The Via Dolorosa

A Sonnet on the Way of Suffering

As we look ahead to Holy Week, here is another poem meditating on Jesus’ journey to the cross. “The Via Dolorosa” is Latin for “The Way of Suffering” and refers to the route Jesus walked to his crucifixion.

For this poem, we follow (and identify with) Peter’s repeated journey through pride, failure, and humility — reminding us of his (and our) desperate need for Jesus’ death.

We begin at Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus tells the disciples that he must suffer and die. Peter actually “takes Jesus aside” to set him straight! Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan!”— the exact words he used when Satan tempted him in the wilderness — “You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Matthew 16:21-23)

Later, when Jesus tenderly warns Peter that he will stumble and need to repent, Peter — who had just been busy arguing about who was the best disciple — boldly declares, “I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!” He will deny knowing Jesus that very night. (Luke 22:24-62)

Church tradition holds that Jesus fell three times as he carried the cross, and Scripture tells us that the soldiers compelled Simon of Cyrene to carry it for him. The name is poignantly poetic: Simon Peter, Jesus’ closest friend, was nowhere to be found.

You can read the poem below this linocut print by Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya.

Bruce Onobrakpeya - Jesus Falls the Second Time (linocut on paper, 1969)

The Via Dolorosa

Like Peter and like Satan we correct you
and let you know that there’s a better way:
a crown without the cross where they reject you,
an Easter with no Holy Saturday.

But you insist, so we, puffed up with pride,
all pledge to journey with you to the end,
in jail or death to suffer by your side.
And for a little while we pretend

until the rooster crows and we awake
to find that we’ve rejected you as well,
your Way of Suffering too much to take—
and so you walk alone. Three times you fell

beneath the ceaseless burden of our pride,
daring the death we said you shouldn’t have died.

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This poem is part of a sequence of sonnets meditating on Jesus’ death, which includes last week’s poem “Gethsemane’s Amen.”