A bitter cold winter wind swept over the sun bathed Sperrins on this Good Friday evening when over 100 mainly young parishioners from Greencastle parish gathered at St. Patrick’s Church at 6.00pm to begin the Way of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross had been prayed every Friday evening in the church before Mass during the season of Lent 2008, but on Good Friday this spiritual exercise took on a different format. This evening Greencastle parishioners were in solidarity with pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, with those following the Via Crucis led by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome and wherever the Way will be followed today throughout the world. The opening prayer set the context: “It will be a journey into pain, solitude and cruelty, into evil and death. But it will also be a path trod in faith, hope and love.” And so we set out, stopping at fourteen places along Greencastle Road, Sheskinshule View, Maryville and Crockanboy Road before returning to the church just as darkness descended almost 70 minutes later. There were no lights in the church when we arrived back so it really seemed like we were entering the empty tomb. But we saw the full moon rising on the horizon as a sign of hope indicating to us the real Good Friday message that death is not the end. For those who follow Christ, it is the entrance to new and eternal life.