Were You There?
Were You There?
Stations of the Cross
Text by Diana L. Hayes
Art by Charles Ndege
In breathtaking full-color art and challenging meditations, we join the painful procession to Golgotha. The setting and focus for our prayer is an African village, with Jesus depicted as an African . . .
What can we learn from the son of the carpenter, the Son of God, about our lives and the path we should follow? As we look at the paintings of Jesus weighed down by the burden of the cross, but moving ever onward, we turn to our own lives and burdens-divisions within families, violence, lack of community, poverty, racism, consumerism, illness.
Where does our path lead? The meditations explore Jesus’ message and his life of ministry that have fed and nurtured the Christian faith for almost 2000 years. We understand, in the end, how the path of a Christian life of faith is ever enriched by the One who knows our sufferings because he has suffered for us and with us. This is our comfort and the source of our strength.
Diana L. Hayes, a professor of theology at Georgetown University, is the author of several books, including “Hagar’s Daughters,” “And Still We Rise: An Introduction to Black Liberation Theology,” and coeditor with Cyprian Davis, o.s.b., of “Taking Down Our Harps: Black Catholics in the United States.”
Charles Ndege is a young Tanzanian artist originally from Maji Moto, Musoma, Tanzania who studied art at the Sukuma Cultural Center at Bujora. He was commissioned to paint the Stations of the Cross in an African motif in St. Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe Church in Nyakato, Mwanza, Tanzania. Some of Charles’ paintings are also reproduced in the book “Towards An African Narrative Theology” (Orbis Books and Paulines, Publications Africa). He has also done paintings and drawings of African Proverbs and Sayings.
October, 1999 ISBN 1-57075-278-8 14 full-color illustrations. 112pp. 8 x 6-11/16 Paper $15.00 World Rights
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