Instruments of the Passion

Instruments of the Passion takes as a starting point the objects associated with the journey of Jesus from Good Friday to Easter, and searches for them in the day-to-day reality of working with vulnerable and marginalized people experiencing homelessness today. In the process it explores themes of forgiveness and grace and offers a way to a deeper understanding of our individual relationship with God. Set in the context of a homeless shelter and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the text follows the traditional narrative sequence of the 'instruments' in twenty meditations which relate real-life stories and invite the reader to see the parallels in their own. Opening our eyes to the reality of the Cross in the world around us can help us also to see it in our own lives, and so to find that the instruments of the Passion are also instruments of Easter, and of hope. The book was written partly In response to the death In one year of thirteen rough sleepers with whom the author had worked. Their stories, told with raw honesty, are real, only the names have been changed. It is a relentless journey that forces us to consider painful realities and uncomfortable truths about ourselves.