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– Introduction –

Walking with the Saints in the Footsteps of Christ

“Out of darkness is born the light,” writes St. Catherine of Siena. And in those few words she offers us a gift: a perfect way to begin our mediation on the Way of the Cross. Yet the birth of light is rarely on our minds as we follow Jesus’ slow and painful climb to Golgotha’s heights, for the darkness is too apparent, the gathering gloom too great. The light that Catherine perceives hides from us. We know it will come on Easter morning, but on Good Friday doesn’t darkness reign supreme?

Catherine and the other saints are emphatic in their answer: No it does not! How could it, for the Way of the Cross is the way to the Resurrection, the way of redemption? The saints tell us that this dark journey contains within itself a great and powerful light that is present from the beginning, but is not apparent until the end. Long before Jesus stands in front of Pilate, the light of a new dawn has become real. It shines within Him and from His every act. It shines forth from the divine will that gives us a Savior and allows Him to live and die as one of us. It is a light powerfully present in every step Jesus takes as He makes His way through a darkness that becomes light, to a death that becomes life.

Catherine of Siena knows that “out of darkness is born the light,” just as she knows that out of Jesus’ sorrowful death unconquerable life is born. This is not just her vision but also the vision of countless saints who preceded us. We look to them as they lead us from Pilate’s unjust court to the brilliance of Easter morning. We meditate on their words and allow those words to dispel the darkness that surrounds us — that pervades us. With their help we begin to perceive the light concealed within darkness and to accept the cross as the tree of unending life. Perhaps this understanding is captured most perfectly by St. Theodore the Studite, a monk whose life straddled the eighth and ninth centuries. So we will linger for a moment on his words before we begin to walk with Our Savior to His death … and to our life:

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return. (Quoted in the Office of Readings for the Second Week of Easter)