Monday 29 April 2010, 7.30pm
Blackfriars, 64 St Giles, OX1 3LY
Join with others Christians from across Oxford to remember the journey Christ took towards the cross this Holy Week. All welcome.
What is the Stations of the Cross devotion?
History tells us that, by the fourth century, Christians were gathering each day (and night) during Holy Week for lengthy services to commemorate, at the appropriate times, the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. In the fifteenth century, it had become the custom for pilgrims to trace, at various times of the year, the route Jesus had taken to Calvary. By the early years of the sixteenth century, the Stations ("stopping places") of the Cross had become established in their present form for the benefit of pilgrims unable to make the journey to Jerusalem. We shall be stopping to pray and meditate at each of the fourteen bas-reliefs illustrating the events on this Way of the Cross that are hung round the nave of the church. But as the intervals between these Stations are small, only those carrying the crucifix and the candles and those leading the service and the meditations will move round to each Station. Those of us in the main body of the church should turn in our places like sunflowers and need only stand or kneel according to our capacity and inclination. |
