The Stations of the Cross, otherwise known as the Way of the Cross, Via Crucis or in earlier times Via Dolorosa, is a devotion which commemorates the Passion and death of Our Lord. It follows the path taken by Jesus from Pontius Pilate’s Praetorium (house) to the Sepulchre (His tomb). By tradition the devotion normally, but not necessarily, takes place on Fridays in Lent and re-enacts the events of the original Good Friday
The devotion has evolved over time. Tradition has it that Our Lady visited the scenes of Jesus’ passion daily. After Constantine legalised Christianity in the year AD312 a path was marked where the important events of Good Friday took place - ‘the stations’. St Jerome (AD342-420) referred to the crowds of pilgrims from various countries visiting the holy places and following the Way of the Cross. After that there is no direct evidence of the existence of any devotion, for instance St Sylvia (c380) says nothing of it in her minute descriptions of religious practices at that time.
In the 5th Century it was not unusual for the church to make reproductions of holy places so that pilgrims, who could not travel to the Holy Land because of wars or natural disasters, had sites for devotion. One of these was built by St.Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, who set up a group of chapels at the monastery of St.Stefano depicting the more important shrines including several of ‘the stations’.
By mediaeval times the practice of the Via Dolorosa or Way of the Cross had become a regular form of devotion in monasteries and local parish churches. In 1342 the Franciscans were appointed as guardians of the shrines of the Holy Land. And around this time indulgencies began to be attached to certain stations.
In 1458 and again in 1462 William Wey, an English pilgrim, visited the Holy Land. He is credited with the term ‘stations’. He described the manner in which pilgrims followed in the steps of Christ. It seems strange to us but at this time the path usually travelled in the reverse order going from Calvary to Pilate’s house. By the 16th century the more logical route, we follow today, had been established.
When the Moslem Turks blocked access to the Holy Land, in the 15th and 16th centuries, more reproductions of the holy places were built. Many of these were done by well-known artists and today are considered to be masterpieces. In several reproductions attempts were made not only to duplicate the holy sites but also to copy the precise intervals between them so that the faithful might almost be in the Holy Land. Despite visits to Jerusalem to collect precise measurements (in paces) and though all claimed to be accurate there is an amazing difference between some!
The number of stations has varied over the years ranging from 12 to 37. In the 18th century, 1731 to be precise, Pope Clement XII permitted stations to be created in all churches and he fixed the number at 14. The fourteen stations are as follows
The object of the Stations is to help us make a pilgrimage to the principal scenes of Jesus’ suffering and death. The traditional way of praying the Stations of the Cross in church is to walk from station to station. At each station genuflect or bow, devoutly consider the subject (most prayer books will have suitable meditations) and then say prayers which should include an ‘Our Father’, ‘Hail Mary’ and ‘Glory be to the Father’. The meditations make us fully aware of what Jesus has suffered for us and the extent of God’s love for each and every one. It helps us to make a ‘good’ Lent. The Stations may be prayed in church led by a priest, alone in church or even at home. They may be prayed not only in Lent, which is the usual time, but also on any other occasion.
Judy Freegard