One of the images accompanying the third Stations of the Cross, “Jesus Falls for the First Time,” in the St. Anne’s video.
St. Anne’s-in-the-Fields Episcopal church has created an online, self-paced multimedia pilgrimage though the Stations of the Cross for anyone to experience.
Almost immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus, Christians from around the world began traveling to Jerusalem to walk the path where Jesus carried the cross through the winding streets of the city on the way to Golgotha and pray at the 14 shrines and churches that mark the significant scriptural or traditional events of that day, such as where Jesus took the cross, where Jesus fell the first time, and where Jesus was nailed to the cross, explained, Greg Mancusi-Ungaro of Marblehead, a member of the St. Anne’s Worship Commission. About two centuries later, churches and monasteries began installing plaques and other memorials depicting the Stations of the Cross so local worshipers could make personal pilgrimages.
Now St. Anne’s has taken the idea to the next level. Their YouTube video includes prayers and readings from the Episcopal Book of Occasional Services, dozens of artworks, and music excepted from “Vesalii Icones,” a 1969 multilayered fusion of dance and music by Peter Maxwell Davies. More than two dozen church members contributed to the project, including lectors, choir members, and clergy.
Parishioners and others have had high praise for the project. “The combination of music and spoken word and visuals have allowed people to really contemplate [the crucifixion] in ways they hadn’t done before,” Mancusi-Ungaro said.
Other organizations have posted online versions of the Stations of the Cross, especially during the pandemic, but St. Anne’s wasn’t even aware of them when it was working on its project. Once it was posted online, the committee thought perhaps a few hundred other people would see, it but they were in for a surprise.
“Literally thousands of people from all around the world have found our
on YouTube and viewed some or all of it,” Mancusi-Ungaro said. “It’s humbling and deeply satisfying for me personally to have had a hand in creating something that’s been so meaningful.”