Mission Report

March 31, 2021

by Director of Mission, Mr Geoff Brodie

A tradition during Holy Week is the Stations of the Cross. Each of the 14 Stations of the Cross recounts a moment during the first Good Friday, when Jesus suffered and died. To prayerfully encounter the Stations is to contemplate the mystery of God’s love for each one of us. In the sadness and tragedy of the story of Jesus’ Passion and death, as told by the Stations, is the foundation of Catholic education: God has already and always given us the means to transform all suffering into joy. A Catholic education, through its formation of the person in faith and reason, seeks to develop the human capacity for freedom and responsibility that is perfected in love. The humanity of Jesus’ suffering contemplated in the Stations is not the last word, for if we grow in friendship with Jesus we share in the joy of his resurrection. Bernard Lonergan SJ puts it this way:

This is why the Son of God became man, suffered, died and was raised again: because divine wisdom has ordained and divine goodness has willed, not to do away with the evils of the human race through power, but to convert those same evils into a supreme good according to the just and mysterious law of the cross.

This Good Friday I invite you ‘walk’ the Stations of the Cross. Each Church has them along the side walls. An internet search will offer many ways to encounter the Stations, including the link found HERE. As you contemplate each Station, consider how Jesus shares in the many struggles we all face, and because he has shared them in perfect love, we can share in his victory of love.

The Stations of the Cross

  1. 1st Station: Jesus is condemned to death.
  2. 2nd Station: Jesus carries His cross.
  3. 3rd Station: Jesus falls the first time.
  4. 4th Station: Jesus meets His Mother.
  5. 5th Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his cross.
  6. 6th Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
  7. 7th Station: Jesus falls the second time.
  8. 8th Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.
  9. 9th Station: Jesus falls a third time.
  10. 10th Station: Jesus clothes are taken away.
  11. 11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross.
  12. 12th Station: Jesus dies on the cross.
  13. 13th Station: The body of Jesus is taken down from the cross.
  14. 14th Station: Jesus is laid in the tomb.