Along the Via Dolorosa. (A Lenten Meditation).

We enter the Old City of Jerusalem by St. Stephen's Gate and I think of how he was stoned just Outside here and how his dying words told the story of Jesus' love and salvation and that in the telling his face shone like that of an angel. The agony of Stephen's death and the ecstasy of his knowing and sharing of God's love echoed in whispers along the Via Dolorosa--The Way of Sorrows. I am now walking in solemn silence where Our Lord Jesus, His body beaten, bruised, bleeding and exhausted, struggled under His cross along this way of sorrows--known today as the Via Dolorosa or the Via Cruxis (Way of the Cross). It is the traditional path along which Jesus agonized from the Praetorium (close-by St. Stephen's Gate) where he was sentenced by Pilate, to the hill of Golgotha "Calvary" where He was crucified.

Although Christians have retraced Jesus' steps from the earliest days, the term "Via Dolorosa" began in the 1500s. There were many times when Jerusalem was closed to Christians, or when the journey there was too difficult; so, about five hundred years ago, it became a popular thing to set up a path marked by "stations" noting what likely happened along the way of Christ's Passion. Beginning at His sentencing, it ended at His tomb. In Jesus' time, His sorrowful walk was mostly outside the city walls; today it lies within them and the last five stations are covered by the large, embracing Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is believed to envelop Golgotha as well as His tomb hewn from stone. Most Christians believe this is the actual site, although some believe that another site, the Garden Tomb, is where it all happened.

But even if we were certain, the geography is not what is important; what makes the Via Dolorosa meaningful is the remembering--the empathy and prayer--the closeness and the thinking and trying with our finite minds to realize something of what Jesus, very God incarnate, endured for us that makes this walk a holy one. It is a way of drawing closer to Him. Actually, after Jesus' death, during the terrible days of Christian persecution, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built temples to pagan gods over sacred Christian sites in Jerusalem. The Christian Emperor Constantine changed all that and his mother Helena, along with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Macanus, spent much time and effort locating the holy sites and building (Byzantine) churches over them.

So in the year 335 AD Helena had a beautiful basilica built here over the sites they considered were the places of Jesus' crucifixion and sepulchre. Damaged and laid waste by conquerors through the years, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt over the foundations of Helena's basilica in 1149 by the Crusaders, and that is the one we see today. It arches protectingly over the last part of the Via Dolorosa.

I am continuing along the narrow street, hemmed in on both sides by stone-walled buildings matching the stones of the pavement below. Many are churches commemorating and preserving sacred sites. The street in this Arabic quarter of Jerusalem teems with passing people, but I feel oblivious to what is around me excepting what relates to my Lord.

Following the footsteps of Jesus

We begin at Station 1, where Jesus stood, bound and beaten, before Pilate, and was condemned. They crowned Him with thorns digging into his brow, ripping His skin so that blood mingled with His sweat and the spit of those who tormented Him.

"Then they spat on His face and buffeted Him; while others struck His face with the palms of their hands." Matthew 26:67

Then, just across the street, we find Station 2 in the Flagellation Chapel. Jesus was whipped here, and then, beaten and tortured, He took up his cross. Our guide points out the deeply etched and ancient stones on the floor where we stand, telling how the Roman soldiers played a game there, known as "The King's Game." It was here that Pilate said: "Behold, the man!" (John 19: 5). And there is an arch above us as we walk the path. It is called the "Ecce Homo" (Behold, the man) arch. And I think of the prophet Isaiah's words when he said some seven hundred years before it happened: "... it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken .... But he was pierced for our offences, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes are we healed" (Isaiah 53: 4-5). We continue down Al-Mujah Deen Road, turning left onto El-Wad Road for the 3rd and 4th Stations.

The 3rd Station shows Jesus, crowned with thorns, falling under the cross, and a deeply etched stone relief, crowning the entrance to a Polish chapel, graphically shows this. And I think again of Isaiah's words: "I looked about, but there was no one to help..." (Is. 63: 5). We walk on a few steps to Station 4 which is about the suffering Jesus seeing his mother, and again, rising above the doorway of an Armenian chapel, a high relief depicts this anguished moment. And I think of how in Lamentations there is this prophecy: "All you who pass, look and see; is any sorrow like the sorrow that afflicts me?" (Lamentations 2:13). A man approaches us with a wooden cross and we take it, sharing the load. Now it is even more meaningful, but I realize how small and light this cross is compared with His; how I've not been beaten and tortured and how several of us share its load; yet I walk on, holding high this symbol, and the tears begin to flow.

Station 5 rises just around the corner, as the walk begins a steady ascent and we think of its meaning, as it tells of how a passerby, Simon, was enlisted to help Jesus carry the cross to ensure that He would be able to arrive at the site of His crucifixion. "I have lost all means of escape; there is no one who cares for my life" Psalm 141: 5). A steep walk up this road leads to the Convent of the Little Sisters of Jesus at Station 6, over the traditional place of the home of a woman named Veronica who wiped Jesus' face. It was streaming with sweat mingled with blood and, when she drew the cloth away, it held a pure image of Jesus' face. And I feel the warmth of God's blessing: "May the Lord make His face shine upon you" (Numbers 6:26).

Crossing the road, I come to the 7th Station of the Cross, commemorating where Jesus fell under the load of the cross, our sins, a second time. And I wonder at how this living God could humble Himself so to feel as we do the horror of this torture and I am unable to comprehend. But I try, thinking hard on it as I pause at this place marked by a Roman column within a Franciscan chapel. And I am reminded of Isaiah's prophecy:

"With their affliction, He was afflicted. In His love and pity He redeemed [us]" (Isaiah 63: 9).

The 8th Station is marked by an imprint in the wall of a monastery. It is a circle enclosing a pierced cross and under its arms is the Greek word NIKA, meaning "victor." Across the top of the arms are the abbreviated names for "Jesus Christ"--"IC" and "XC." This station tells of Jesus saying to the weeping women of Jerusalem: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children" (Luke 23: 28). A Roman pillar by a Coptic monastery marks the 9th Station, reliving Jesus' third fall under the unbearable weight of the cross

He chose to bear--the weight of the sins of the world throughout time and place. As Isaiah said: "... he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offences" (Isaiah 53: 12).

Calvary was on this spot

We reach the 10th Station at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here Jesus was stripped of His clothes. Again, Isaiah described Him: "From the sole of the foot to the head, there is no sound spot: wound and welt and gaping flesh, not drained, or bandaged, or eased with salve" (Isaiah 1: 6).

We rest the cross we've carried beside the door of the church covering the site of Golgotha and enter in, and almost immediately we see before us a large gleaming mosaic of the 11th Station of the Cross showing Jesus lying on His cross, with arms outstretched as nails are driven through His hands. Below lies a large marble slab of a table and the guide leans close, whispering that this is where they anointed His body for burial. We've yet to reach the crucifixion, it is a bit ahead of us and we're a bit ahead of time; it is as if we are surrounded by His agony--His terrible suffering--and tears flow unashamedly. "They have pierced my hands and my feet..." (Psalm 22: 17).

And a short way ahead we see it--Jesus dying on the cross, the 12th Station of the Cross. Pilgrims form a line among the incense and the burning candles in order to approach the cross, kneel and touch a hole below so as to feel with their bare hands the mount of Calvary. Standing in line, awaiting our turn, gives us time to meditate and attempt to feel His suffering: "I am like water poured out; all my bones are racked. My heart has become like wax melting away within my bosom. My throat is dried up like baked clay, my tongue cleaves to my jaws; to the dust of death you have brought me down" (Isaiah 21: 15-16).

Here is where Jesus cried out in deepest pain: "Eli, Eli, lama sabbach tami," that is, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" Then uttering a loud cry, Jesus gives up His Spirit (Matthew 27:50). Immediately beside this is the site of the descent from the cross, the 13th Station. A poignant sculpture of Mary rests in this place, a sword piercing her heart, reminding us of Simeon's statement in the Temple when he first saw Our Lord as a tiny baby. He praised God, telling of the wonders of this holy Child, and then to Mary he said: "And a sword shall pierce your own soul" (Luke 2: 35). Both the 14th and the 15th Stations lie within the tomb of Jesus, the Holy Sepulchre--the place of His burial and of His resurrection, respectively.

He is risen!

The door is small and low so that it is with humility that I must enter and it is the way it should be; just as one must stoop low to enter the door to the place of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. "And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth ... "(Matthew 27: 59). While most Stations of the Cross around the world end with His burial, here they end with His resurrection which took place in this same place, on the third day. "And the angel said to them: 'He has risen. He is not here"' (Mark 16:6).

Deeply moved, I would stay, but must leave the small enclosure to make room for other pilgrims. So I move on from the tiny tomb and wander within the massive Church of the Holy Sepulchre, seeing worshippers from around the world paying tribute in chapels of Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, and I know not how many others of His sheepfolds. And I ask of a priest a blessing and he places his hand on my head and prays and I too pray through a tearful face, and it is as if I feel purged and enfolded in His tender mercies, and that not only for me, but for all those who would seek Him in humility. As Isaiah foretold, some seven hundred years before it happened: "We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all" (Isaiah 53: 6).

Jeanne Conte, of Columbus, Ohio, has contributed to Catholic magazines in several countries.