The Stations of the Cross is a journey of love and hope, which is why this pious exercise is among the most loved and practiced in the Christian West. The season of Lent is the favorable time to experience the Stations of the Cross, particularly on Fridays, to meditate on Christ’s Passion and draw closer to the mystery of Good Friday so as to experience it with greater participation.
What are the Stations of the Cross?
The pious practice of the Stations of the Cross, also called the Way of the Cross or the Via Dolorosa, originated as a way to retrace the Passion of Christ and his journey from the time when he and his disciples, “after singing the hymn, went out toward the Mount of Olives” (Mk 14:26), until the Lord was led to the “place of Golgotha” (Mk 15:22), was crucified, and buried in a new tomb carved into the rock of a nearby garden.
To remember those moments, passages from Sacred Scripture that prophesy or recount the Passion are used, along with commentaries, prayers, and songs. The difficult stages of Jesus’ journey recall our own struggle to live… But the Stations of the Cross is not a sad devotion; it is also a journey of love, hope, and victory in the resurrection. This is the meaning of the Stations of the Cross: to bear the weight of our own sufferings, dissatisfactions, and disappointments, and, together with Christ, to follow a path that - even though it passes through suffering - leads to the resurrection. It is a journey that each of us is called to undertake, accompanied by the awareness that, at the end of the climb, the Father’s embrace awaits us. It is a path that represents life itself: trials, problems, illness, the struggle to live, doubts, fears… All of this finds peace only in God’s love, which gives meaning and purpose to our difficult journey through life.
Why has this pious practice spread so widely and remained so relevant?
The Stations of the Cross spread mainly through the devotion of pilgrims in the Holy Land. The Church of Jerusalem, in fact, showed its attention to the “holy places” very early on. Archaeological remains attest to the existence of expressions of Christian worship as early as the second century in the cemetery area where Christ’s tomb had been excavated, and by the end of the fourth century there are reports of three sacred buildings erected on the summit of Golgotha: the Anastasis, the small church ad Crucem, and the large church - the Martyrium.
On certain days, a procession wound its way from the Anastasis to the Martyrium. It was certainly not a Stations of the Cross, but some scholars regard that procession, with its chants and its close connection to the places of the Passion, as an early form of the future Stations of the Cross.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the appeal of the “holy places” inspired the desire to reproduce them in one's own land: some pilgrims, upon returning from Jerusalem, reproduced them in their own cities. The process was promoted by the Franciscans, who became custodians of the Holy Land in 1233. Francis of Assisi himself was a “herald” of the Passion of Christ. With Saint Francis and the Franciscan school, devotion to the Passion definitively found a place in the piety of the faithful.
When did it begin to take its current form?
Around 1294, a Dominican friar, Rinaldo de Montis Crucis, claimed to have climbed to the Holy Sepulchre by the same route Christ had taken with the cross and described its various stages, which he called “stationes”: Herod's palace; the Lithostrotos, where Jesus was condemned to death; the place where he met the women of Jerusalem; the point where Simon of Cyrene took the Lord's cross upon himself…
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, devotion to the Stations of the Cross was enriched by other elements, such as Christ's falls, the five wounds, the Pietà, and the Holy Face: details that originated in Europe, mainly in Germany, Spain, and Italy. This spread of devotions was nourished by an intense spiritual literature that would culminate, again in Europe, in the establishment of the Stations of the Cross with fourteen stations.
Originally, the true Stations of the Cross required people to travel physically to the places where Jesus had suffered and been put to death. Since such a pilgrimage was impossible for many, representing the stations in churches became a way of bringing each believer to Jerusalem in spirit.
Toward the end of the thirteenth century, the Stations of the Cross was already mentioned, not yet as a pious exercise, but as the path Jesus took on his ascent to Mount Calvary, marked by a succession of “stations” or stages.
In the fifteenth century, there was still great variation in the choice, number, and order of the stations.
The various forms of the Stations of the Cross included stations such as the arrest of Jesus, Peter's denial, the scourging, the defamatory accusations in Caiaphas's house, and the mockery involving the white robe in Herod's palace, none of which appear in what would become the text of the pious exercise.
The Stations of the Cross, in their current form, with the same fourteen stations arranged in the same order, are documented in Spain in the first half of the fifteenth century, especially in Franciscan circles. From the Iberian Peninsula, they first spread to Sardinia, then under the rule of the Spanish crown, and subsequently to the Italian peninsula. Here they found a convinced and effective promoter in Saint Leonard of Port Maurice (†1751), a Friar Minor and tireless missionary. He personally erected more than 572 Stations of the Cross, the most famous being the one erected in the Colosseum at the request of Benedict XIV on December 27, 1750, in commemoration of that Holy Year.
What are the traditional Stations of the Cross?
The 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, in the definitive form handed down to us, are as follows:
- Jesus is condemned to death.
- Jesus is laden with the cross.
- Jesus falls for the first time.
- Jesus meets his Mother.
- Jesus is helped by Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross.
- Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
- Jesus falls for the second time.
- Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem.
- Jesus falls for the third time.
- Jesus is stripped of his garments.
- Jesus is nailed to the cross.
- Jesus dies on the cross.
- Jesus is taken down from the cross.
- The body of Christ is placed in the tomb.
What is the “Biblical form” of the Way of the Cross?
The Biblical Way of the Cross was introduced in 1991 by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum; it features some variations in the “subjects” of the stations.
The Biblical Way of the Cross does not include stations without a precise biblical reference, such as the Lord's three falls, Jesus' meeting with his Mother and with Veronica. Instead, it includes stations such as Jesus' agony in the Garden of Olives, Pilate's unjust judgment, the promise of Paradise to the Good Thief, and the presence of the Mother and the Disciple at the Cross. As can be seen, these are episodes of great salvific importance and significant theological meaning in the drama of Christ's Passion: a drama that is ever present, in which everyone, consciously or unconsciously, takes part.
The Biblical Way of the Cross is not intended to alter the traditional text; it simply aims to highlight certain “important stations” that are absent or remain in the background in the structure usually used. This underscores the extraordinary richness of the Way of the Cross, which no outline can express fully.
The stations of the Biblical Way of the Cross are as follows:
- Jesus in the Garden of Olives.
- Jesus, betrayed by Judas, is arrested.
- Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin.
- Jesus is denied by Peter.
- Jesus is judged by Pilate.
- Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns.
- Jesus is laden with the cross.
- Jesus is helped by Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross.
- Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.
- Jesus is crucified.
- He promises his Kingdom to the good thief.
- Jesus on the cross, his Mother and the disciple.
- Jesus dies on the cross.
- Jesus is laid in the tomb.
How deeply do the faithful feel the practice of the Way of the Cross today?
The Way of the Cross is one of the devotional practices most widely attended by the faithful. Various expressions of Christian spirituality converge in it: the conception of life as a journey; the passage from earthly exile to the heavenly homeland; the desire to conform oneself to Christ's Passion; following and conforming oneself to Jesus the teacher by carrying one's own cross daily.
The piety of the people enlightens and encourages pastors, and pastors must know how to encourage sound devotions that lead to spiritual growth. When devotions are rooted in the heart of the faith, they can only do good, becoming places of evangelization.
