On Friday, Feb. 23, a large group of young people brought life to the streets of Jerusalem for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last October. About a thousand children and youth from Christian schools walked the Via Dolorosa in the Old City offering prayers for peace, leaving a trail of hope in their wake. 

The initiative, titled “The Way of the Cross… A Way of Peace,” was organized by the Custody of the Holy Land and involved 12 institutions, including two schools of the Anglican Church and the school of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as well as various Catholic groups. Father Francesco Patton, the custos of the Holy Land, and the apostolic delegate to Jerusalem, Father Adolfo Tito Yllana, were also present. 

The Way of the Cross began at the Church of the Flagellation and concluded at the Church of St. Savior. The first eight stations took place along the traditional route of the Via Dolorosa. At each station, after the reading of Scripture and prayer, two children released a pair of doves, a visible sign of the prayer for peace and freedom lifted up by the youngest participants.

“Every year, we organize a Via Crucis with the students from the schools,” Father Ibrahim Faltas, vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land and director of the Terra Sancta Schools, explained to CNA. Last year, the event had a particular resonance: The students wore red scarves — the color of blood — with the image of the vandalized statue of Jesus, which had been desecrated just a few weeks earlier within the premises of the Flagellation complex.

The broken and defaced statue has never been restored and has become a symbol of the suffering Jesus. This year, too, the first station of the Via Crucis was held around that statue.