I was up in Lowell MA today to see the exhibit of the original manuscript scroll of Jack Kerouac's novel "On the Road."  What has The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes have to do with Kerouac?  Jack was born into a French-Canadian-American family.  His Mother was a devout Catholic and took young Jack to this place back in the 20's and 30's.  She showed young Jack how the penitents would climb on their knees up to the giant crucifix above the grotto reproduction.  In one of his books, Kerouac says that "I always liked to  get out of there."  Nonetheless, Catholicism along with Buddhism combined to inform Kerouac's overall spirituality.  Later in life he claimed that he was more Catholic-hermit-mystic than Buddhist.

The stations of the cross used to be white statues open to the air with kneelers before them.  Now they have been painted an eerie shade of red and are enclosed in small houses with wire mesh on the side and scratched dusty plexiglass windows on the front.

The giant crucifix at the top of the "grotto" is in disrepair as well.  The peeling paint and faded reds of the wounds of Christ served to amplify the horror of crucifixion for me.