The St. Joseph Chapel on Cotter’s campus has recently added the Stations of the Cross.

The new addition is in large part due to the work of Mr. Mike Hagarty, Cotter Academic Adviser and Campus Minister.

“After working here for awhile, I realized that nowhere on campus did we have Stations of the Cross. We’ve got great prayer spaces, but we just didn’t have the Stations.  We have them at the Chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, but we don’t have access to the Chapel without reserving it,” Mr. Hagarty said.

“So I started looking around and I found a set that I really liked, and I brought them through the proposal process and, got Mrs. Fitch and the Development Office to look at them, and I was almost ready to order this one set. And then Mrs. Fitch said, ‘We should let the students look at different models and see what they select.’  So one day I went through the, the cafeteria and I had these two different versions up and they clearly picked the other one.”

“The student selected set was more abstract, but it uses a lot color in a symbolic fashion. The artist has written a book about these stations and she talks about how the colors have specific symbolic meanings. Like the red represents a pain point in life or in the picture. The white is where the Holy Spirit is. The neutral tones are where we are,” Mr. Hagarty explained.

Mr. Whaley has been taking his seventh and eighth grade students to see the Stations  and has received some good feedback from the students with simple questions, ‘Look at these colors that are in there, what do you see? Which one is most striking to you?’  I think they’ll draw students in really well.”

The artist who created the Stations of the Cross on display in the St. Joseph Chapel is Jen Norton.  She has published a book which accompanies the artwork called “Surrender All: An Illuminated Journal: Retreat through the Stations of the Cross.” It is available through both Ave Maria Press  and Amazon  The book explains her depictions of the Stations and the symbolism behind the art. It is a reflection on each of the 15 stations, including the Resurrection. The book combines the art, passages of scripture, and has various reflection questions that the reader can walk through as a reflection on their own.

“She has a vivid way of using some abstract images while drawing you into the story at the same time, so it’s an interesting piece,” Mr. Hagarty said.

Cotter is also interested in having students do the traditional Stations of the Cross in person, and Mr. Hagarty is putting together a plan for to facilitate that process. 

“I have put together a reflection book that I’m in the process of getting it printed for the classrooms. The text was from another Station to the Cross reflection, but I’ve imported the pictures in here so they could know exactly which station they’re looking at as they go through them,” Mr. Hagarty said.

“The hope is students go do this individually or as part of a class experience. For the majority of the year, they’re going to  live on that wall in the chapel. During Lent we will put one station them on easels and let people get a closer up close view of it. That’s still in the works. “.

“One of the things that Jen Norton invites us to do in these scriptures is to take this historical experience and view of the Stations. She tries to turn it in such a way that it makes it connected to us into our daily lives. The book does a good job of that. The artwork does a really good job of that. We’re just basically trying to help people, help young people especially connect with how much in a very concrete way, God loves us through the story of his life and death.” Mr. Hagarty said.

After hearing Mr. Hagarty explain how the students would access the Stations and benefactor donated the funds to purchase the artwork that now hangs in the St. Joseph Chapel.