The scenes of devastation and carnage in those stations in Madrid are etched into our consciousness. So many people were just going about their usual, ordinary lives in mundane routine when everything changed. All of a sudden the journey and destination they set out on was irrelevant. As those bombs went off, each person there crossed the points to experience another journey with a different destination. For over 200 people it was the end of their life’s journey. Others immediately faced a lifetime of disability, injury, pain. Some would rise to the occasion offering even heroic rescue or compassionate support, other would descend into a grey, unending depression. The headlines have moved on, but we should not forget those changed lives – shattered, disrupted, challenged – or the consequences which will endure as long as they live. It is easier to remove the wreckage of a train and repair the line, than to clear the wreckage of a life and find a clear way forward. The face of an Irish lady who survived stays with me. Interviewed in hospital she was remarkably calm and dignified, but she had looked at death and would never forget.
It seems to me those stations in Madrid reflect the stations of the cross in some latter day Via Dolorosa. As we move to Holy Week and follow Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, I believe we should not confine him to that original Via Dolorosa. As he is condemned to death we see him with all those condemned to death by the twisted minds of the terrorist, the oppression of the tyrant, or the apathy of the world. As he takes up his cross, he is with all those who take the weight of confronting evil. As he falls, and falls, and falls again, he is with all those overburdened by the sin and suffering of the world. As he meets his mother, he is with all those who share the poignant agony of those who helplessly witness the suffering of a loved one. As Simon helps to carry his cross, he is with all those who help to carry the heavy burdens of others. As Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, so his features are to be found amidst the tears, the sweat, and the blood of the torn and degraded. As Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem, so he is found wherever people care with compassion and cross over to help the wounded traveller. As Jesus is stripped of his clothes, so he is with those stripped of hope, power and dignity and are rejected by others. As Jesus is nailed to the cross, so he is joined to all those who suffer the worst people can do to them. As Jesus dies on the cross asking why God has forsaken him, so he is with those in darkest despair and at the moment of death – the answer to his own question. As he is handed to his mother and laid in the tomb, so he is with the bereft and bereaved. So as we follow Jesus to Jerusalem we discover he is there in Madrid also. This is not the absence of God, but the reality of the crucified Christ.
The aftermath of the Madrid bombings was to witness the upsurge of popular solidarity and support. There was something very restorative to witness that spontaneous display as 8 million people came onto the streets. Somehow it said evil eventually defeats itself. It is because Jesus endured the Via Dolorosa to the cross that he is found in our Via Dolorosa. It is because Jesus won the triumph of love on the cross, that he rose again from the dead. It is because of Easter, that we too can be transformed and transfigured by the new life and hope of the risen Jesus. It is in his risen presence that he is found in our latter day Via Doloraosa, to bring light and hope and peace to our darkness, despair and fear. As we remember all those who continue to suffer, we do so in the confident affirmation of our Easter faith. For ‘Easter is the Springtime of the soul’: and ‘it is always Springtime in the heart that loves God.’
Yours sincerely
Peter Lee
