Marco Carvalho
It is one of the most cherished Easter experiences for Catholics around the world, and Macau is no exception. Hundreds of devotees are expected at Flora Garden and Guia Hill on the early morning of this Good Friday, April 7, for the re-enactment of each of the steps of the Passion of our Lord.
First promoted more than two decades ago by the Catholic Lay Association of Macau, the Way of the Cross is one of the oldest and most cherished ways of meditating on the passion and suffering of Christ. A powerful, interactive experience that transports the faithful to the short final period before the death of Jesus Christ and offers Catholics the opportunity to travel, albeit spiritually, the route that Jesus followed since he was condemned to death at the praetorium of Pontius Pilate until he was crucified at Mount Calvary.
For local Catholics, the Way of the Cross is an opportunity to share in the suffering inflicted on the Saviour. Established more than twenty years ago, the tradition of ascending to the top of Guia Hill on Good Friday was only interrupted in 2020, the year the Earth stood still due to COVID-19.
The pandemic allowed, nevertheless, the initiative to be reformulated, with technology lending a helping hand: “We have been organizing the Via Crucis for well over twenty years already. We have interrupted this initiative once, in 2020, because of COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, in 2020 we made a short video and posted it online,” Carmen Cheang of the Catholic Lay Association of Macau told O Clarim.
“We understood that this is another way to let more people join us, so we started to have an online Via Crucis simultaneously. Every year, we invite a different school to take part in the production of the online Way of the Cross. We firmly believe that this is another way of preaching,” she adds.
This Good Friday, Saint Joseph’s Diocesan School 5 will take on the responsibility to ensure that the scope of the Way of the Cross is not restricted to Flora Garden and Guia Hill. The Stations of the Cross will be broadcast live on the Facebook page of the Catholic Lay Association of Macau and on the Diocese of Macau’s YouTube channel.
More than being a mere reflection of Christ’s suffering, the Way of the Cross organizers want the initiative to be a wake-up call, so that the participants may become aware of the suffering of others. The Via Crucis includes periods of prayer, biblical readings and also moments of sharing and introspection: “You asked me why we use the name “The way of the cross for modern men”? It is because we want to consider all of our nearest people – family, brothers, sisters, friends or even those that walk by our side – while remembering the suffering of Christ. In the ceremony, we will have Bible readings, prayers, an analysis about what is happening in our society,” Cheang says.
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