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It’s pretty late, but we recently posted our video coverage of the All Saints Catholic Newman Center’s Good Friday Stations of the Cross. During the annual event, students follow a huge cross through Arizona State University Campus, pausing to observe each station. For the final station, the procession — which this year, as usual, topped 300 — participants hike “A” mountain. One group, certainly the smaller of three, carried the cross to the apex.

Students gather at the top of "A" mountain during Good Friday Stations of the Cross at ASU.

I’ve covered the event in the past and I’d participated in it as a student at ASU. But I’d never hiked to the top of “A” mountain. I had been joking around about “getting my mortification in before Easter” — one of those half-serious jokes, you know. I wrote a feature for the April 16 issue about Easter as a time to celebrate. I also wrote the feature on prayer and fasting. So mortification was really on my mind during Lent. Pretty great Lent for me, actually, and I attribute it to the stories I was assigned.

Anyway, in the spirit of “getting my mortification in before Easter,” I decided that this year I’d hike all the way to to the top of “A” mountain. If you haven’t hiked it, well, it’s a long way. It reminded me of the only spinning class I’ve ever been a part of. About 10 minutes into the class — which is basically about half-killing yourself on an exercise bicycle — I was done. But I was with my cousin and I didn’t want to embarrass her by getting of the stationary bike and taking a nap on the hardwood floor. So I just did my best and pushed through.

That’s exactly what it was like for me, an athletically unfit journalist, climbing the mountain. On the last leg of the climb, I was on my last legs. By the time I got to the top, I was so winded that it took a good 10 minutes before I could even fire off a photo. While the photos fail to capture what this procession does every year — make a bold, public declaration of faith on the campus of the nation’s largest university — it was well worth the climb.

Here’s the video:

It was a pretty great Good Friday for me. That night, I was blessed to cover a Good Friday procession at Most Holy Trinity.