The Station of the Cross in Verse

The First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Standing condemned Christ moves to take our sin; a grave for the wicked is set aside for him. Dreams of a wife show subconscious strife. In his chambers dark, Pilate’s will takes life. Seeing our Light he remarks, "What is Truth?" To him it is nothing: "I release him to you." And from fear of being judged Peter soothes ears denying his beloved. Judgment, on all of our backs it lies. Can bad men be used for good’s supply? When I am judged and it changes my way, though wrong and apt to disarray dismay, the future, the cross, it darkens my sight. God’s ways are not ours and lead us to light. Lord your power is beyond our cognition. Through deeds of evil, good comes to fruition.
The Second Station: Jesus Bears His Cross We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. A whip cut back accepts the weight as wood is stacked and skin gives way. Cut straight the whip marks tear to wide. Not sighed, but cried the one denied a just trial starts his road. Rough the rocks on the way are strode and loathed that first step to the top of the skull place where flesh is lifted aloft. Lord, to start on the rocky way dismayed at what harms may lay on the rough road to choose your will and be graced the life that it fulfills. Help us to take that feared first step and take the shifts, the flows, the ebbs, some joys, some pains along our road to change us to you, and make us whole.
The Third Station: Jesus Falls the First Time We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. To fall to knee to fall in deed callused knees ruptured by gravity. Left hand down and push the weight. Left foot lifts a staggered gait. The whip and club are quick to sting and clings now blood to a garment unseamed. Rise and walk with wood on back till the next fall from the strength that lacks. Lord, we fail, on the path to you. We do those things we would eschew. The temptation is great to take a rest, to test the soil. Now feel it lest to lie in our spiritual state would seem a comfort and the path abate. Our journey halted premature, for dying to ourselves we could not endure.
The Fourth Station: Jesus Meets His Mother We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Water breaks both from womb, from side and cries a mother her son denied. Memory: a child’s first high pitched word, a mother living from word to dirge. A hand once small and uncalloused once wrapped in her hand, soon to be pierced and wracked in pain, a mother to watch her son slain questioning God’s aim. Is it all in vain? Lord suffering of family or friends we decry. We dispise selfishly wanting them not to die. To die to themselves to the world to leave us. The sufferings they take up on the way are grievous. Lord help us to see suffering as a path for ourselves and for others help us not to grasp. Break up dependencies on all but your breath, which gives us our being, gives us life after death.
The Fifth Station: Jesus is Helped by Simon We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. The pressure makes sore the bones beneath. Atonement soon bequeathed, but now please relief. The weight shifts; the weight lifts fresh air on a bruised back. "What has passed?" Dazed thoughts "perhaps pardon at last." Soil-stained nails on a hand that lifts and gifts reprieve from the pain that rips. Omit not the fleeting aid the field hand gave on the road sharp paved. Lord, presence divine, sustaining all we know and more, things sublime we can’t even be shown, in the flow of time our works seem so small. Hearing calls, we set out to give our all. But with purpose we do nothing to bring your will, which, in ways unknown, we aid to fulfill. Through spiritual and corporal works of our hands solid like Simon’s bringing your divine plans.
The Sixth Station: Jesus and Veronica We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Eyes blind by blood, the flies they stick, On The Son of Man’s face, other men’s spit, dust sits, dirt, grit, and a stumbling lurch a humbling urge to stop. The blinding surge, crowds press, blood hungry for capital death hold breath as Veronica breaks the jest. She steps with her futile cleansing wipe giving dignified sight to our Pascal Light. Lord, help us to chance being mocked when giving sight to those whom obstacles block. With your strength the poor and oppressed we’ll give dignity, treat not as less, and help us to see as blessed the world we aid as we wipe away illness, pain, and low wage. Let us not degrade those seen as condemned but clean away sin, and a broken world mend.
The Seventh Station: Jesus Falls a Second Time We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Further this time the stumbled fall recalling the pain and exhaling. All blood mixed sweat takes a jolt down, from crown to brow to chin to ground Knees, elbows crawl to gather weight resounding the flesh from its sedate state. Pulling all the strength mustered within hands push earth; he will rise again. Lord: help us to rise when repeated we fall. We call this prayer, "Help us rise after all." After all our weaknesses, failings and tests. After pall raise us to life from death. That one weak push we give to dirt you aid and raise up from earth. The girth, a lighter weight to bear, because you aid us in our despair.
The Eighth Station: Jesus Speaks to the Women We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Here at the crossroads the outcasts meet. After the greeting the women weep. A well-trained tongue to speak to the weary foretelling facts of what they are fearing. Fall on us mountains cover us hills. Blessed is the woman whose womb is unfilled. The green wood is taken to the hills to die. In these times what will become of the dry? Lord your consolation rubs raw. In awe we hear of a world enthralled In hate, in war, anguish and pain You proclaim, it’s perhaps best not to remain. But still on your way you toil over rock up hill till you hear that hammering shock. Then silence and into nothingness you seep till the power on high raises you to the deep.
The Ninth Station: Jesus Falls the Third Time We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Bones grown soft have all been counted. They fail as chest smacks earth cross mounted. Surmounted, the hill, and now at the top the last strength drops to spits and scoffs. In him there was no stately bearing, accustom to infirmity kicks and swearing. With his last fall he reached the skull place. A wracked-pain rest now until the grave. Lord this last fall we fear most, to give all to your hand with nothing to boast. Journeyed far as we can, you take the till and make us your own despite malice or ill will. They will take us and proceed to do horrible things. No one intercedes as around us they ring. Despite what happens from here to the end, we trust your promise and know we’ll ascend.
The Tenth Station: Jesus is Stripped of His Garments We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. To be stripped down for all to see the natural state, as if infirmity. Cast lots, the seamless garment torn off ripping wounds dried to its coarse cloth. Course cough of the guards as they lead exposed the redeemer of man to his repose. From rough whips and clubs now there is no protection, nor from the nails now sounding inflection. Lord, humble we walk backward to you like Japeth and Shem covering body nude. Noah shamed speaks for the first time Showing in your shame the best wisdom is mined. Love divine that will come to us even rejected and pulled down to pain, shame, torment, shame torment subjected. In time we will walk stripped of desire in the kingdom, like gold that is tested in fire.
The Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Nailed to a tree wrists bleed impaled as breath/spirit leaves it wails more than exhales. Frail, the body hangs rib clenched. Lungs wrench as blood, tears, and sweat drench. Look upon the one who is pierced by sin; wafer thin his body and bruised his skin. He, lifted up like the bronze serpent, and we look up, seeking from our bonds to be free. Lord, laws cannot all be correct though kings be just and good men we elect. Reflect on how power pushed to put low our savior and did so blow by blow till lo’ hands holed he hung from wood; doing what he could he seemed come to no good. Through the criminal condemned to capital castigation you showed brighter light than galaxies in rotation.
The Twelfth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. That one last lift on nails in wrists and now sink slow into nothingness; mind drifts to haze; face muscles relax; a spear is thrust into the thorax. Water and blood, life pours out the impaled. Earth quakes, eclipses, and a torn temple veil. The crucified Christ has cried and died atonement achieved, salvation supplied. Lord by cruel means or a poise of distinction we all face this moment of our own extinction. Like landowners storing up grains in large barns charmed we think we are till disarmed by the truth. How foolishly we forget we too are destined for nothingness. No test can we pass save rely on the aid of this sinless lamb, and our sins he forgave.
The Thirteenth Station: Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. After death it is up to the ones who are left to cope with the stress post the painful reached rest. Rise and wrench cold nails from wrist. Cries of mourning yield industriousness. Ladder lifted, lift the light body in arms. A body in a seeming sleep far from harms, disarms those wrapping it feeling the loss in their chest, not left since the spear’s coupe de grace. Lord how are we to go on and walk this way with loved ones gone? Joseph took, with stoic resolve, this death and the body he took down and palled. Give to us, when we are faced with such tasks, the courage to continue to walk the path. And let the wellspring of this courage be Christian hope, that we, in Christ, are death free.
The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is Laid in the Sepulchre We adore you oh Christ and we praise you,  because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. A linen cloth wrapped round over the corpse laid in a tomb with sorrowed remorse. Empty as it is, and hewed from the rock, a boulder rolled over the cave to block. Jonah laid three days at Sheol’s bars and now Jesus, hands, and feet scarred, to the deep he travels to grant the reprieve giving peace to our parents, Adam and Eve. Lord when the time comes we will all lay long, for more than four days we will rest weak and strong. Till the song of God’s word reaches our ears relieves fears and makes all death disappear. Lying as he was on this slab of rock much came to pass ere the third day’s crowing cock. In his death he broke the netherworld’s gates, conquered Fates made Principalities and Powers abate.