Title:
Stations of the Cross v2, the Best on the Internet

Description:
The fourteen Stations of the Cross -- sometimes known devotionally as the Via Dolorosa -- are visual meditations primarily on the passion and suffering experienced by Christ. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The scenes, normally found inside a church and less so in the open, are specific to Catholics who use the illustrations as visual reminders. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ While the stories narrated by each station have various amounts of truths, and the exact locations are not exactly known, what is important is the spiritual meaning. The stations, for example, show three scenes in which Christ falls, but there is no evidence that he fell exactly three times as depicted, much less that He ever fell at all; It's only surmised that he must have fallen, and more than once, from the great suffering that He withstood during the passion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And while there is absolutely no evidence, either physical or Biblical that a woman by the name of Veronica, for example, existed, much less that she pressed the cloth against Jesus' head -- to capture the impression of His face from his blood and sweat -- the metaphysical message of Veronica's deed serves to offers fictive proof to the believer,. who already believes in the occurrence from reading about it, that she not only witnessed Christ's passage on the Via Dolorosa (which, as a real street, by the way, has never been found), but also gave "history," by means of that cloth, some fictive evidence that He existed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Biblical scholars and etymologists theorize that the origin of the word "Veronica" can be traced back to two Latin words: "Vero," meaning "true" in Latin, and "icon," meaning "image" in Latin, hence "true image." Veronica is holding the true image of Christ. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When Simon carries the cross, in another example, it's neither important that there ever was a Simon nor that he carried the cross. But, if such an event had actually occurred, a Roman official could very well have randomly plucked from the crowd a strong-enough-looking person, most likely a male, and pressed him into service to carry the cross. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The mystical interpretation is that he willingly took on the cross for Christ and serves as an example of one devout believer doing the service of furthering Christ message, while a real-world interpretation is that the Roman guard just wanted to speedily get to the location of the crucifixion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ What matters is what he and his deed has come to represent to Catholics. Of course, it's not important to the believer that this snippet of devotional history be anchored in true, evidentiary history. No, what is important is the quality of one's spiritual quest, and the belief in the strength of the mystical message that it is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In fact, this popular story was not developed by the Church hierarchy, no, it sprang from the spiritual needs of the non-ecclesiastic, the non-priest, the parishioner, the normal believer who likes stories that are illustrated, and the Stations offer yet another wonderful, illustrative tale in Church lore that fortifies a person's Catholic Christian faith. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The musical score is Messe "Tu es Petrus": Gloria

Author:
chevyyyyyyy

Tags:
14, and, arts, best, black, christ, classical, cross, dolorosa, drawings, passion, statins, stations, via, visual, white,