“The Way of the Cross”

2026 Beatrice Institute Lenten Campaign

Altarpiece with the Passion of Christ: Way to Calvary | Artist Unknown

"If anyone desires to come after Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross,
and follow Me."

(Mt 16:24)

THE MEDItATION

I find the anonymous painting above exquisitely beautiful. And yet, seemingly no beauty belongs there, at the nadir of human history, the moment of our greatest shame. This is the scene of the via crucis. The way of the cross. The way of suffering. 

Christ on pilgrimage to death. 

We strange Christians! We take this via crucis, this moment of our shame, and—with great joy—fashion our life as a pilgrimage of suffering with Christ.

So why would, say, a young engineering student at Pitt with the promise of a prosperous career and a valuable place in the world, choose the strange, paradoxical pilgrimage of the Christian life?

Beatrice Institute
provides a place of rest and wisdom 
where students can retreat from the noisy
and often hopeless beaten track: 
a hostel on the road,
an inn for the pilgrim traveler. 

Beatrice Institute's role is to be a kind of pilgrim hostel, a traveler's inn. To students weary of the secular pilgrimage, we offer rest and a free stay to any one who asks.

Perhaps they encounter a certain text, some wisdom from the past, or the particular way a fellow student or professor phrases a theological idea they long ago lost interest in.

We can't force an encounter with Christ. But through the smallest gap can come the strongest light. 

They come as they are,
but we hope they don't leave as they were.

When a student finishes his or her stay at our inn, we hope that they will resume pilgrimage, but rather than the pilgrimage of the secular world, it will be the pilgrimage of Christ: of the via crucis.

The Action

The wonderful nature of a place like Beatrice Institute is that we rely on generosity. The generosity shown by a more experienced pilgrim on the Christian way to a greener one, who perhaps just needs a stay at the inn.

In medieval Christian times, there was something called the viaticum. It was a Christian's last communion before death (the final pilgrimage), and literally translated to "journey money"—provision for the final leg, the "Daily Bread" in the prayer Christ himself taught us.

Even in the smallest amount, you can supply this viaticum by starting a monthly donation. 

$3 a month. $5 a month. It doesn't take much. 

That monthly fund provides not just material support for the institute, but an ongoing bond of solidarity with our mission and with our young pilgrims.

What we ask today is that you be a guide on the pilgrim way. Take up the cross. Embody Christ. Be the daily bread.  

Thank you to all who have already donated to support Beatrice Institute this Lent!