Way of the Cross with Oscar Romero
CAFOD
1. THE FIRST STATION: Jesus is condemned to death
Romero said: “We brought lawyers together to ask them for help with so many cases of abuses of human rights. We have a small office but it is powerless in the face of so many different kinds of cases.”
2. THE SECOND STATION: Jesus takes up his cross
Romero said: “An accommodating church, a church that seeks prestige without the pain of the cross, is not the authentic church of Jesus Christ.”
THE THIRD STATION: Jesus falls for the first time
Romero said: “Nothing is so important to the Church as human life, as the human person, above all, the person of the poor and the oppressed.”
THE FOURTH STATION: Jesus meets his mother
Romero said: “Even when all despaired at the hour when Christ was dying on the cross, Mary awaited the hour of resurrection. Mary is the symbol of the people who suffer oppression and injustice.”
THE FIFTH STATION: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus
Romero said: “If people want to look into their own mystery – the meaning of pain, of their work, of their suffering, of their hope – let them put themselves next to Christ.”
THE SIXTH STATION: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
Romero said: “Everyone concerned for the hungry, the naked, the poor, for those who have vanished in police custody, for the tortured, for the prisoners, for all flesh that suffers, has God close at hand.”
THE SEVENTH STATION: Jesus falls a second time
Romero said: “What a beautiful experience it is to try to follow Christ and for that to receive the broadside of insults, of disagreements, of lost friendships, of being suspect! All this was prophesied.”
THE EIGHTH STATION: Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
Romero said: “Some want to keep a gospel so disembodied that it doesn’t get involved at all in the world it must save. Christ is in the womb of the people. Christ is bringing about the new heavens and the new earth.”
THE NINTH STATION: Jesus falls a third time
Romero said: “Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image.”
THE TENTH STATION: Jesus is stripped of his garments
Romero said: “A group of children approached me with a letter in which they told me of their solidarity with the many orphaned children, victims of abuses of human rights, and that they were asking me to support their cause.”
THE ELEVENTH STATION: Jesus is nailed to the cross
Romero said: “A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that?”
THE TWELFTH STATION: Jesus dies on the cross
Romero said: “I have often received death threats. I must tell you, that as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, you can say that I forgive and bless those who do it.”
THE THIRTEENTH STATION: Jesus is taken down from the cross
Romero said: “Let us not think that our dead have gone away from us. The force of liberation involves not only those who remain alive, but also all those whom others have tried to kill and who are more present than before in the people’s movement.”
THE FOURTEENTH STATION: Jesus is buried
Romero said: : “The Christian, the Christian community, must not despair. We are a community of hope – let us hope for the hour of liberation. It will come.”
THE FIFTEENTH STATION: Christ is risen, Alleluia!
Romero said: “The Church cannot be deaf or mute before the entreaty of millions of persons who cry out for liberation, persons oppressed by a thousand slaveries.”
