Via Crucis

Walking the road to Calvary, fourteen stops.

The Stations began with pilgrims walking the actual streets of Jerusalem. When the Holy Land became unreachable, the Franciscans brought the walk home: fourteen images around the walls of a church, so that anyone could make the pilgrimage on a Friday afternoon. They are prayed throughout Lent, and especially on Good Friday.

At Each Station

V. We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You.
R. Because by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world.

Then read the station, pause in silence, and pray an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be before moving on.

The Fourteen Stations

1. Jesus is condemned to death. Pilate washes his hands, and an innocent man is handed over to keep the peace.
2. Jesus takes up His cross. He receives it without protest — the instrument of His own execution.
3. Jesus falls the first time. Scourged and sleepless, He goes down under the weight.
4. Jesus meets His Mother. Two faces in a crowd, and nothing either can do for the other.
5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross. A stranger pressed into service, who did not volunteer.
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. A small act of decency in a street full of cruelty.
7. Jesus falls the second time. Falling once may be exhaustion. Falling twice is failure, and He accepts it.
8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. He turns and comforts them: weep not for me.
9. Jesus falls the third time. Almost at the top, almost finished, and down again.
10. Jesus is stripped of His garments. The last thing taken is dignity.
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross. The sound of the hammer is the sound of the world’s redemption.
12. Jesus dies on the cross. He commends His spirit to the Father, and the veil of the temple tears.
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross. His Mother holds Him again, as she did in Bethlehem.
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb. The stone is rolled across, and Saturday begins.

The Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, Your Passion and death
are the sacrifice that unites earth and heaven
and reconciles all people to You.
May we who have faithfully reflected on these mysteries
follow in Your steps
and so come to share Your glory in heaven,
where You live and reign forever and ever. Amen.

About This Devotion

Three of the stations — the falls — and the meeting with Veronica are not recorded in the Gospels; they come from tradition and from the reasonable observation that a scourged man carrying a heavy beam would not have stayed upright. In 1991 St. John Paul II introduced a Scriptural Way of the Cross using only events recorded in Scripture; both forms are prayed today.

A plenary indulgence is attached to the Stations, prayed before stations lawfully erected, under the usual conditions.