Category: Faith

In the mid-eighties, I discovered what many Roman Catholics had meditated on for hundreds of years.  Especially during the liturgical season of Lent, leading up to the great feast of Easter, in a tradition attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, many meditate on the “Via Crucis” or the “Stations of the Cross.”  What began with pilgrimages to Jerusalem to retrace the steps of Jesus on His “Walk to Calvary” were converted to a chapel meditation by creating sculptures or pictures of the scenes along the way.

The traditional “Stations” include:

1. Christ condemned to death;
2. the cross is laid upon him;
3. His first fall;
4. He meets His Blessed Mother;
5. Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross;
6. Christ’s face is wiped by Veronica;
7. His second fall;
8. He meets the women of Jerusalem;
9. His third fall;
10. He is stripped of His garments;
11. His crucifixion;
12. His death on the cross;
13. His body is taken down from the cross; and
14. laid in the tomb.

As I experienced my first observation of the meditation, I found myself quite moved.  Having been a Christian for most of my life and having what I felt at the time was a fairly good relationship with Jesus, experiencing the “Stations” brought to life the passion of our Lord.  I was walking along with Him to the Cross; I could hear the jeers and tears of those who followed Him; I saw the executioner drive the nails into his hands.

Well, that Easter came and went and life went on.  My interest in the “Stations” was rekindled when one of the priests at the church we were attending published a booklet called “Mary’s Way of the Cross” in which he told the story of the “Stations” through the eyes of Jesus’ Mother — who we are told in scripture was there with Jesus at His Crucifixion.  He was able to show in a beautiful way, a mother’s love for her child.

As I continued to reflect upon and study the “Stations,” I too, was inspired to “take pen in hand” (well, actually, it was an early word processing program on my new ‘Personal Computer‘) and attempt to expand some of the stories of the “Stations.”  I wanted more to know what Jesus had endured for our sake.  I tried to empathize with those who Jesus met along the way.  What would Simon of Cyrene have been thinking when pressed into service by the Romans to carry the Cross?  How about the Roman Centurion? Joseph of Arimathea? Nicodemus?

A few sketches began to take shape, but it was not until I was on an extended, multi-week training session in Rochester, NY for my former employer, Eastman Kodak, that I devoted a concentrated amount of time to writing.  Upon my return, I shared my reflections with Fr. Mike Woempner, another of the priests at St. Mary’s in Annapolis at the time.  He was very encouraging to me and immediately wanted me to make plans to share with the community for Lent.  Well, it would be too much in such a short amount of time to put together the ‘cast’, gather musicians, rehearse the songs, etc.  So what we did instead was pre-record the songs and voices and we would simply have the Narrator ‘live’ at the presentations.  I had thought at the time an accompanying slide show (yes, that would have been the 35mm, 2″x2″ in the round trays type) would be an nice addition, but that did not come to fruition.  Thanks to several music minister friends at the parish, we were able to get the songs recorded.  I had other friends and family record the voice dialog.  I was doing the final editing of the 1/4″ reel-to-reel tape just hours before the presentation. But we managed to get through it and it was well received.

I continued to revise and refine the work, when ‘life’ allowed.  There have been a few parishes who have presented it over the years.  I added some choral arrangements of the traditional “Stabat Mater” and “O Sacred Head” hymns as well as choral parts for the songs.

When we moved to Carroll County, we found our new church home at St. Peter the Apostle in Libertytown, MD.  The church was constructed in the late 1800’s and had beautiful Mayer stained glass windows, a painted Crucifixion scene that hung above the sanctuary and some cast plaster “Stations.”  I spent hours looking at, and meditating upon the sculptured “Stations.”

In 2002, I had the honor to direct the presentation of the “Stations” at St. Peter’s.   We used a combination of live musicians and computer-driven instrumental accompaniment tracks.  So many good friends and family shared their talents.  My son, Justin played both trumpet and flute.  Ryan, our youngest, handled sound effects and recording duties.  My dear wife, Terri, was one of the narrators.  The kind comments following were humbling.

When we suffered the loss of our church building in 2004 due to a construction accident, I was relieved to hear the Stations had survived.  They were restored, accented, re-framed and installed in the new church building dedicated in 2008.

We’ve been asked to present the “Stations” on Good Friday of 2011 and so we are dusting off the music and preparing for rehearsals.  I’m afraid the presentation this year will be bittersweet, though.  We will dedicate this presentation in memory of Justin and in the memory of Cindy Getsinger.

“Stations of the Cross”

April 22, 2011

7:30 PM
St. Peter the Apostle Church, Libertytown, MD

Saint Cecilia, ora pro nobis

Today is Christmas Eve.

As I was dragging myself towards my first cup of coffee this morning, Terri said “I don’t know if this is possible, or if you would even want to, or if it would just be too hard, but could you post Justin reading from Christmas of ’94?”
“I can do that,” I said.
Several years back, I was going through a stack of VHS video tapes (remember those?) and transferring them to DVDs, hoping to preserve them for a longer expected lifespan, when we came across the video tape of 1994. This was compliments of Terri’s older brother Ken who had invested in video technology for the purpose of capturing memories of family life, for which we are forever grateful.
In 1994, Justin was 9 years old and was already active in the music ministry at St. Peter’s, singing with the other children for the Christmas Eve Mass, with assistance that year from both Terri and I (and the Hunter’s). He was also selected to proclaim the First Reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And proclaim it, he did! Seeing the video from 1994 reminded us of that.
When Justin decided to return to school for his Masters Degree, I put together a video of his life from snapshots and video clips and titled it “Looking Back, Moving Forward.” In this I used a snippet of the Christmas of 1994 video.
Christmas of 1994. It seems like a long time ago and in some respects, it is. You can do the math.
But it is good to look back where you’ve been when you ponder where you are.
This Christmas, we still mourn the loss of our dear son, Justin, but are comforted in our faith in the one whose birth we celebrate this evening. May we always find hope in the peace of knowing Christ.

And because we miss him so very much it was very ‘hard’ to do, as Terri said earlier, but we are blessed by the gift that was given to us in our son.

Justin Jackson, ora pro nobis.

Over the years, I’ve dabbled in doing some musical composition and arranging.

My largest work to date and perhaps most enduring has been my setting of the “Stations of the Cross.”  I first discovered the “Stations” when attending church in the late 70’s with my girlfriend in Annapolis, MD at St. Mary’s Church.  Since my Christian upbringing was mostly rooted in the Southern Baptist denomination, I knew little about the traditions of Roman Catholicism which included meditating on the “Via Crucis” or “Way of the Cross” or simply retracing the steps of Jesus from his trial before Pilate to his death on the Cross.  Over the years, artists had created depictions of each of the scenes which are usually placed in the main body of the Catholic churches.  The ones at St. Mary’s are especially beautiful and I remember being quite moved when we attended the “Stations” for my first time.  So moved that I was inspired to write some songs focusing on some of the characters you meet along the way.  It was during an extended several week long training class in Rochester, NY while with Eastman Kodak that I had decided to take some of my musical gear with me to stave off boredom in the off hours that I began in earnest the attempt to further develop the settings.  After sharing some of my work with a couple of the Redemptorist priests at St. Mary’s, I was encouraged to share it with the St. Mary’s community that upcoming Lent.  Then the pressure was on!  There would not be time to prepare for a ‘live’ presentation, so we decided to use some technology to aid us.  After I completed the compositions, I recorded the music tracks and then had some members of the St. Mary’s music ministry record the vocals for the characters.  We would present the “Stations” using a ‘live’ narrator and then play the songs from tape.  The positive comments afterward encouraged me to continue refining the work over the years.

Fast-Forward to roughly the year 2000, when my home parish (Yes, I ‘came home to Rome’ and joined the Catholic church) of St. Peter’s in Libertytown, MD asked that we present my “Stations” again.  St. Peter’s has some pretty beautiful “Stations” as well (which survived our church fire in 2004.) It was this time that I wanted to add more choral arrangements and had been toying with an arrangement of the great hymn, “O Sacred Head, Surrounded.”  It seemed to fit well within the construct of the “Stations.”  I split it into two sections for the use with the “Stations,” but I decided to ‘publish’ a full version on the Sibelius Music site.  I received several positive reviews of the setting from the Sibelius music community.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to find an email in my inbox entitled “Your score O Sacred Head by Hans L. Hassler arr. Doug Jackson on SibeliusMusic.com”

Upon opening it, I found a very nice note from Robert Miller:

Hello,My name is Robert Miller and I’m the arranger of The Brethren Brass (more info about us, below.)  Our latest CD will be titled ‘Hymn’ and will be unique modern arrangements of traditional hymns and Spirituals.  While searching for music for the project on SibeliusMusic, we were incredibly lucky to stumble upon your fine work!  I  purchased and arranged your beautiful “O Sacred Head” and we just finished recording it. Since SibeliusMusic’s message system doesn’t allow attachments, you can hear an MP3 (and see program notes) at:  http://www.brethrenbrass.com/hymn.htm

He went on with some additional details about their group and ministry.  I was most interested in how Robert might have arranged my arrangement for his Brass group, so I visited their site right away.  It was beautifully done.

Wow, what an honor to be recognized by a group of talented musicians.  I replied to Robert that he had my permission to use my arrangement as the basis for his and include their recording of his arrangement of my arrangement (Ah, I just love the music ‘biz’) on their upcoming CD.  And if he wouldn’t mind, could he send me a copy.

Well, the CD arrived today and the rest of the tracks are equally impressive.  Thanks,  “Brethren Brass,” and may God continue to bless your music ministry.

Oh, and my girlfriend and I celebrated our 29th Wedding Anniversary last April.