Local parishes offer Stations of the Cross, adapted for pandemic

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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — One of the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to many parishes in Utah has been the outpouring of creative ways that the pastors have found to keep their flocks close and united.

Fr. John Evans, pastor of Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish in Cottonwood Heights, recently produced a special video of the Stations of the Cross, a tradition for many on Fridays during Lent.

“Last year during the pandemic we could not have people at the church; we couldn’t do Stations together. And normally our community has more than 100 people attending to the Stations,” Fr. Evans said.

One challenge that his parish faces is that the pews in the church are covered with fabric, which makes it difficult to effectively sanitize them, as required because of the pandemic. This severely limits the number of people who can be present in the church at any one time.

“So, we cannot use the pews to have people gathered for the Stations every Friday,” Fr. Evans said. Because of this, he said, the need to make a video version of the Stations became very evident as Lent approached.

“We felt the need to make a video version for the people so they can see their own Stations and the booklet that we normally use,” Fr. Evans said. “Deacon John Keyser and I spent over 21 hours creating, producing and editing the video.”

The images presented in the video are from the booklets that usually are used by the parish, and the photographs are of the parish’s Stations of the Cross. In the video, the deacon and the priest narrate and pray each of the Stations.

Keeping parishioners closely connected with the Church is important because that keeps them connected to God, Fr. Evans said. “We can do that inside the church or outside the church, but it is most meaningful when we are together as the Body of Christ.”

As the Body of Christ worshiping God, “even in a video that is more remote, it is still connecting them to the tradition in our parish; they see the images that are in our parish,” he said. “That has been very meaningful for people.”

Although gathering for communal worship is optimal, the video does have some benefits.

“One of the virtues of this video is that people can play it whenever they want 24-7; they can pause it to make a reflection if they want; they can rewind to a particular section and they can share it with their friends and relatives; and people have been doing that,” Fr. Evans said.

Another advantage of the video is that people who are in the hospital, in a nursing home or are homebound can use it to pray the Stations of the Cross; it can be viewed on a variety of devices, including smart phones.

The video of the Stations of the Cross can be accessed at https://www.stmutah.org/stations.