Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross are a Catholic devotion which commemorates the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each of the fourteen stations represents an event which occurred during Jesus' Passion and death at Calvary on Good Friday.

The Stations were originally performed many centuries ago by Christian pilgrims who visited the Holy Land and the sites of Jesus' Passion. Promotion of the devotion to the Stations began in earnest with the Franciscans, who were given custody of the Holy Places in the Holy Land in the 1300s. Countless Catholics have all enriched their spiritual lives with this powerful devotion.

Devotion to the Stations of the Cross spread rapidly throughout the Roman Catholic world in the 18th century, largely as a result of the preaching of the Franciscan, St. Leonard of Port -Maurice, who erected stations and promoted the devotion in over five hundred churches and places throughout Italy. His work was supported by the popes of his time, who saw the devotion as a means of strengthening faith.

Another 18th century saint, St. Alphonsus Liguori, wrote a brief work on the stations that is still in use today. Religious communities like the Jesuits and the Passionsts made the devotion part of their missions and retreats. By the l9th century, the Stations of the Cross had become a staple in Catholic prayer books and in churches throughout England, Ireland, and North America.

In recent years some variations have been introduced in the traditional devotion. One of these is the addition of a 15th station - the Resurrection of Jesus. Another is a series of scriptural stations, which begin with the Agony of Jesus in Gethsemane and omit some of the traditional non-scriptural stations in favor of incidents mentioned in the gospels.

A series of scriptural stations was celebrated on Good Friday by Pope John Paul II in 1991, and again in 1994, in the Coliseum at Rome:

  • Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
  • Jesus betrayed by Judas
  • Jesus condemned by the Sanhedrin
  • Jesus denied by Peter
  • Jesus condemned by the people
  • Jesus crowned with thorns and clothed in purple.
  • Jesus carries the cross.
  • Jesus assisted by Simon of Cyrene
  • Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
  • Jesus is crucified.
  • Jesus speaks to the thief
  • Jesus speaks to his mother
  • Jesus dies on the cross
  • Jesus is buried.

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