flanagan Hall of Our Lady of Lourdes Church.
About 100 people attended.
Fr. Clever read a passage from the first chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, in which a leper begs Jesus to heal him.
Leprosy is a painful, disfiguring and often lethal bacterial infection, affecting the skin, nerves, eyes and lining of the nose. People in Jesus’s day were required to stay away from other people to avoid spreading the disease.
Anyone who touched a leper was considered unclean.
“But Jesus, being God, is so holy and perfect that when he touches things that have been corrupted by our fallen nature, rather than becoming corrupt, he purifies those things,” said Fr. Clever.
In the story of Creation, Adam, the first man, ran as far away as he could from God after sinfully disobeying him in the Garden of Eden.
Jesus, through his death on the cross, “runs after Adam in the fullness of his brokenness, to restore his life, to encounter his suffering.”
Just as he does for everyone, through that same cross.
He also makes it possible for people to become greater than the angels, who are pure spirit and cannot physically suffer.
“When we suffer, we become like God in a way an angel cannot,” said Fr. Clever. “God is giving us grace in a way angels cannot receive it.”
That’s why the message is proclaimed at the Easter Vigil every year: “O, happy fault of Adam, that sin that merited for us so glorious a Savior!”
Jesus not only conquered suffering and death by his dying and rising, he touched it and made it holy.
“That is the mystery of our redemption,” said Fr. Clever.
He pointed to Venerable Fulton Sheen’s reflection on the Sixth Station of the Cross: “Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus.”
Bishop Sheen wrote that through Veronica’s act of kindness, Jesus reveals that the only way people can become exactly like him is by suffering.
“That is the cross’s answer to all of the problems of the world,” said Fr. Clever. “The sufferings we endure are our glory in heaven.
“Jesus says the condition of being his disciple is, ‘unless you pick up your cross daily, embrace your suffering and follow me, you cannot be my disciple,’” the priest continued.
In Colossians 1:24, St. Paul states: “I make up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.”
What could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? For that sacrifice is perfect.
“The one thing lacking is OUR sufferings,” said Fr. Clever. “We have to choose to offer up our sufferings to God.”
That can only be done with God’s grace and help.
“We have to choose to accept that grace,” said Fr. Clever. “That’s the secret of the grace of the cross. All of our sufferings have purpose and meaning.”
The modern world sees all pain and suffering as evil to be avoided at all cost.
“Whereas, the whole point of Christianity is that suffering has purpose,” the priest stated. “We embrace the cross, and after our sufferings, we are granted the joy and pleasure of heaven.”
So, the Christian perspective is: “I get to pick up a cross. This is for glory in heaven! I will embrace the cross that saves me,” he said.
Freely accepted
The Stations of the Cross are an ancient Catholic devotion in which the faithful meditate on 14 moments leading up to Jesus’s death.
Fr. Clever noted that the illustrations of the Stations of the Cross that adorn Our Lady of Lourdes Church were originally installed in the old church in 1958 and moved to the current church when it was built in 1999.
An artist in St. Louis recently painted the stations and mounted them in frames that match the window frames of the church.
“I think they look fantastic,” said Fr. Clever. “So, I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to consider the significance of this beautiful devotional practice.”
He proclaimed a passage from the first chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.
Therein, Paul refers to Jesus as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
“If you want to know the love of the Father, if you want to see the love that burns at the heart of the Trinity, the center of what’s going on there, look at the cross,” said Fr. Clever. “That is the image of God’s love for us.”
Each Station of the Cross is a reflection of Jesus’s suffering and death for the sins of humanity.
“God is showing us his love for us,” the priest stated. “He is manifesting what love truly is, what is at the heart of a loving relationship.”
“And we are praying about the love that God has for us and manifests for us in his suffering and death,” he said.
Fr. Clever called to mind the Second Station of the Cross: “Jesus Accepts His Cross.”
“It’s easy to see Jesus as the victim on the cross,” said Fr. Clever. “But, Jesus is not merely the victim. He’s also the priest who is actively offering up all of his suffering.”
It’s a reminder that Jesus could have stopped his passion and death at any point.
“He’s still fully God every second he’s carrying that cross or when he’s on that cross suffering,” said Fr. Clever. “Which means with a snap of his fingers, he could make it all stop. He chooses to carry it out of love for us.”
The priest pointed to John 13:1: “Jesus loved his own in the world and loved them to the end.”
The original Greek words for that phrase are the same ones Jesus cried out at the moment of his death: “It is finished.”
“Which means every second of his Stations of the Cross, he was thinking about his own in the world, thinking about them by name, because he is God,” said Fr. Clever.
“Which means he was personally thinking about you and your salvation because he thought you are worth dying for,” he said.
Love unending
Fr. Clever noted that not all 14 Stations of the Cross are explicitly mentioned in the Bible.
“That’s okay!” he said. “It’s okay to have these traditional devotions, which comes partly from Scripture, partly from our beautiful Catholic Tradition that has been handed down to us from our collective memory.”
For example, the three falls of Jesus are not recorded in Scripture.
“But, I guarantee you, they happened,” said Fr. Clever.
Jesus might have fallen at least once because he was already bleeding to death and his body was wearing out.
“But keep in mind,” said Fr. Clever, “he is God. He’s not going to just accidentally trip because he didn’t see a root on a hill or a cobblestone going up to Mount Golgotha.
“It’s far more likely that someone hit him or threw something at him,” the priest stated. “Because he as God won’t make mistakes but still will allow us to make choices that are evil, in keeping with our gift of free will.”
In those moments, he’s surrounded by a mob that has called for his blood.
Despite that, on the cross, he continues to say, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
“Do we have the strength to do that for people who physically punch us or psychologically punch us with what they do?” Fr. Clever asked.
The priest spoke of St. Alphonsus Liguori’s meditation on the 10th Station: “Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments.”
“St. Alphonsus points out that Jesus at this point had been scourged and reclothed,” Fr. Clever stated. “When he gets stripped, it’s as if he is being scourged all over again.”
It’s another reminder of the tremendous outpouring of God’s love that reaches its apex on the cross.
“I thirst”
Fr. Clever pointed out that six of the 14 Stations involve people helping Jesus.
“When he meets his mother, when Veronica wipes his face, when Simon carries his cross, when he meets the holy women of Jerusalem, when he’s taken down and placed in the tomb — those are people showing pity or actively helping our Lord,” the priest stated.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the gore of the crucifixion, but it’s beautiful that human beings can go against the grain of it,” he said.
Veronica goes against the mob and tries to comfort Jesus by wiping his face. Mary tries to console him during the worst day of both of their lives.
“And in our lives, we have that same opportunity,” said Fr. Clever. “Will we be the mob who calls for his death, or the people who make reparation for the sins of the world with our actions, and turn ourselves to the Lord?”
Jesus’s one solace through all of this was knowing that none of his suffering was in vain.
“When Jesus says, ‘I thirst,’ from the cross, one of the things he is saying is that he thirsts for our souls,” said Fr. Clever.
Catholics help satiate that thirst every time they go to Confession and accept God’s mercy.
“When we turn away from sin, when we make reparation for our sin, that, in a way, is giving him comfort and solace, knowing that the passion he endured is not in vain,” said Fr. Clever.
“Will kneel in homage”
He spoke clearly about Jesus’s words from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some people mistakenly believe that at that moment, the Father has abandoned Jesus and that Jesus is cut off from God in his moment of greatest suffering.
“That can’t happen!” Fr. Clever insisted. “Jesus is God. God can’t cut himself off from himself.”
Actually, in that moment, Jesus is proclaiming the first line of what is now known as Psalm 22, but which at that time would have been recognized by its first few words.
“That Psalm depicts a person being crucified,” said Fr. Clever. “Holes in his hands and feet, dogs at his feet and crowds are jeering at him and insulting him and even casting lots for his garments.
“Jesus is saying, ‘Go and read Psalm 22! This has been foretold, and it’s going to be okay,’” the priest explained.
Because that Psalm ends with that suffering person being glorified by God, and with him bringing all the nations in to worship God.
“This person who has died is somehow triumphant through all of that,” Fr. Clever noted.
Staying with the sadness
While praying the Stations of the Cross, people sometimes include 15th Station: “Jesus Rises from the Dead.”
Fr. Clever suggested considering foregoing that station during Lent.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with praying with this optional station, and you can certainly still do it if you want to,” he said.
However, people in this culture tend to have a problem with enduring negative emotions.
“But when our hearts are hurting, it’s okay to stay with that,” he said. “Having a time of prayer that ends painfully — that might not be the worst thing in the world during Lent.”
One of the reasons people pray the Stations in Lent is to experience the darkness of what happens and process some of the pain Mary and the disciples were feeling.
“How we can process that pain, but also process the darkness that sometimes creeps up in our own lives?” he asked.
He noted that there are numerous versions of the prayers and devotions for the Stations of the Cross, many of them very good.
Fr. Clever finds the meditations by Venerable Fulton Sheen and St. Alphonsus to be particularly powerful but suggested being open to many other versions.
He also encouraged everyone to take just a few minutes in church whenever possible to stop at each station and briefly meditate on their meaning.
“Once you reflect on the Stations of the Cross, you see that no matter where our sufferings take us, they always bring us closer to God,” he stated.
“There is no place we can run where God isn’t there with an outstretched hand, so long as we’re willing to reach out and accept that,” he said.
He closed by praying: “Please conform our hearts more to his, so that we can see the sufferings we endure not just as mere pains but ways to draw closer to your Son and also to see and open our hearts to how much he loved us on the cross, that we could reflect that love, then, to others.”
