Good Grief! It's Good Friday!

Despite my contracting what may be the flu, I was lucky enough to walk the ACTUAL Stations of the Cross on Good Friday--a journey down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem led by Franciscan brothers. As promised in an earlier post, here are pictures from all the Stations, so you can (virtually) experience Jesus' journey. (Note that I am mostly using older pictures--today's Stations of the Cross were so packed with people that it was impossible to capture the whole thing on camera.)

The Via Dolorosa begins at a Franciscan monastery in the Muslim Quarter; the monastery contains both the Church of the Condemnation (this is the church that contains the etchings of a Roman game on the floor) and the Church of the Flagellation. Both are pictured below. Note that photography is not allowed in the Church of the Flagellation, thus, I've posted an exterior shot only.

Outside the monastery lies station number two: Jesus takes up his Cross (this picture is from Good Friday). The Via Dolorosa passes the Ecce Homo Arch, where Pilate presents the scourged Jesus to the crowd, then continues past stations three and four: Jesus falls for the first time, and Jesus meets his mother. All three stations are pictured below.

The Via Dolorosa continues with station five (Simon the Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross), station six (Veronica wipes the face of Jesus), and station seven (Jesus falls the second time).

The plaque commemorating station eight (Jesus meets the weeping women) is to be found on a side-street off the Via Dolorosa proper. To proceed to station nine (Jesus falls for the third time), which lies on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre, one must retrace his steps slightly. Apparently, therefore, the layout of the streets of Jerusalem has changed slightly since Jesus' time.

Stations ten through twelve (Jesus is stripped, Jesus is crucified, Jesus dies) are found in the Holy Sepulchre at the site of Golgatha. A single picture will suffice.

Station thirteen (Jesus' body is removed from the cross) is also properly at Golgatha, but I have posted instead a picture of the Stone of Unction (blocked off on Good Friday), on which Jesus' body was prepared for burial.

The final station is the fourteenth (Jesus' body is laid in the tomb).

Here is a picture of me in the crowd in front of the Sepulchre, as well as another short video (the Franciscans processing out at the end of the Stations of the Cross).

Though we had originally planned on attending the Good Friday memorial service in the Sepulchre, we opted instead to go home--we had had enough of the crowds, and plus, I was feeling ill.