Our spirituality begins at the foot of the cross (R 14). André Coindre was a member of the Society of the Cross. In one of his sermons he quotes Saint Augustine: “The cross is a school where Jesus teaches, a pulpit where he announces all the truths of salvation.” In his own eloquent way and with a cross in his hands he preaches to those gathered in a parish mission, “This cross will preach to you instead of me and will reveal that salvation is your only and necessary treasure. A lance pierced this Heart and this wound was meant to touch your own heart.” (Preaching Notes, Ms 23)

This Via Crucis enables us to continue the contemplation of the mystery of the Cross which was the center of André’s unfinished life. I remember being impressed, when I first read Brother Jean Roure’s chronology, by the repeated images of mission crosses planted through the departments of Loire, Haute-Loire, and Rhône. There remain about twenty-five planted and blessed by André Coindre himself, forming a Via Crucis of his preaching ministry. We have inherited from him the courage to confront the Cross and the faith to celebrate its mystery. This Via Crucis is dedicated to him in the hope that it might recall the spiritual path he traced.

Why a Via Crucis of young people?

If meditating on Jesus pierced on the cross was his starting point, contemplating young peoples’ suffering was a frequent stopping point on André Coindre’s path. The compassion he felt for Jesus became transformed into compassion for young victims of chaotic social changes. His heart made the jump between the abandonment Jesus felt and that felt by the little girls of St. Nizier, between Jesus’ incarceration and that of boys in Roanne and St. Joseph’s prisons, between Jesus’ failure and the colossal failure of village schools.

Many years ago, while making the traditional way of the cross, I was stopped by the words of Jesus to the women lamenting him, “Do not weep for me, but for yourselves and your children.” (Lk 23: 27-31) What struck me was that Jesus, despite his own suffering, felt compassion for the children of Jerusalem. He transcended his pain to turn the women’s gaze from himself to their children. He turned me around as well; it was as though he said, “Stop practicing devotions centered on me. Join me in asking the Father to console young people in pain.” Since that experience during my initial formation, the way of the cross changed for me from a devotion of empathy into a moment of prayerful union with him in his apostolic mission.

During my visits in the institute since 1994 I met many young people whose lives were a Via Crucis. Writing Circular 3 about them awakened in me a desire to have in the general house permanent images which would help our local community to center its communal apostolic prayer on the sufferings of the young whom our brothers serve. An occasion to realize my desire came after the remodeling of our chapel in 1996. The plaster stations had been removed because of their deteriorated condition. The paintings of this Via Crucis, representing the spiritual and material sufferings of the young people in our care (R 153, 119), take their place.

Where is Jesus?

Some observers, studying the unlabeled stations as they arrived one by one from the artist’s studio, said, “I don’t see the link with Jesus.” This observation recalls the question of the just who asked, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or away from home or naked or in prison?” The Lord’s response shows that he can be found in the littlest and most vulnerable. (Mt 25: 37-40)

The council fathers of Vatican II, in a series of concluding messages to the peoples of the world, addressed these words to the suffering: “Know that you are neither alone nor separated, neither abandoned nor useless. You are called by Christ, you are his living and transparent image.” And in his closing homily, Pope Paul VI addressed all of us in the Church: “In the countenance of every human being—especially when tears and sufferings make it most transparent—we can and we must recognize the face of Christ.”

The truth, then, of these stations is that each presents the face of Christ in the face of young victims. To remember that truth, I keep in my bank of favorite quotations this one from Hans Urs van Balthasar: “In my distant brother is not just the image, but the reality of the love of God suffering for him. Like a mirror, his human face reflects the face of God, simultaneously in a faithful and a distorted way. Human features are the most beautiful calligraphy of God’s Word, written on the parchment of the human countenance.”

Why in the hallway?

An apostolic spirituality requires a link of reciprocity between prayer and life; we must act our prayer and pray our action. The hallway leading to our chapel symbolizes that link between our prayer and our lives. For example, in passing to the chapel to pray the psalms twice a day, we pass between these images of young victims calling out, “Brothers, pray your psalms for us. We don’t have the strength or the faith or the words to pray for ourselves. Cry out to heaven to free us. We have no voice.”

The saint with the golden voice, John Chrysostom, makes an appeal to us: “You want to honor the body of Christ? Don’t despise him when he is naked. Don’t honor him in your church with silk vestments while you leave him outside suffering from the cold and lacking clothes. Learn how to live according to the Wisdom of Christ: honor him the way he himself wants to be honored. What is the point of setting his table with golden vessels while he himself is dying of hunger? Remind yourself that Christ is really going around like a stranger with no place to call home while you are embellishing floors, walls and columns in his name. You are attaching lamps with golden chains and you don’t want to see that he is chained up in prison. When you decorate your churches, don’t forget your little brother in distress, for that temple is worth more than the other.”

Why not photos?

It is said that photos tell the unvarnished truth. A bank of photos could have documented in accurate detail the ways in which our children are victims of adult sin. However, these stations go one step further. They are all based upon photos, but they are richer for being the result of the reflection, the interpretation, and the composition of the artist, Alberto Bertuzzi.

Rule 129 says, “Thanks to the dynamism of our faith, we meet God in events, in people and in a special way in prayer.” The photos which inspired these stations are analogous to the events and people of our lives. The artist’s interpretation is analogous to the dynamism of our faith. His “factual paintings” become, then, analogous to the special way of looking on life that is apostolic prayer. The artist’s comments offer a visual language which is a starting point for our prayerful contemplation of the realities that inspired his interpretation of each station.

Each is also a window that lets light in to reveal in this comfortable home the drama of misery and of young people’s need for justice in different parts of the world. I believe a general house in an international institute should be a window on the world stretching our prayer and our mission to wider horizons.

Each station is painted on the wooden panels which once formed the confessional of the chapel, a fact that awakens our consciences to the reality of social sin. Each is an act of confession and of contrition for the effect that adult sin has on its young victims.