One Train - Many Stations

During Lent, among other devotions, I take the time to do the Stations of the Cross.
I came across this essay by Chesterton that combines both this devotion with an essay about art – my two great loves in one place Jesus and art – cool. Something I have found only Chesterton can do with the proper balance.

This Chesterton piece was written for a book by Frank Brangwyn entitled;
The Way of the Cross: An Interpretation

Brangwyn is on my list of favorite illustrators. Here is a quote from that essay:

“. . . and this is the last portent of the darkness; that you are sorry for me. That part of me in which you never believed, the madman’s dream of deity—you need waste no tears upon that. But that part of me that is part of you; that ancient and achieved thing in which you do believe, that tradition that was mine as well as yours; the Blood; the Household; the Great Story—if you are wanting something to weep for! Because I was born Man, I was born patriot; of a place and of a people; and if you would compassionate me for anything, compassionate me for that; for the Tables and the Temple and Solomon in all his glory. Do you imagine that a dream has come to an end; if you knew what reality has come to an end! If you knew the real tragedy that shall trail after you across the world, century after century; the wrongs you do, the wrongs you suffer, the endless wrangle about wrongs. And you who stand on the very crest of the stooping wave of this awful and pitiable catastrophe—you do not even know what to pity.” I cannot exaggerate my sense of the vivid inspiration of the artist who made that last look backwards as fierce as a flash of lightning.
“Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me; but weep for yourselves and for your children.”