A new contemporary version of The Stations of The Cross with a twenty first century theme travelling with the martyr Saint Oscar Romero.
Excerpt:
This book is my second journey of the Station’s of the Cross and it was written to complement the original and traditional version called “Roll away the Stone”. Over the years I have physically walked the more familiar stations with the larger than life size statues on the steep hillside of Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees and followed the chapel sculptures winding through the hot burnished terrain and the shady olive groves of Fatima, Portugal. These like many other including familiar church stations have a very clear visual identity and focus allowing the pilgrim to see and relive the mental and somatic anguish of the Passion.
As the official biographer of Saint Clare of Assisi, I made three trips over a two year period to the strikingly beautiful hilltop town in Umbria to research her life. One of these trips coincided with Lent and the Way of the Cross was commemorated by starting at St Clare’s Basilica and walking slowly the length of the town ending at the Basilica of St. Francis. It was a twilight vigil with a fresh breeze drifting up from the valley floor rising to the Appenine heights and what struck me was that there were no distinct stations, statues or images, as we simply stopped outside medieval buildings lit by flaming torches. We were walking hard dusty, cobbles and ancient pavements. The experience was very profound in a cathartic sense of discovering and understanding the true reality of being a witness to the passion as a partaker or passerby.
As in the previous christian book we are joined by the celebrated artist Jan Kalinski who has now finished 32 remarkable pictures including book covers depicting the Passion and recorded a duality of neoteric images to accompany this new theme using actual voices and words of those who were with Jesus and the responsive voice 2000 years later of the 20th century martyr Saint Oscar Romero canonised in 2018.
