Its one of Tempes most enduring traditions the Good Friday afternoon climb by ArizonaState University students up A Mountain, bearing a cross, and making stops at the 14 stations of the cross.
They head up the mountain again on Friday. Organized by the All Saints Newman Center at ASU, the campus Roman Catholic community, it is a solemn and somber ritual that may bring out 300 to 400 students for hiking, prayers and singing. Over the years, the climb and devotions have taken part in it and written about the simple open-air experience among cactus and birds.
The Rev. Fred Lucci will lead the crowd of climbers, who are to arrive by 1:15 p.m. Friday at Danforth Chapel on Cady Mall and next to the Hayden Library. That gives time to get organized for the walk to start at 1:30 p.m. With prayers and commentary all along the way, the students will pause at the predetermined stations and rehear about the suffering of Christ. Readers, carrying amplified speakers, will seek to be heard across the mountainside, with the bustle of Tempe below them, challenging the quest to hear what is being said.
In this recreated Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, participants are asked to use the exercise as a powerful journey for pondering and meditating on the final hours of Christ, replicating what has been a custom going back to the early church. It is not unlike walking tours taken by those who travel to Jerusalem today and visit historic points along Jesus gruesome trek to Calvary Hill.
The 14 stations are 1) Jesus being condemned to death; 2) the cross is given to Jesus to carry; 3) Jesus falls with the cross for the first time; 4) Jesus encounters his mother, Mary; 5) Simon of Cyrene takes up the cross for Jesus; 6) the face of Jesus is wiped by the veil of Veronica; 7) Christ collapses on the street a second time; 8)the daughters of Jerusalem meet Jesus; 9) Jesus third fall; 10) Christs garments are stripped from him; 11) the Savior is put down onto the cross and his limbs nailed to it; 12) Christ dies on the cross; 13) his body is taken down from the cross; and 14) Christs body is laid in the tomb.
When it is over, participants often descend in silent reflection. Some walk in small groups or pairs discussing the experience as they walk down A Mountain and back to concrete, the buildings, the traffic and academia.
