stations of the cross

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An Environmental Stations of the Cross

I am delighted to offer this liturgy, planned for the people of St. Brendan-the-Navigator Episcopal Church in 1993 and amended for use again in 1994, for general use through the Earth Ministry website. This service is designed to be held outdoors, either on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, or on Passion Sunday itself, but could be done any time in Lent or Holy Week. In Maine, we have consistently held it in snowy and muddy conditions, so although the clergy have always vested formally in cassock, surplice, and red stole, and acolytes and crucifer also have vested, snow boots and heavy coats have been the order of the day for everyone! Weather conditions here in the Northeast have also necessitated doing much of the preparation for the service indoors and only working at the actual outdoor Stations briefly before the service begins. In other, more temperate climates, the whole preparation could potentially be done ON SITE, enabling a much greater sensitivity to the suggestiveness of the specific environment of each site.

You will note that I have simplified the service by extracting only the biblically based Stations from the more elaborate version of the Stations of the Cross, which contains several extra-biblical sites. This permits time to expand each Station more fully. I have relied heavily on the inspiration and work of others in shaping each Station, and especially upon the Stations of the Cross services designed by Henri Nouwen and Matthew Fox (as mentioned in the text).

Following Fox's leading, we originally celebrated this service only after teams of congregation members had spent a couple of hours together in small groups, each taking responsibility for a particular Station. Working with the materials contained in this service design, they read the materials aloud, meditated silently for several minutes as a group, shared gut-level responses to the materials to each other, and then buckled down to amend/supplement/adapt the materials according to their own inspiration. Some groups made substantive changes and expansions; others simply choreographed their use of the existing materials. At the conclusion of the two-hour "station creation" time, we gathered all our materials and went to the outdoor venue (a long dirt road winding through spruce and fir woods to end with the final Station on the rocky shore of Penobscot Bay, Maine), allowing a brief time for teams to orient themselves to their specific sites along the road before gathering at the head of the road for the service to begin. Although we could have gathered back at the church following the service for hot cider, we found that people were so deeply affected by the mood of the service that cheery fellowship did not seem the order of the day, and instead we simply retrieved our materials and departed in silence at the service's end.

If you choose not to take the time for your teams actually to construct their own Stations, you CAN use this service simply "as is," merely assigning the teams to each Station. I've included a paragraph of introduction and directions on the succeeding page, which we used on such an occasion.

You will quickly note that some of the stations have allusions that are so topical as to be out-of-date, or not applicable to YOUR specific environment. Since an "Environmental Stations of the Cross" should be as evocative as possible of the issues in your particular locale, you will probably need to adapt the particulars as you see fit.

Although I ask you not to publish this service anywhere without my permission, I encourage you to reproduce it for use in worship as you see fit.

May you find this as powerful an experience of worship as we have.

Holly Lyman Antolini

For use of the service without team preparation time

Instructions that used to follow the Isaiah 61 quote on page 2:

Next Sunday is Passion Sunday, the Sunday Jesus followed his Passion to utter self-sacrifice on the Cross. Follow your passion now as you look around the room and select the placard that names the Station you would like to help create. Once your group has gathered there in silence, prepare to put on your coats and gather whatever materials you might want for your topic. When the chimes ring, we will depart to meditate on our Stations site on Emily Muir’s property. When the chimes ring again, it will be time to move from meditation to sharing your experiences with each other within our groups and actively planning our 3-5 minute Stations. Each Station will begin by reading its title arid biblical passage from the sheet it is given, and end with its given prayer. What it does in between

-- skit, poem, conversation, meditation, song, activity -- is up to the group itself. And finally, when the chimes ring a third time, it will be time to wind up the planning and return to the head of Emily Muir’s road to begin the service itself.

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