In a world where digital tools often distract from the divine, Suzana Kovacic has found a way to turn technology into prayer. Using Google Maps, she created a digital version of the Stations of the Cross, allowing anyone to turn any trail into a spiritual pilgrimage.
The idea was born when Kovacic attended a retreat at the Opus Dei Copper Ridge Conference Centre on Howe Sound.
“One afternoon during the retreat, a group of us went for a hike. I thought how great it would be to pray the Stations of the Cross while walking along a trail.”
Kovacic, a research associate at the SFU Department of Chemistry, quickly started brainstorming different options. Instead of physical markers along a trail, what about virtual markers on a phone? That’s when she remembered My Maps by Google, which she had used in the past. She realized she could make virtual Stations of the Cross and follow them on her phone.
The result is a Google Map with pins for each station. Clicking on a My Maps link loads a series of waypoints into the Google Maps app for a chosen route. Each waypoint is the virtual location of a station. With the waypoints loaded into the phone and location setting turned on, it’s a simple matter of navigating from waypoint to waypoint, station to station. Clicking on the pin for the station reveals the text of the prayer to say at each station and an image for contemplation.
So far, Kovacic has created maps for trails in Burnaby (in her neighbourhood), Vancouver, and North Vancouver. With the help of Daniel Colmont, she has published the links to the Google My Maps on the website trailofthecross.com. The routes currently include stroller-friendly trails as well as trails of more moderate difficulty. She invites users to email her new route suggestions.
“My retreat put me in an environment where it was easy to incorporate prayer into my daily routine,” said Kovacic.
“I wanted to take a little piece of that and place it into my daily life – to create an environment that makes it easy to pray the Stations of the Cross at any time,” she said. “With the Stations in my backyard, it’s so much easier.”
And now the stations can be in anybody’s backyard. “That’s the beauty of it,” she said. “You can invite your friends by sending them a link to a trail that’s also in their backyard and you can do it together. It’s an easy and beautiful opportunity for both prayer and apostolate.”
