Easter and Lent

The forty days before Easter are the one stretch of the Christian year that almost every tradition keeps in some form, and the week at the end of them holds more of the Gospel story than any other. This collection follows that week from beginning to end. It opens with Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem under waving palms, then moves indoors: three different Last Supper scenes, a close view of hands breaking bread beside a cup, Jesus kneeling to wash his disciples' feet, and the olive tree in Gethsemane where he prays alone by moonlight.

Then comes Good Friday. Two Stations of the Cross show the road to Calvary, one of them with Veronica wiping his face. There is the Crucifixion under a heavy sky with the words “Father, forgive them”, a lone cross at sunset lettered “It is finished”, a plain wooden cross and its shadow, and a three-bar Orthodox cross before a golden halo. We have kept them sober on purpose. They are meant to be looked at through a season, not glanced at once.

Easter morning arrives in the last group: the stone rolled back at sunrise, the women meeting two angels at the open tomb, a cross wrapped in lilies, and two paintings of the road to Emmaus, one on the walk at dusk and one at the table when the disciples finally recognize him. Hung in order in a hallway, the prints become a quiet set of stations at home. A single one works well on a Lenten prayer table, in a church office, or as a gift for a First Communion or an Easter baptism.