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Of all the pious exercises
connected with the veneration of the Cross, none is more popular among the
faithful than the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross). Through this pious
exercise, the faithful movingly follow the final earthly journey of
Christ: from the Mount of Olives, where the Lord, "in a small estate
called Gethsemane" (Mk 14, 32), was taken by anguish (cf. Lk 22, 44), to
Calvary where he was crucified between two thieves (cf. Lk 23, 33), to the
garden where he was placed in freshly hewn tomb (John 19, 40-42).
The love of the Christian faithful for this devotion is amply attested by
the numerous Via Crucis erected in so many churches, shrines,
cloisters, in the countryside, and on mountain pathways where the various
stations are very evocative.
The Via Crucis is a synthesis of various devotions that have arisen
since the high middle ages: the pilgrimage to the Holy Land during which
the faithful devoutly visit the places associated with the Lord's Passion;
devotion to the three falls of Christ under the weight of the Cross;
devotion to "the dolorous journey of Christ" which consisted in processing
from one church to another in memory of Christ's Passion; devotion to the
stations of Christ, those places where Christ stopped on his journey to
Calvary because obliged to do so by his executioners or exhausted by
fatigue, or because moved by compassion to dialogue with those who were
present at his Passion.
In its present form, the Via Crucis, widely promoted by St.
Leonardo da Porto Maurizio (d.1751), was approved by the Apostolic See and
indulgenced, consists of fourteen stations since the middle of seventeenth
century.
The Via Crucis is a journey made in the Holy Spirit, that divine
fire which burned in the heart of Jesus (cf. Lk 12, 49-50) and brought him
to Calvary. This is a journey well esteemed by the Church since it has
retained a living memory of the words and gestures of the final earthly
days of her Spouse and Lord.
In the Via Crucis, various strands of Christian piety coalesce: the
idea of life being a journey or pilgrimage; as a passage from earthly
exile to our true home in Heaven; the deep desire to be conformed to the
Passion of Christ; the demands of following Christ, which imply that his
disciples must follow behind the Master, daily carrying their own crosses
(cf Lk 9, 23).
This is an image of the Twelfth Station in our church. This set of stations in the church was erected in 1884
in memory of Charles Porri and they are painted on wood with a textured
gilt background and fitted in a dark carved wood frame.
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