Stations of the Cross

Author: Jenny O'Brien

Every year on Good Friday large numbers of Catholics gather in groups to remember the Passion of Christ by praying the Stations of the Cross.  In Adelaide many people attend the Monastery at Glen Osmond or Sacred Heart College, Somerton Park, where the Stations are held outdoors.
The concept of following the steps of our Lord to Calvary arose very early in the Church’s history.  There is even a tradition claiming that Mary herself visited the various sites in Jerusalem connected with her Son’s passion.
There is written evidence that in the fourth century the most important sites were regularly visited by pilgrims, and as early as the fifth century St Petronius, the Bishop of Bologna in Italy, erected a complex of connected chapels in the Monastery of San Stefano representing these various sites in order to bring closer to home the shrines of Jerusalem.

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