Fifth Station
On March 18, 1958 the Roman Catholic monk Thomas Merton had a spiritual awakening on the corner of fourth and Walnut in Louisville, Kentucky. The experience was not the first religious epiphany he had. It was however, a more mature realization. Merton did not share the experience as a parable to covert people to his way of encountering God—as he had in his autobiography, the Seven Storey Mountain. Instead, the insight lead Merton to more deeply explore the ways others also encountered God.
The Cross is Laid on Simon of Cyrene
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you: Because by your holy cross you have redemeed the world.
As they led Jesus away, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me: Cannot be my disciple.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy upon us.
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”
― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander