The Way of the Cross with Sabeel
Pray with us, Sundays during Lent, 3/4, 3/11, 3/18 & 3/25, in St Andrew Chapel at 10AM
Our Lenten Stations of the Cross comes from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, working for justice, peace and reconciliation in Israel - Palestine.
Join us on Sunday mornings during Lent at 10AM, gathering in St. Andrew Chapel, for 2 -3 prayer stations. All donations received in St Andrew Chapel during the month of March will support Sabeel's work and mission.
The Way of the Cross of Sabeel
from Sabeel's website
The image of the suffering Christ is a unique yet foundational part of the Christian faith. A Lord and God who experienced and overcame the physical and psychological pain of oppression, torture and execution, is a source of great hope and strength to those who continue to suffer. Sabeel seeks to bring alive the message of Christ in the context of the historic and daily suffering experienced by our Palestinian community. For us the image of the cross with its affliction and pain, and Jesus' response of gentleness, non-violence, and ultimately resurrection is one of comfort and inspiration. As Christ himself identified with suffering people and called on his followers to reach out to them in their need (Matthew 25:31-46), we too invite our brothers and sisters in Christ across the world to join with us as we search for God in the midst of our affliction.
From early times, Christians have remembered the events of Holy Week and Easter and, in particular, Good Friday with special acts of worship and ceremonies. In Jerusalem the Via Dolorosa or Way of the Cross with its 14 stations is followed daily by individuals and groups of pilgrims.
Round the world, Roman Catholic as well as many Anglican churches have pictures or carvings of the stations of the cross around their churches where these same events are remembered.
More recently Christians around the world have linked their remembrances of Jesus' way of the cross with remembering those who are currently suffering their own ways of the cross. So for example groups in Haiti have done stations of the cross around Port au Prince making connections between the traditional stations and events in more recent history of the Haitian people.
Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, non-violence, liberation and reconciliation for all, regardless of faith or nationality. This "Contemporary Way of the Cross" has been developed as an act of worship rooted in the land where Jesus was born, lived and died, linking the original events of Good Friday with the continuing suffering of the occupied people who live in that land today. It seeks to help others to understand something of the events which have shaped this troubled place over the last century and draw attention to the very real constant suffering of the Palestinian people. It strives to provide an honest account of the situation, and simply ask those who take part in this act of worship to listen, to pray for us and to pray with us as we look towards a just, comprehensive and enduring peace.
