Washington DC: Report on "Stations of the Cross" praying for victims of gun violence

Episcopalians go to Washington for prayerful march against violence

Way of the Cross takes ancient ritual from White House to US Capitol

By Mary Frances Schjonberg | March 25, 2013 

Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde recites prayers at the
first Way of the Cross station March 25 in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. Diocese of Connecticut Bishop Suffragan James Curry, left, and Connecticut Bishop Ian Douglas
listen. ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service – Washington, D.C.] Rain, snow, and temperatures that were barely above freezing did not deter a group of about 400 Episcopalians from taking to the streets of the nation’s capital March 25 to transform the traditional re-enactment of Jesus’ journey to Calvary and the tomb into a prayer procession meant to challenge what they called a culture of violence.

The modern-day version of the ancient Holy Week ritual of the Stations of the Cross began outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, at the corner of 16th and H streets northwest, across from the White House. The moving liturgy went past the White House and concluded on the west steps of the U.S. Capitol some two and a half hours later. Bishops, priests and deacons in the procession wore cassocks or other clerical attire, and the worshippers were led by a wooden cross as they made their way past the White House and down a lane of Pennsylvania Avenue that had been blocked off from traffic.

“You walked for Christ at a time when most people would have just gone inside and found something else to do,” Connecticut Bishop Suffragan James Curry told the worshippers after they finished the Way of the Cross.

At a “media availability” event before the Way of the Cross began, Curry had said that “the place of the church in our society is the place of Jesus Christ who faced down violence itself and died because of it.”

“We know that this is a struggle that will take years and years, and our pledge is continue to carry that cross for our children and for our society,” he said.

While there was mention in the liturgy of the ready availability of guns and the grief caused by gunplay, the worshippers during their stops near memorials, government buildings and works of art primarily offered prayers for an end to a culture of violence and the social and economic conditions that spawn violence.

The Stations of the Cross is an ancient ritual that commemorates the ordeal of Jesus from his condemnation by Pontius Pilate to his crucifixion and burial. Worshippers metaphorically walk with Jesus, stopping to offer prayers inspired by events, some legendary, that occurred as Jesus carried his cross.

Diocese of Connecticut Bishop Suffragan Laura Ahrens leads the Way of the Cross station outside the
White House while Connecticut Bishop Suffragan James Curry assists her with the sound
system. ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

The specially written Stations of the Cross liturgy is here.

Curry, Connecticut Bishop Ian T. Douglas and Bishop Suffragan Laura J. Ahrens organized the service days after the killing of 28 students, teachers and others at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Dec. 14, 2012. Among those who died was Benjamin Andrew Wheeler, 6, who was a member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown. The bishops worked in cooperation with Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, and a team from her diocese.

Other Episcopal bishops who participated in some or all of the event were Wayne Wright of Delaware, Nedi Rivera of Eastern Oregon, Mary Glasspool of Los Angeles, Larry Provenzano of Long Island, Gayle Harris of Massachusetts, Steven Miller of Milwaukee, Mark Beckwith of Newark, David Bailey of Navajoland, Rob Hirschfeld of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson (retired) of New Hampshire, W. Nicholas Knisely of Rhode Island, Dorsey Henderson of Upper South Carolina, Shannon Johnston of Virginia, Douglas Fisher of Western Massachusetts and Porter Taylor of Western North Carolina participated. The Rt. Rev. Dinis S. Sengulane, bishop of Lebombo, Mozambique, in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, who helped to end the civil war in his country and inspired the collection and conversion of weapons from that war for peaceful purposes, was also a participant.

Before the Stations of the Cross began, the bishops met at St. John’s to discuss pending legislation to reduce gun violence with Stephanie Valencia, principal deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement and Paul Monteiro, an associated director in that office.

Many of the bishops are part of Episcopalians Against Gun Violence, an ad hoc group of bishops, clergy and lay Episcopalians who are working, collectively and individually, to curb gun violence. The group has a Facebook presence and is on Twitter. The hashtag for the Stations of the Cross march was #DCWitness.

Lay people and clergy of all ages came from all over the northeast to attend the Way of
the Cross: Challenging a Culture of Violence march in Washington, D.C. March 25. ENS
photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

Shortly after the conclusion of the stations, most of the participants gathered in the Montpelier Room of the James Madison Memorial Building that is part of the Library of Congress for brief remarks from church and government leaders to support President Barack Obama’s call for gun reform and the legislative actions pending in Congress.

Bishops Curry and Douglas, and Sengulane of Mozambique, were among the speakers. Others included Connecticut Rep. John Larson, D.C. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton and the Rev. Brenda Griton-Mitchell, director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships of the U.S. Department of Education.

Holmes Norton, who was baptized in the Episcopal Church, said, “We in the District of Columbia know the gun lobby more than most,” noting ongoing efforts to prevent the District from enacting tough gun measures.

However, she said, people all over the country are stepping forward to call for laws meant to reduce gun violence “and this time we will not step back.”

Close to 400 people prayerfully walked down Pennsylvania Avenue in a cold and rainy
Washington, D.C. March 25 from the White House to the U.S. Capitol to call for an end
to violence. ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

Griton-Mitchell, a lawyer and an ordained Baptist minister, said, “I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” She insisted that in the Way of the Cross she had indeed seen a sermon.

Sengulane, who celebrated the 38th anniversary of his ordination and consecration as a bishop March 25, said having a gun in the house for protection is like having a poisonous snake for the same reason. There’s no guarantee whom it will bite. A gun is also a “very bad adviser” on how to handle conflict, he said.

The March 25 Stations of the Cross was the latest is a series of actions by Episcopalians across the church who are attempting to eliminate gun violence. Leaders at the denominational level have spoken out as well.

Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool of Los Angeles captures video of Diocese of
Massachusetts Bishop Suffragan Gayle Harris leading prayers at one of the Way of the
Cross stations. ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

In mid-February, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in written testimony to the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, urged lawmakers to “press for comprehensive and universal background checks for firearm ownership, regardless of where and how a gun is purchased; for bans on the availability to civilians of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines; and for policies designed to better regulate the manufacture of guns.”

Jefferts Schori noted that the Episcopal Church has said continually over more than 40 years “that the role of guns in our society’s culture of violence cannot be ignored.” And, while the church “supports the constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms,” the presiding bishop said, the church “is clear that federal, state, and local gun laws and enforcement activities should focus their efforts on keeping guns out of the hands of children and those who would use them to commit violent crimes.”

The presiding bishop could not participate in the Stations of the Cross in Washington, D.C. because she was in England for a meeting of the Anglican Communion Standing Committee, which followed the inauguration of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Douglas, who is also a member of the Standing Committee and attended the inauguration, attended the first two days of the meeting before returning to help lead the event.

The 13th and 14th stations on the Way of the Cross were on the wet, muddy lawn of the
U.S. Capitol. ENS photo/Mary Frances Schjonberg

In late February, the church’s Executive Council called on Episcopalians to “repent of our own roles in the glorification and trivialization of violence.” The resolution urges Episcopalians to work toward “comprehensive social responses that seek to stem the cycles of violence that fuel gun crime.”

It also called for making mental-health services available and accessible “without stigma in a variety of settings,” and available to “those who have suffered trauma from exposure to violence or violent environments.”

Resolution A&N004 urged elected officials to make gun trafficking a federal crime and empower law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute straw purchasers, gun traffickers and their entire criminal networks.”

And it urged Episcopalians to “examine our own cultural attitudes toward violence through efforts in congregations and communities [and] to repent of our own roles in the glorification and trivialization of violence, and to commit ourselves to another way.”

Just after the council meeting, House of Deputies President the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings and Vice President the Hon. Byron Rushing issued a letter to General Convention deputies outlining council’s resolution and saying they hoped the deputies would “help lead the church to fulfill this resolution.”

On March 22, the Episcopal Public Policy Network, based in Washington, D.C., issued a policy alert here suggesting three steps Episcopalians could take to respond to the calls from the church’s leadership to advocate for an end to gun violence.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

Monday in Holy Week: Pray for those who have died in wars, and victims of gun violence

Today on Monday of Holy Week, as we have done for more years than anyone should have to remember, we will pray for those who have died in our wars at noon today. By name.

We will read the list of those soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since Holy Week of last year.

It is a very long list.

The list is a compilation of the names we have read each Sunday in our worship services. Each week when I compile the list, I feel a major streak of guilt that we limit the list to Americans. So many thousands, from so many nations, have died in these wars. So many thousands have died in our own country from violence.

We have many people to pray for, and much to be contrite about.

The violence that encircles Holy Week, culminating in the death of Jesus at the hand of the Roman Empire, is not so very far from us. I was much taken with the photograph above that appeared in The New York Times on Sunday. It shows a family in Syria that uses an ancient Roman cave as a bomb shelter to hide from the bombs dropped by aircraft from their own government.

As I write this, it is snowing in Virginia and the roads are clogging up. I am planning to get up before dawn Monday to drive to Washington DC to participate in a "Stations of the Cross" from the White House to Capitol Hill, led by our Episcopal bishops to remember the victims of gun violence in our country.

If the snow plows clear our road, and I can get out, I will be there. Pray for those who are in danger, those in grief, and those who care for them. May you have a blessed and Holy Week.

A special invitation from Bishop Johnston: Stations of the Cross to remember victims of gun violence; Walk from the White House to the Capitol on Monday of Holy Week

Dear friends,

A few days ago, I received letter from our bishop, Shannon Johnston, inviting all of us to join him and other Episcopal bishops in Washington D.C. on Monday of Holy Week, where they will lead a “Stations of the Cross” procession from the White House to Capitol Hill. During the walk, we are being asked to pray especially for victims of gun violence in our nation.

I plan to join them, and Bishop Johnston would like to invite you to come if you can. Afterwards, we will be meeting with governmental and Church leaders for a briefing on specific gun legislation proposed in Congress. I am aware that we are of many minds on legislation, yet I hope we can be of one mind as people of faith about the need to lower violence in our country, and to educate ourselves about the proposals under consideration by our lawmakers.

The House of Bishops recently gathered on retreat at Kanuga, N.C., for eight days on the topic of violence and loss. The bishops shared their personal experiences of losing loved-ones to violence. One bishop told how, in his former life as a police officer, he shot and killed a man. Bishop Johnston said he was “deeply moved” by these testimonies, and so he wants to lead this procession on Monday of Holy Week.

The procession will begin at 10:30 am in Lafayette Park. St. John’s Episcopal Church, across the street, will provide light refreshments at 9:45 am. If you can come, please notify Bishop Johnston’s assistant, Amy Williams, by Friday at awilliams@thediocese.net.

Whether you are able to come, please keep the victims of violence in your prayers in Holy Week as we remember how Jesus died violently on the Cross, and how he overcame death to show us a new way to live.

Blessings,

Jim+

Below is the communication from Bishop Johnston:

Episcopal Bishops from Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, and Newark invite everyone in their dioceses to Washington to pray for the victims of gun violence across our country in a public stations of the cross. We invite everyone to this public liturgy, to pray and offer public witness.

We'll begin at 10:30am on March 25th in the park across from St. John's Lafayette Square and make our way down National Mall, praying as we go. The Stations liturgy will conclude at the Capitol, and those who wish to meet with political leaders to ask for specific legislative action will proceed to the Rotunda. At approximately 2 p.m. we will assemble in the Library of Congress for remarks from church and government leaders in support of gun reform and legislative actions pending in Congress.

I will be leading those clergy and lay persons from the Diocese of Virginia who wish to attend this important and poignant event. I know this is quite short notice, but I only learned of all of the details at the recent House of Bishops meeting at Kanuga and was deeply moved by this vision to pray for the victims of gun violence and for meaningful legislation that will help to end such tragedies in our country. Please do get the word out to all of your clergy encouraging them to attend and to invite members of their congregations as well. St. John’s Lafayette Square will be providing coffee, light refreshments and restrooms before the walk beginning at 9:45am.

An important detail: Please emphasize that those who will be attending should send an email to my assistant, Amy Williams, at awilliams@thediocese.net before noon on Friday March 22nd so that she can give a headcount to St. John’s Lafayette Square so they can plan accordingly for hospitality. I hope to see you there at 10:30am on March 25th.

Faithfully yours, 

+Shannon

The House of Bishops: "This carnage must stop"

Friends,

I don't usually repost the communiques from our House of Bishops, but this one needs to be. The House of Bishops, at its Spring gathering, discussed the losses in our communities from violence, oppression and abuse. And they talked specifically about gun violence. There are other gatherings of bishops in the world right now getting more attention, like the one in Rome electing a Pope. But no topic should be higher in our concern and prayer. Here is the communique from the Episcopal House of Bishops, meeting in North Carolina the last few days:

+ + + 

The Episcopal Church
Office of Public Affairs

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

[March 12, 2013] The Episcopal Church House of Bishops, meeting in retreat in Kanuga Conference Center, Hendersonville, NC, offers the following Word to the Church.

A Word to the Church: 
Godly Leadership in the Face of Violence

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen  (Collect for Tuesday in Holy Week.  Book of Common Prayer (BCP) p. 220)

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

Your House of Bishops has gathered in retreat from March 8-12 at Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, NC.  The theme for our days together has been “Godly Leadership in the Midst of Loss.”  We have heard moving reflections on loss in the wake of: the shootings in Newtown, Hurricane Sandy, the ongoing struggles in Haiti, historical trauma experienced by Native Americans in South Dakota, and physical illness.  Being together in conversation, prayer and common worship, we have shared the reality of new life in the resurrected Jesus who has overcome death and redeems our losses.

Our time together has brought us to a new place of recognition with respect to how violence infects, and affects, our lives.  We have considered how the reality of violence in our world, our society, our churches, our homes, and ourselves alienate us from God and each other.  And we repent that we have too often neglected to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation.  In this Lenten season we pray:  “Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.”  (From the Litany of Penance for Ash Wednesday, BCP p. 268)

We particularly grieve those killed by senseless gun violence in the many contexts from which we come.  We lament and have cried over the widely reported mass shootings in this country, recalling tragedies like Aurora, Oak Creek and Newtown.  We are outraged by the too often unseen and unacknowledged daily massacre of our young people in cities such as Chicago, Newark, Baltimore, Port-au-Prince, and Tegucigalpa.  This carnage must stop.

 TO READ THE FULL COMMUNIQUE CLICK HERE.

Statement by Presiding Bishop Katharine about gun violence

The United States has witnessed far too many public shootings in recent months and years. Far too many lives have been cut short or maimed by both random and targeted acts of gun violence. The school shooting in Newtown was horrific, yet since that day several times as many young people have died by gunshot.

It is abundantly clear that Americans are ready to grapple with the complexities of gun violence. The Spirit is moving across this land to mobilize people of faith to act. I urge the United States members of this Church to call your federal legislators on Monday 4 February to express your concern and your expectation that gun violence be addressed. The outlines of the necessary policy decisions are clear and widely supported: limits on sales of military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, effective background checks for all gun purchases, better access to mental health services, and attention to gun trafficking.

We believe all God's people should be able to live in peace, as Zechariah dreams, "old men and women shall again sit in the streets...And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing." The prophet reminds his hearers that even if this seems impossible, with God it is not. [Zech 8:4-6] I urge you to add your voice to those clamoring for peace. Call your legislators and sue for peace.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Down by the Riverside: Our Baptismal Covenant and guns, mental health care and the culture of violence

Jordan River

Today's sermon is based on Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22.

 + + +

The people were filled with expectations and they were blessed and they were the beloved. May you be filled with expectations, blessings and know you are the beloved. Amen.


Listen again to the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”

What must these people have seen and heard, standing in line at the river?

They had come from seemingly everywhere, traveling a long perilous journey across desert and mountains, to the lowest place on earth – the Jordan River Valley.

Now they stood in line, waiting to be washed in the river by a strange holy man, to be baptized into a new way of living.

Standing next to them in line was a young man from the north, from the region known as the Galilee.

Did they even notice him in line?

Or were they so consumed by their own worries, their own struggles, their own expectations, that they didn’t notice who stood with them.

He waited his turn. If he said anything to anyone, no one seems to have noticed enough to remember it or what he looked like.

Yet one man did notice. John, he was known, the one who they would call “the Baptist.”

John was an austere man of the desert, living off the land, and he attracted followers, lots of them. We can guess some of them were starving. Maybe all he could give them was insects and a little honey. It was all he ate, and it was enough.

Then there were these lines of people from all over the Judean countryside, waiting to see him.

Maybe some were fleeing from something, but I will bet most were not unlike us – searching for some sense that God is with them, that God has not deserted them in their troubles.

And there was this other man standing in line, this man from the north, and he came alone.

John, the one they called the Baptist, he noticed him. He knew exactly who he was, and he knew in an instant that the world would never – could never – be the same.

He washed this lone man in the river, baptized him like so many others. But this time it was different. This time it was the Baptist who felt like he had been washed, made new, made holy.

And he heard the voice, maybe only a whisper, saying that this man in the river is “my beloved. Listen to him.”

For countless centuries many have pondered this scene, debated its significance, wondered why on earth Jesus, the Son of God, would chose to stand in line with all these troubled people and chose to baptized.

To find the answer, maybe we need look no further than ourselves. By standing in line to be baptized, Jesus chose to be one of us, to share in the same troubles, to experience life as we experience it, and ultimately to bring the Godness within him to dwell with us, too.

He yearned to show us that we, too, are the beloved of God, that our very existence is God’s dream.

Today we are passing along this gift of God’s dream through baptism to three children: Charlotte, James, and Alice.

We will stand with them at the font in the center of our church, where so many have been baptized for decades and decades.

We will signify with the outward symbols of water and words, music and prayers, that these three beautiful children are the beloved of God.

And we will do more: We will promise to stand with them in whatever life brings them. We will declare that nothing – nothing – will separate them from the love of God. Down through the centuries, many have declared this reality in countless places, and in countless ways.

Indeed, today, by what we do, we are reaching back thousands of years to the ancient Hebrew prophets.

Listen again to the prophet Isaiah, who in a few short words proclaims the very essence of what we do today:

“You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”

No one can be a bystander today. Baptism brings with it challenges for each one of us.

In a few moments, we will join together in renewing our baptismal covenant. We will make promises for how we will live our life in faith – promises not just for ourselves but for these three children and for every child in the entire world.

We will pledge to pray together and share in the breaking of the bread – regularly.

We will promise to love our neighbors as ourselves – regularly – and promise that when we fall into sin – as we will do regularly – that will return to the Lord, again and again.

And here is the hardest one. We will promise to respect the dignity of every human being.

By doing this, we are holding these promises in trust for these three children until they are old enough to hold these promises for themselves.

If we take seriously the promises of our baptism, that will have consequences and will change the world.

Our baptism commissions us to be servants for each other, servants of our community and servants of every nation. The only privilege of our baptism – the only privilege – is the privilege to be servants.

We can start by proclaiming in word and example that we stand for an end to the way of violence, warfare, poverty, and ignorance – and an end to the idol of guns.

I want you to know that, with 27 others from our diocese, I have co-sponsored a resolution at our upcoming Diocesan Council to join with other religious communities in calling for laws restricting the sale high-powered military weapons; strengthening our mental health system; and calling on all of us to take a critical look at our culture that glorifies violence.

My baptismal promises compel me to do no less.

People of faith can differ on the details, yet we must not shrink from doing what we can to make our world safer.

Yet know this too: Wherever we go in life, whatever good we do, or the mistakes we make, Christ Jesus stands in this line with us – joins us in the water of baptism – telling us over and over that each one of us is the beloved, each of us is God’s dream.

“Do not fear,” Isaiah proclaims, “for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”

These are the promises that never, never, never end. AMEN

James Richardson, Fiat Lux