Stations trace Jesus’ final journey to Calvary

Jesus’ footsteps to a gruesome death on Calvary are traced, in one sense, historically and physically when a person participates in the Stations of the Cross devotion during Lent. 
Worshippers also become part of God’s ongoing love story when they allow him to step into their lives and join in his suffering and learn to love like him, according to Father Jeff Bayhi, pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Zachary, and Father Brent Maher, pastor of St. Agnes Church in Baton Rouge.
The Stations of the Cross follow the path of Christ from Pontius Pilate’s praetorium to Christ’s tomb. In the 16th century, this pathway was officially entitled the Via Dolorosa 
(Sorrowful Way), or simply the Way of the Cross or Stations of the Cross. 
“The stations came about because the Blessed Virgin Mary would daily walk the path of Our Lord in Jerusalem in remembrance of what he had done for us. Her walking in his footsteps is a great sign to us of the fact of Jesus’ earthly life,” said Father Maher. “While fully God, he is also fully man.
“The stations commemorate the places where Jesus walked, fell, spoke, bled, wept, suffered and died. They point to the fact that Christ experienced all things like us except sin.”
Pilgrims flock to the Old City of Jerusalem to take in the sites and sense what it must have been like on that day when Christ cruelly and unjustly suffered and died at the hands of the sinful humanity that he came to redeem. Particularly during Lent many gather at their local church parishes to pray the devotion.
As good as the pilgrimages and church gatherings are, the deeper meaning of Christ’s death on the cross that Good Friday is not contained to a certain time, place and location, noted Father Bayhi.  
“When we point our lives to Jesus as a historical figure and not as a contemporary figure, we lose the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with the Lord. A personal relationship is what is going to get us through no matter the situations in life.” 
With crises such as COVID-19, civil unrest, economic hardship, climate problems and political acrimony, there has been suffering in many different ways, according to Father Bayhi.
“All the pain of addiction, the pain of insanity, all of the pain of abuse, the pain of people who spouse comes in says, ‘It’s over, I’m out of here,’ and leave and they think, ‘what did I do?’ They had no idea …” Father Bayhi said.
He particularly sees suffering in the people with addiction issues that he ministers to.
“Some of them beg and plead, ‘God please deliver me from this,’ ” Father Bayhi said.
The Stations of the Cross is an assurance that redemptive work is being done in the midst of suffering, Father Bayhi said.
 “I look at the Stations of the Cross and I think about the Blessed Mother and about all the things she had to go through to say yes to God and how powerful her yes was,” he said. 
“There was a great deal of suffering on her part. But as the mother of the Savior she was very able to deal with the sufferings that come with that.” 
Father Maher’s favorite station is the fourth where Jesus meets his mother along the way to Calvary.
“What a powerful mystery!” exclaimed Father Maher. “The son of God and the mother of God both allowing their will to be submitted to the father’s will and a final moment of earthly union before everything changes on Calvary. 
“As a son, too, I often reflect upon my own deep love for my mother and what Jesus’ heart must have felt to see her in that moment – the love and consolation at her presence but also the sorrow and agony that she had to witness these things.”
But the Stations of the Cross would be little more than a morbid moment of pitying “poor Jesus” if one misses it is also a call to conversion and, in the end, it brims with hope and life.
“(The stations) help us to acknowledge our own individual situations hidden in them – false judgments made or received, our own falls in weakness and sin, harsh words spoken at us or from us, mental and physical sufferings, the reality of death and sorrow and more,” said Father Maher. “Our Lord is not distant from us and the stations are reminders of that. Sometimes the simple question ‘How does this apply to me?’ or ‘Where do I see this in my life?’ is a very fruitful one for our reflection.”
Father Bayhi, who founded Metonoia Manor in 2018, sees the suffering face of Christ in young victims of human trafficking.  Metanoia Manor is a faith-based residential facility that offers a place of refuge to female adolescent victims of human trafficking.
“These poor darlings have suffered so unjustly because there was no one to be there with them in the midst of their suffering.”
In three years of operation, Metanoia Manor has served 53 girls, only one of them was international and the rest were from Louisiana. 
And the harrowing damage inflicted upon them by the sins of others, and at such heart-breaking tender young ages, could easily lead one to become devastated. But in following Christ’s lead to never give up, Father Bayhi teamed up with artist Aaron Neville in 1996 to record the still popular CD: “Doing it Their Own Way: A Contemporary Meditation on the Way of the Cross.”  
An inspirational, thought-provoking, meditation, each station is represented by real-life experiences and situations. All revenue from the $20 CDs are used to support Metanoia Manor and can be purchased by visiting the Closer Walk Ministries website at closerwalkministries.com.
Even in looking at and experiencing the worse of what sin and death throws at the world, Father Bayhi said the Stations of the Cross are a reminder that after Jesus went through suffering and death, death was “no more.” And following in his footsteps, the same will be true for us.
“When we allow God to be with us to our suffering, not only do we come back to life, we come to new life that we’ve never known before. That life may be sanity, sobriety, that life may be free of resentments and anger,” said Father Bayhi. “There’s new life at the end of the tunnel and that’s what the Stations of the Cross teach us.”