A Reflection by Greg Friedman, OFM,
Provincial Secretary

When I guide Holy Land pilgrims through the streets of Jerusalem on the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross, we usually share the crowded streets with pilgrim groups from around the world, people of other faiths going about their business, tourists from cruise ships and merch-ants standing outside their shops, doing business. We’re part of everyday life in the Old City. 

I remind the pilgrims that—except for the differences of 20 centuries—Jesus’ ordeal of carrying the cross on that first Good Friday through streets crowded with people was similar: Some may have known this man being led leading to execution; some were his anguished followers; others could have cared less. To many, Jesus was just a curiosity.

The route we take, and which the Franciscans follow every Friday, at three o’clock in the afternoon, has been established for centuries, but scholars dispute its accuracy. We believe the location of Calvary and the Tomb of Jesus are authentic, but today’s route of the Via Dolorosa may not be Jesus’ path from the place of sentencing to the place of crucifixion and burial. And we know as well that some of the events in the 14 stations aren’t found in the Gospel at all. Christians from the earliest days no doubt visited the site of Calvary and the Tomb. A formal route, with set “stations,” came much later.

In the fourth century, a Spanish nun, Egeria, describes in her diary how pilgrims followed a route in and around Jerusalem to places associated with the Passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. In succeeding centuries, various routes and processions are recorded. In fact, European pilgrims took the practice home, so their fellow Christians could reproduce it.

After Pope Clement VI gave the Franciscans the care of the Holy Places in 1342, a ritual procession began at “Mount Zion,” outside the city walls, where the friars had their headquarters and commemorated the Last Supper. It continued on to include the House of Caiphas, the palace of Annas, the Mount of Olives and the Pool of Siloam. These devotions went beyond the events of Good Friday. A later route began at the Holy Sepulchre and included the Garden of Gethsemane. Because Jerusalem at the time was under Muslim rule, the friars led pilgrims in the hours before dawn, so as not to disturb others.

The sole focus on the events of the Passion only began in the 15th century, but early routes didn’t include the model of our present-day 14th stations. It was pilgrims coming from Europe, who were familiar with a version of the Way of the Cross popularized in well-known devotional books, who eventually led Franciscan guides in Jerusalem to begin leading the Way of the Cross largely familiar to us!

A Canadian friar working in the Holy Land, Blessed Frederic Janssoone, promoted the custom of the Friday afternoon Via Dolorosa. The Franciscans—with young friars information usually leading the prayers by megaphone—begin near the Franciscan biblical school, and process through the streets to the final five stations within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We’re usually crowded and rushed, as we weave through the streets so we can finish within the time limits imposed by the Status Quo, the agreement which preserves order among Christians serving together in that great church, which shelters both Calvary and the tomb of Jesus.

For a friar, the conclusion of the Via Dolorosa sometimes permits a quick “official” visit inside the shrine over the Tomb, to venerate the place where Jesus was buried and rose from the dead.

Today the Franciscans have created a wonderful audiovisual experience for pilgrims. The program unfolds the history of Jerusalem and invites modern-day pilgrims to identify with the countless people before them who have walked the streets of the city as Jesus did on that first Good Friday. To you, our brothers, and friends sharing our audiovisual Way of the Cross we extend the same invitation.
 

You can access our Way of the Cross here.