Good Friday's Stations by the Lagoon

We finally completed our Stations of the Cross. Our crucifixes arrived from Christian Supplies and we glued them on the top of each station. My orignal post on making them is here.

Here they were on Good Friday. We have on file, Father Z's audio and chant of Ligouri's Stations of the Cross to go with our home stations.

Each year we attend the Stations of the Cross around a lagoon.

The Sacred Heart Church stands by this lagoon and around the lagoon is a park.

So each year the way of the Cross is made, following the lagoon to the Sacred Heart Church.

The children always look forward to the outdoor Stations on Good Friday, to see the life sized cross being carried past, the prayers and the singing.

For each station, Father reads a meditation, then we sing a verse from one of the three or four hymns sung during the whole procession.

Then as the cross is carried forward and we all walk to the next station, we say the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be.

When we arrive at the new station another man will take over carrying the cross.

My oldest carried the cross this year as well, a lovely honour for him.

The banners for each Station are secured along the way, in colours of purple and unbleached calico.

"We adore You O Christ and we praise you."

"Because by your holy cross You have redeemed the world."

It had been raining as we travelled to the Stations but we were blessed to have no rain during
that time.

Getting closer to the end now, nearly to the Church grounds.

In the Church the elderly or sick can hear the stations via speakers.

Our little darling watching everything along the way....

Walking forward to the last station...

After the stations we sang the moving African-American hymn, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? Father then imparted his blessing to us all. Confessions were then heard in the Church by two priests. We were back again for the 3 O'Clock Good Friday Service in the afternoon, a beautiful day.

Chesterton and the Cross of Christ

“Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. …

The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. …

Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.”

-Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Radford, VA: Wilder Pubs, 1908/2007) 17-18.