The Twelfth Station of the Cross: A Mercy Reflection

As a little girl, my experience of Good Friday was one of respectful silence. Although our family did not go to church that day, my mother insisted that I be in the house, “off the streets,” so to speak, particularly from twelve to three, not playing or even uttering one word in our little apartment. Rather, she insisted that I rest in total silence.

Because of that experience of a silent Good Friday observance of Jesus’ death on the Cross for us, a particular homily that I heard as an adult made a deep impression on me and my view of Jesus’ Sacrifice. It is that homily that frames this reflection of the Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the Cross.

After fulfilling his ethnic-religious custom of prayerfully, reverently, silently visiting a number of area churches, a Franciscan Friar made his way to the hospital to visit a young, seriously ill seminarian.

Surrounded by the sights (tubes, machines, body fluids), sounds (busy-ness of health professionals; moans, groans, squeals and screams of patients), and odorous smells of suffering, the friar admitted that he initially found the sights, sounds, and smells, quite offensive—particularly on Good Friday, when he was expecting an extension of the silent respect he had been paying to the Lord as he visited the churches. Then, at a certain point during the visit with the young man, who was connected with tubes and machinery, and in pain, despite medicine, the friar had an “epiphany moment,” a certain spiritual realization.

Although what he saw, heard, and smelled was in sharp contrast to the reverential silence he was used to experiencing—and wanted to experience--on Good Friday, the friar realized that what he was experiencing was, in fact, reflecting the reality of the first Good Friday.

Jesus’ death was not neat and clean; neither was it antiseptic nor sterile. His Body was totally bruised and bloody. Even more, Jesus’ death was a noisy, public spectacle. There was the sound of the hammer, nailing His hands and feet on to the Cross. The air—His dying space--was filled with noisy jeers, taunts, ridicules and mockings, delivered in the words, as well as in the body language, of passersby and onlookers; soldiers, chief priests, scribes, and elders (Cf. Matt. 27:39-43; Mark 15:29-32; Luke 23:35-37).

As the friar considered his hospital visit in the light of Jesus’ death, he began to feel privileged for being at the young seminarian’s beside, where he began to think that the Passion and Death of Jesus was being unfolded through that young man’s suffering.

Before we consider Jesus’ response to His humiliating Death on the Cross--which the Father transformed into His Son's Great Glory, I would like to linger for a moment over the human circumstances surrounding Jesus’ Death compared with what might be our own. As we imagine our own deaths, I doubt any of us would opt for a painful, public death. I doubt that any of us would want our dying to become a public spectacle. I doubt we would want friends and strangers shouting obscenities at us. I doubt we would want to see our only possessions being gambled away by strangers. Rather, I think we would opt for a sanitary bed, surrounded by the ones we love, peacefully nodding off into eternal rest.

How much gratitude we owe to Jesus for Willingly dying in such a publically humiliating way. How much appreciation we owe, too, to our brothers and sisters in the Communion-of-Saints who, down through the centuries, including these days, willingly have suffered a painful, public death rather than deny Jesus. When I expressed to a priest my concern that I might not be strong enough to withstand such a death, he advised that I trust that God’s Grace would be present at the time and in the way needed to withstand such a death. So that is what I will do; meanwhile, I admire those who were put to the test and passed it: our beloved martyrs.

…Now, back to Jesus. Against that backdrop of public humiliation, how did Jesus respond? …Predictably, as He lived…by showing Mercy!

How do we know that Jesus showed mercy as He hung on the Cross, patiently accepting the humiliations already identified, plus other humiliations surrounding Him, including the humiliation of being crucified as a common criminal, between two criminals?

Based on His last recorded words before He died, we know that Jesus died showing mercy. If you have had the experience of having a loved one die, you know how unforgettably precious and telling those final words can be. For our sake, Jesus made them words of mercy:

“Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) [Despite humiliation and pain, Jesus practiced the forgiveness of His enemies that He had preached and that He requires of His followers.]

“This day you will be with Me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) [Jesus forgave the sins of the repentant “good thief.” Likewise, He forgives our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.]

“I thirst.” (John 19:28) [According to more than one sermon I have heard, rather than thinking of Himself, Jesus was thinking of the souls He wanted to save. Mother Teresa of Calcutta responded to Jesus’ desire to save souls by making those words a guiding force in the lives of Mercy lived by her sisters.]

“My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?” (Matt. 27:46) [As part of His Saving Work, Jesus allowed Himself to feel the desolation of the sinfulness that separates us from God. As I understand, in Jewish tradition, reciting the first line of a Psalm implied the entire Psalm. In this case, Psalm 22 ends with an abandonment of the soul to God Who is all trustworthy. The Divine Mercy Devotion emphasizes that we need to trust in the never-failing, inexhaustible Mercy of God.]

“Woman, behold your son; …son, [behold] your Mother.” (John 19: 26-27) [In giving His beloved disciple John to His Mother, and reciprocally giving His Mother to His beloved disciple (and in that giving, to all of us), Jesus performed corporal and spiritual works of mercy on their and our behalf, e.g. providing for His Mother’s material needs of food, clothing, shelter etc., as well as giving Her comfort from her grief; in turn, Our Lady provided to the grieving apostles—and to us-- comfort, consolation, counsel etc.]

“It is finished.” (John 19: 28) [Jesus accomplished what He took on Flesh to do; what only He could do—as an ultimate act of Mercy: to save us from our sins by Willingly dying on a cross for us. The end of His saving work is the beginning of our needing to willingly correspond with His Merciful Grace to do His Holy Will so that His redemption can be accomplished in us.]

“Father, into Your Hands I commend My Spirit.” (Luke 23: 46) [Jesus came to do His Father’s Will. In His great Mercy, though He is God, Jesus surrendered Himself in total trust to His Father’s Merciful loving embrace; we need to do the same (Cf. Philippians 2:5-8).]

Although His Mother’s words are not recorded, we know from St. John’s description of her body language that she stood in Amen-posture: standing at the foot of the Cross, along with a few other women, as well as St. John (Cf. 19: 25). Scripture doesn’t tell us whether they stood silently, in sharp contrast to the noisy, irreverent crowd. But I imagine that Our Lady was dignified, whether she gently wept for her Son as He died, or waited to cry until a later time.

I like to think that it is Our Lady and the rest of that small group of faithful followers that we emulate in our Good Friday silent reverence. I like to think that we compensate for the lack of reverence—for the total irreverence—shown by those who jeered, mocked, and derided.

At the same time, when charity--when mercy--calls for us to leave the Good Friday silence and to enter into the messiness of human life, let us remember what the friar realized. It is a privilege to accompany someone along the way of the cross, in Jesus’ Holy Name, especially on Good Friday.