Way of the Cross reaches Court building

By MARINELLA LENTIS
For The Catholic Week
MONTGOMERY — The annual Way of the Cross in the heart of the Montgomery wound around downtown streets for the 14th consecutive year this past Good Friday. Participants from parishes throughout the River Region met at St. Peter Parish at noon and silently walked behind a large wooden cross to commemorate and reflect upon five major moments in Our Lord’s passion and death. St. Peter Parish Pastor Fr. Saleth Mariadoss and Deacon Jerry Conrad along with Holy Spirit Parish Parochial Vicar Fr. Patrick Gilbreath offered brief meditations on the Gospel passages read. 
At the second stop at the State Capitol, Fr. Gilbreath contemplated on the irony of the cross as a sign of victory and how we are called to see it as such, as the victory of Jesus over sin and death. 
He concluded by saying, “As we participate in this day, we proclaim the cross in no more fitting place in our state than this our capitol, we proclaim Christ’s victory over everything and we make the choice to process and follow in line behind it in a joyful manner, in a proud manner, in a prolific manner in our life so let us remember that as we continue this way of the cross to remember Christ’s death. The cross is nothing more than our salvation and our choice for eternal life resides in it.”
Upon arriving at the fourth stop, the Alabama Supreme Court building, and gathering outside its front doors, the crowd was met by Chief Justice Thomas Parker, who for the second consecutive year, greeted the people.
After the readings for that station were completed, Justice Parker invited the faithful to go inside the Supreme Court building to sing the final song, two verses of the "Stabat Mater Dolorosa," under the rotunda. The group gathered under the dome and filled the building with the poignant words of the Marian song. 
The Way of the Cross then continued on to the final stop at St. Peter where it ended at 2:30 p.m.