Roll Away The Stone
by John Paul Kirkham
Free ebook download: Roll Away The Stone by John Paul Kirkham, legally licensed and available in PDF format.
A new contemporary version of The Stations of The Cross dedicated to all victims of violence and persecution throughout the world. Free ebook download.
A new contemporary version of The Stations of The Cross dedicated to all victims of violence and persecution throughout the world.
Excerpt:
The idea behind these “Stations” originated in the immediate aftermath of those shocking and savage terrorist attacks on New York and London in 2001 and 2005.
For twenty years these stations had been an unfinished work in progress until the celebrated artist Jan Kalinski came up with a proposal (during the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020) of producing 14 new paintings depicting in an accessible abstract form the “Via Dolorosa” (The Way of Sorrows). I was persuaded to revisit, resurrect and re-write the meditations and this quickly developed into a collaborative project that became this book.
My early background and experiences as a forensic photographer in Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s allowed me to become a very personal witness to some of the most disturbing and horrific scenes that a human body can suffer. And so the subject matter is by admission stark, abrasive and thoughtfully uncomfortable but the unconventional format and reflections are deliberately and necessarily short.
To journey with and intercede for us I have respectfully selected many well and some lesser known saints from the Roman Calendar. For we are ordinary people living in extraordinary and often threatening times and the journey towards crucifixion is by definition harrowing; it is a pilgrimage of penance but also a passage to redemption, forgiveness and to the light of hope in a darkened world.
