A Place Apart
Recently, in Lent, I walked the Stations of the Cross at St Isaacs. We were six women, including Sister Ann and Maranú. It was late on a beautiful sunny Autumn afternoon. The relief images on terracotta tiles are nailed to trees. Created by Doctor Deidre Airey who had surely witnessed much suffering and had cancer herself. They have a simple beauty enhanced by the long shadows of afternoon light. The ground is uneven, and we had to watch our step while stepping over tree roots at times, supporting each other. A true embodied experience
We were accompanied by an audio recording of Malcolm Guite reading the Sonnets he has written about each station. For example, at the “Third fall” he describes the collapse into hopeless depression that some find themselves in . It was the fourth Station that undid me – when Jesus meets his Mother. Guite speaks about the terrible witnessing that many mothers have faced and continue to do so , the disappearances sons going to war. I am a mother of a 34 year old son. It brought home to me in a very profound way the incarnational aspect of the Stations. It was deeply moving.
We finished in the grove sitting on the gorgeous slabs of Macrocarpa. We listened to a recording of a beautiful Gregorian chant then sat for 10 minutes in Silence. I felt that I had finally arrived in Lent.
– Dr. Clare Terwiel
I have come to see the Stations of the Cross as a microcosm of the human journey in which suffering and death occur and compassion also occurs . We all fall . People walk alongside us and offer their support and help just as Simon of Cyrene did. We see Veronica with what I imagine was her deep caring look at Jesus and the kind and careful wiping of his face. And we are cared for when we suffer. And we can do the same for others.
