Stations of the Cross

We pray together

Father, send your Just One to forgive the Barabbas that is in me.

Grant me Your mercy, heal me …

so that I may stop pointing my accusing finger.

Let me learn to love as You are loving me.

Teach me how to free others so that I too may be free.

We pray together

It is difficult, Lord, to look outside myself, difficult to look within and face the wounds of this man of suffering.

Teach me then, Good Lord, to carry the cross of my being human, so that I may truly know that with You the burden is light.

And only with You is the burden light.

We pray together

Father, You save the poor who cry to You, and lift up those who have fallen.  Let me find space for pity.  Do not allow me to neglect those crushed under the cross they bear; help me to support them and share in their pain.

With those who fall under the weight of their suffering, every day, everywhere, it is Your son who falls.

We pray together

Grant to us, Lord, grant to your Church, the gift of mercy; that mercy which wants nothing but each others good.

In his bitter dying, your son said to his mother,

“Woman, here is your son.”

Help us to learn from her motherhood how to love every person as a beloved child; how to become signs of Your loving, supporting care.

We pray together

Loving Father, give us compassion.  Teach us how to share the suffering of others and carry their burden.  As Your son staggers to Calvary, we see we are in Your debt.

We understand we owe each other love.

Help us to choose to love, whatever the cost.

We pray together

Father of Light, no man has seen Your face.

Yet, through Your loving son, we see it come clear in the least of men, in the lost.

Give us eyes to see, Lord, re-create us in Your image.

We pray together

Do not abandon us, Lord our God.

We are overwhelmed by weakness.

Heal us so that we can stop wounding others and letting others be oppressed.

Heal us, and we will proclaim Your living power to all our brothers and sisters.

We pray together

Father, You placed in each one of us the gift of compassion and the longing for justice.  Help us to understand that to share another’s pain is not enough: You call us to realise our responsibility for each other’s pain and to lose our lives, as Jesus did, for all.

We pray together

Lord of all change and growth, change our hearts before we let our world be poisoned and die.

Transform our hearts of stone into warm hearts of flesh.

Give us courage to co-operate more responsibly and trust each other more generously.

Help us to build together a new society so that we may experience the blessing of being peacemakers.

We pray together

Lord Christ, on Calvary You made Yourself naked so that we might be enfolded in love.

Give us Your wedding garment, Risen Lord, make us ready to sit at table with You in Your eternal kingdom.

We pray together

Risen Lord, You are the sun that never sets.

When we enter the darkness, shine on the pain of our loneliness and bring us onwards to our new dawn.

We pray together

“The glorious cross of the Risen Lord

Is the tree of my salvation;

I eat its fruit, and in it I rejoice;

In its roots I grow, in his branches I lie down.

Its dew makes me glad, its breezes refreshes me,

In its shadow I set my tent.

The cross of the Risen One is my nourishment in anger,

A spring of water to satisfy my thirst,

Clothing over my nakedness.

When I am threatened, it is my defence.

When I stumble it supports me.

In victory it is my crown, in struggle it is my reward.

Oh tree of eternal salvation,

Oh pillar of the universe,

Oh scaffolding of the world;

Your top touches the skies,

And in your open arms,

The love of God shines.”

We pray together

Lord Christ we have done away with You on an unjust charge, we have buried You among the wicked.

Yet You carried the sins of many, and interceded for sinners.

Now because You gave Yourself up to death,

You have gained whole people as a prize.

You, Lord, redeemed our evil with Your goodness, You transmitted the curse which lay heavily on the earth into abounding blessing.

Give us, Lord, the gift of your death

so that we may enter into Your endless life.

We pray together

Lord of all hopes and freedom, like the grain of wheat You fell and died for the life of us all.

When our hopes fall, give us courage, Risen Lord.

When we feel cut off, bring us back to the newness of life.