"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The Emmanuel School of Mission youth reenact the Via Crucis – The Way of the Cross – on St Peter’s Square this Holy Friday.
The sky is a spectacular blue over the cobbled stones of the great old piazza, but a solemn and reverent tone sweeps the place.
Today Our Lord has been Crucified. The crowd has spoken, pilate dismissed, guards scourged, onlookers mocked.
Our Christ has been crucified. Beaten, stripped, scorned and nailed to a cross. The earth has trembled. The temple has cracked.
The ESM youth live these very last steps – of the passion of Jesus – in a piercingly real way. They take up the characters of the Via themselves, bearing witness of the Ultimate Sacrifice to all passers by.

—



The feet that accuse: they keep their distance from their Christ, denying Him into their lives; they mock and scorn and do not believe, remaining in emptyness and fear.


Jesus takes up his cross

On His whipped and flesh-torn back, Christ hoists the heavy wooden cross, laden with our sins, in a love that neaver ceases.

Christ falls for the first time

Jesus meets His mother









Jesus falls for the second time

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

Suffering silently with their Christ, the women accompanied Jesus all the way to the Cross, and stayed at his feet, never abandoning Him, never looking away; their faith and love uniting them in His Sacred Heart.