Our Lent Devotions this year will be enriched by the generous temporary loan of a set of Stations of the Cross by artist Elizabeth Hinton-Simoneau. Below the artist has written about this set of Stations of the Cross:

The Stations of the Cross, like the Christmas Nativity Scene, is one of the now traditional Christian “visual aids” to have been introduced by St. Francis and his followers.  And it was on my journey as a Franciscan Tertiary that I first begun thinking of painting my own Stations of the Cross.  Then, one fine day, my husband and I came across a job-lot of 15 canvasses for sale: “Stations of the Cross!” we exclaimed in unison, and promptly bought them.  Then began a work which, woven amongst all the other tasks in life, took me almost a year to complete.

I had a vision of how I wanted to portray this, the last human journey of Jesus.  Dispensing with the usual, theatrical presentation where all the characters; Pilate, the Roman Soldiers etc., are “on stage” together, I zoomed in on what I felt to be the most significant details in each scene. 

The first station shows Jesus condemned; I deliberately left Pilate out because Pilate acted like any ordinary administrator or fonctionnaire , he wasn’t especially evil, no more than any of us who, in ignoring a cry for help from the street, in choosing comfort rather than bravery, daily condemn Christ too.  Jesus addresses us, his gaze communicating tenderness, a full acceptance of what is ahead of him, and an utterly forgiving comprehension of our human condition.  His face is half veiled with gold to express his other, Divine, Nature.

The cross is not visible in every Station but it is often implied – a cross-shaped shadow passing over the weeping women for example; a band of light bisecting the clasped hands of Jesus and Simon of Cyrene; or even the juxtaposition of Veronica’s cloth with hers and Jesus’ bodies. 

The dominant theme in my Stations is the significance of the people who touch Jesus on his way to be executed.  Between them, they reveal one stunning truth about our relationship with God; it is a true relationship – God needs us – we, ordinary people, are called to become one with God in fulfilling the Divine purpose; Jesus could not have made it to Golgotha alone. 

Each meeting is a sign.  His mother touches him in an expression of absolute intimacy, emphasising Jesus’ humanity.  The meeting is steeped in pain.  A mother touches the cheek of her child for the last time; their eyes meet.

I contrasted the different touches of Simon of Cyrene and Veronica; Simon offers Jesus his masculinity.  As they clasp hands and he lifts Jesus from the dirt he becomes Jesus’ true brother.  The hand-clasp is the thing, nothing else is needed; black meets white, African meets Jew, man meets God.  Meanwhile, Veronica comes to him as a woman and cleans his wounds and sweat – a commonplace task for any woman who has ever been a mother.  But this woman is anything but commonplace – she is in fact the exemplary Christian.  To touch Jesus she has had to fight through jeering crowds; she has taken courage (in stark contrast to Pilate) and has set herself against the masses, against “public opinion”.  My Veronica kisses this bleeding, sweating “criminal” as she wipes his face – it is as if, with this gesture, she were offering Christ a human sacrament, just as he is offering himself to humanity.

With the Weeping Women of Jerusalem I chose to express the grief of women everywhere in the face of “man’s inhumanity to man”.  The city in the background seems to burn.  They could be women in today’s Baghdad, Gaza, or Kabul.

Finally, I painted the death of Jesus whilst a friend of ours was dying from cancer; his wife and family have a very deep faith and I gave them this image in the form of a card at his funeral.  The dove illustrates the words “his spirit left him” and shows that there is no death.  Similarly the final Station, showing Jesus in the tomb, presages Easter.  The tomb is host not to death but to the Resurrection.

Wishing you all a holy Lent and a joyous Easter.

Elizabeth Hinton-Simoneau

Solmet, Feb 2010