Via Sacra, Barga (LU) Salon at Via Sacra Window at Via Sacra Kitchen at Via Sacra Terrace at Via Sacra with members of the Community of Jesus

Via Sacra

A large 17th-century house sits atop the medieval walls of an ancient town facing Pania della Croce, a mountain named for Jesus’s Cross above the Serchio river valley; a place of silence for reading and prayer, but also of conversation and thoughtful sharing. Via Sacra is minutes from Barga’s main church or “duomo,” San Cristoforo, with its 800-year-old stone pulpit sculpted with Annunciation, Nativity, and Epiphany scenes: an Angel, a Woman, a Child, three Kings, and a Star. Reached by a short walk through Barga’s narrow, stone-paved streets, the house and its tower sit astride the town’s medieval fortifications, amid terraced gardens with vistas of encircling mountains with villages on their slopes, and Barga’s own weathered terracotta roofs.

Via Sacra is home to a small but vibrant resident household of religious brothers and sisters from the ecumenical Community of Jesus on Cape Cod Massachusetts. Supported by the Benedictine life of the Community of Jesus, Via Sacra provides an atmosphere of monastic hospitality of peace. Members of the villa household express their monastic vocation, welcoming guests in a spirit of generosity and service.

OPEN HOURS: TUESDAY – SATURDAY
10:00 AM – 12:00 NOON; 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

The artist is someone in communion with life in a deeply significant way. People turn to the artist as to a priest who enjoys this privileged communion in order to give it to others. His creativity obliges him to transmit it to others, and so we look to the artist as to a giver of spiritual life. By doing that, we acknowledge art’s potential to nourish our craving for richer, deeper, more meaningful life, and we are already changed.
— MSGR. TIMOTHY VERDON