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Praying with Our Emotions through the Next Six Stations
190 Plays2 years ago
Today Gretchen Crowder shares with you the audio of a reflection on the next 6 stations of the cross that was originally shared as a video on the Central and Southern Jesuit Province website as part of a Lenten Series for the 2024 Lenten Season.
You can find the video and access the Lenten Series here: https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/spirituality/lent-2024/
You can follow the Central and Southern Jesuit Province and learn more about the Society of Jesus by following @JesuitsUCS (X) or @jesuitscentralsouthern (Instagram)
Much gratitude to the UCS Province communications team for the beautiful artwork for this series!
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If you think you or someone you know has a story that would fit this podcast, please contact Gretchen Crowder at lovedasyouarepod@gmail.com
You can find Gretchen @gdcrowder on social and @lovedasyouarepod on Instagram.
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Transcript
Introduction to Lenten Reflection
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Loved As You Are and Ignatian Podcast. I wanted to hop on here today and share with you the audio of a reflection on the next six stations of the cross that was originally shared as a video on the Central and Southern Jesuit Province website as part of a Lenten series for the 2024 Lenten season.
Connecting Emotions with Jesus
00:00:20
Speaker
In these six stations, I invite the listener to pay attention to their emotions alongside the emotions of Jesus.
00:00:29
Speaker
I hope it is helpful to you as we continue this Lenten journey together, learning to lean ever more into our belovedness.
Challenges of Emotional Openness
00:01:00
Speaker
Paying attention to our emotions and reflection on what they might be telling us is key to coming to know who we are and who God is inviting us to be. I found this invitation of Ignatius particularly difficult. I pride myself on emoting appropriately, especially in public.
00:01:22
Speaker
I am the one prepared to take the microphone at a funeral or be of the calm voice of reason in a situation of escalating tension if needed. Over the years, I've worked hard to put my emotions in their appropriate boxes and I appreciate it when they obey my commands and stay right where they have been placed. But Ignatius says that I cannot fully know myself or fully know God unless I am willing to be emotionally vulnerable.
00:01:54
Speaker
And he's right. After all, relationships cannot be deepened unless both parties are willing to be vulnerable with one another. So as you enter into this reflection on the next six stations of the cross, I invite you to be vulnerable with God. Allow the emotions of the moment to overcome you, and then process what God has to say to you in that moment.
00:02:23
Speaker
Allow God to invite you not only to feel God's love for you, but to make a return of that love, both to God and to the rest of humanity as well.
Jesus's Second Fall and Global Suffering
00:02:36
Speaker
So let us begin. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Jesus.
00:02:50
Speaker
To be honest, I'm a little unnerved sometimes when I see you experiencing tremendous emotion. To be honest, I'm also a little in awe of how easily you lay your feelings right out there for everyone to see. Help me, Lord, to be vulnerable with you, even when I'm afraid.
00:03:17
Speaker
Help me, Lord, to see what you see and feel what you feel. As we take the second half of this journey together, break my heart for what breaks yours. Amen. The seventh station of the cross, Jesus falls a second time.
00:03:47
Speaker
I see you fall once again on knees that are already torn and bleeding. The impact sends a cringe throughout my entire body. I wanna reach out and help you, but the ground around me is suddenly too crowded to move. Around you, as far as I can see, you are surrounded now by what must be hundreds of thousands of people.
00:04:17
Speaker
young and old. Each and every one of them have been brought to their knees by the weight of war. And now in this moment, their blood mingles with yours on the dry ground below my feet. I see tears in their eyes as they meet your gaze.
00:04:42
Speaker
Their tears are reflected in your own as they silently fall down your face.
Gender Violence and Empathy
00:04:52
Speaker
You died to save us, Lord, and yet we still don't really get it, do we?
00:05:04
Speaker
As Father Sosa's video shared, since 2022, 408,000 people have been killed in armed conflicts throughout the world. Many more have been affected mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually by ongoing war and destruction. As I travel with you today, Lord, remind me to travel with them as well.
00:05:34
Speaker
to find a way to walk in their shoes and be emboldened by what I experience, to find concrete ways to work for peace.
Democratic Freedoms and Justice
00:05:46
Speaker
Lord, I pray, break my heart for what breaks yours. The eighth station of the cross, Jesus is met on the way.
00:06:04
Speaker
As you continue to walk along the way, I see you stop in front of a group of women weeping. I hear you admonish them to not weep for you, but to weep for themselves and their children's future. I feel the righteous anger rising up in you again as you try to convince them to shift their focus towards doing something different in the future so that this doesn't happen again.
00:06:35
Speaker
But then I feel a shift in you from righteous anger to something akin to compassion. And I follow your gaze until it rests upon a woman in the back of the crowd. She isn't looking at you. She isn't looking at anyone. Instead, her eyes bore holes into the ground beneath your feet.
00:07:03
Speaker
as she both tries to disappear and yet be seen all in the same briefest of moments. My eyes follow her hand as it reaches up to pull her veil tighter to her face. And as they do, I catch a glimpse of the bruises before they disappear behind the white fabric.
00:07:33
Speaker
You saw them too, didn't you Lord? As Father Sosa's video shared, in 2022, gender violence victimized 736 million women. As I travel with you today, Lord, remind me to travel with them as well, to find a way to walk in their shoes,
00:08:00
Speaker
and be emboldened by what I experience to find concrete ways to work for justice.
Dignity and Displacement
00:08:10
Speaker
Lord, I pray, break my heart for what breaks yours. The night the station of the cross, Jesus falls a third time.
00:08:27
Speaker
I hear the impact this time before I see it. Your knees hit the floor as a scream escapes your lips. I know you are trying to be brave, but three times your knees have hit the hard, dry ground. There's no way to hide that pain.
00:08:50
Speaker
I'm aware as you fall that getting up this next time will feel almost impossible as you are now restricted by a body damaged beyond repair. In the distance behind you, I see a flag stuck seemingly randomly in the dirt. I think you saw it too.
00:09:15
Speaker
The cloth is worn and damaged as if it has fallen over and been trampled on by the passerby several times already. Yet it is upright now. Someone keeps putting the stake back in the ground over and over again, no matter how many times it falls. Somebody clearly keeps hoping that this time it'll stay upright
00:09:46
Speaker
Somebody clearly keeps hoping their effort will be worth it in the end. You hope it will too, don't you, Lord? As Father Sosa's video shared, in 2024, half the world's population will take part in elections.
00:10:10
Speaker
but as he also shared between 2005 and 2021, 60 countries decreased their levels of democratic freedom and 125 out of 210 countries have restricted or non-existent democracies. As I travel with you today, Lord, remind me to travel with them as well, to find a way to walk in their shoes
00:10:40
Speaker
and be emboldened by what I experience to find concrete ways to work for equity.
Child Malnutrition and Support
00:10:49
Speaker
Lord, I pray, break my heart for what breaks yours. The 10th station of the cross, Jesus is stripped. I avert my eyes as the soldiers take
00:11:09
Speaker
what is left of your visible dignity, Lord. They rip your clothes from you as if you were nothing. They tear away the only material things you have left in an effort to make you feel cast out completely. But when I finally do get the courage to raise my eyes to meet yours, you don't seem swayed by their actions.
00:11:37
Speaker
Instead, you seem to stand a bit taller. At first, I don't understand, but then I see them. Hundreds of thousands of people holding you up, effectively clothing you in one massive, all-encompassing embrace. Somehow I know they get you in a way that I cannot.
00:12:07
Speaker
They too have been stripped of everything, and yet they remain strong enough to lift you up when you most need it. Your dignity wasn't taken, was it Lord? They wouldn't let it be. As Father Sosa's video shared in 2023 alone,
00:12:37
Speaker
More than 110 million people were forcibly displaced. They were stripped of everything they had in this world, and still they fought to hold on. As I travel with you today, Lord, remind me to travel with them as well, to find a way to walk in their shoes and be emboldened by what I experience, to find concrete ways to work for the preservation of dignity.
00:13:10
Speaker
Lord, I pray, break my heart for what breaks yours.
Environmental Care and Jesus's Death
00:13:19
Speaker
The 11th station of the cross, Jesus is crucified. I watch as they place you on the cross, Lord,
00:13:39
Speaker
I watch as they drive the nails into your hands and your feet. It's like I can't turn away. It's odd to me, but as they raise the cross up and stick it into the ground, I can't stop looking at your ribs. I can count each and every one of them so easily.
00:14:07
Speaker
I don't know how I didn't realize it before, just how skinny you are. You were so strong along this entire journey. You hid it so well. But now you can't hide anything anymore. Someone has a sponge on a stick and is trying to wet your mouth with it.
00:14:36
Speaker
I thought it was a soldier, but as I follow the stick to its end, I see a small child instead. A cry escapes my list as I realize I can count their ribs too. You don't notice my sudden outburst of emotion though. Instead, you are smiling.
00:15:05
Speaker
as you and the child share a moment of innocence between you. Children are so resilient, Lord, aren't they? They shouldn't have to be. As Father Sosa's video shared, three out of 10 children younger than five years suffer from acute malnutrition
00:15:38
Speaker
As I travel with you today, Lord, remind me to travel with them as well, to find a way to walk in their shoes and be emboldened by what I experience, to find concrete ways to support our children. Lord, I pray, break my heart for what breaks yours.
00:16:06
Speaker
The 12th station of the cross. Jesus dies on the cross. I can see nothing. It's like the whole world has gone dark all of a sudden. I try to find you in the darkness, but I can't even see my hand in front of my face. It's unnerving. Where are you, Lord?
00:16:36
Speaker
We walked all this way together, but now I can't find you. The world all around me is so dark. As I stand enveloped in darkness, I am suddenly more in touch with my other senses. I smell something decaying somewhere close by.
00:17:03
Speaker
I feel the cracked ground beneath my feet and I taste the dust in the air. I realize now that this whole journey with you has been on dry, cracked and dusty ground. In fact, I struggle to remember the last time we passed any sign of plant life along the way.
00:17:31
Speaker
It feels as if the ground is dying right alongside of you. But it can't die, can it Lord? If it does, how will I live? As Father Sosa's video shared,
00:17:55
Speaker
Every hour, decertification threatens 6.4 square kilometers of fertile land. As I travel with you today, Lord, remind me to travel with the earth as well. To find a way to walk in its shoes and be emboldened by what I experience, to find concrete ways to care for creation.
Conclusion with a Prayer for Compassion
00:18:25
Speaker
Lord, I pray, break my heart for what breaks yours. Lord, as I finish up this journey to the cross with you, I pray for an increase in empathy and compassion in the words of Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin. Oh God, I wish from now on
00:18:52
Speaker
to be the first to become conscious of all the world loves, pursues, and suffers. I want to be the first to seek, to sympathize, and to suffer, the first to unfold and sacrifice myself, to become more widely human and more nobly of the earth than any of the world's servants. Amen.
00:19:24
Speaker
Join me next week for another prayer reflection on our belovedness.