The founder of Communion and Liberation, Servant of God Fr. Luigi Giussani (1922-2005), started proposing this gesture of the Christian faith to college students, gathering them by the thousands in Caravaggio, Italy. To supplement the traditional readings from the Gospel, Fr. Giussani introduced short passages from some of the greatest contemporary Catholic writers, including Paul Claudel and Charles Peguy, who help to express the contemporary reverberations of Christ’s historic death and resurrection in our world. Fr. Giussani also asked that a choir accompany the procession, singing at every station to constantly reawaken the awareness of the faithful with the beauty and sorrow that only choral music can express.
On a cloudy and rainy Good Friday in 1996, a handful of friends belonging to Communion and Liberation in the United States made the first Way of the Cross over the Brooklyn Bridge. With the blessing of then Bishop of Brooklyn, H.E. Thomas V. Daily, and accompanied by Fr. Ronald Marino from the Diocese of Brooklyn, less than thirty people followed the Cross along the bridge that day. With that small beginning, the Way of the Cross over the Brooklyn Bridge began to grow. Thirty people became one hundred, then a couple hundred, and then a thousand, until on Good Friday last year nearly three thousand people followed the cross in silence across the Brooklyn Bridge, stopping at City Hall, Ground Zero, and finishing at St. Peter’s Church in Lower Manhattan.
Sustained each and every year by the blessing of our Pope and our local Bishops, thousands gather on Good Friday to follow Christ’s footsteps in the heart of the City, on the day of His Passion. We invite you to join us. All are welcome.
Way of the Cross 2023 