X

Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church

Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross

is offered during Lent.

2024 schedule coming soon

 

If you would like to pray the Stations of the Cross

with our Youth Ministry

we offer this video

 

 

How do you pray the Stations of the Cross?

 

There are many ways to pray the Way of the Cross, especially by making use of the Stations of the Cross devotional tools mentioned below.

1. Attend a guided Stations of the Cross with your parish on the Fridays of Lent.  A booklet of prayers/songs will be provided to you.

2. Using the Stations of the Cross inside your parish, spend a few minutes prayerfully meditating on each station (usually there will be an image depicting each station to help guide your time of mental prayer – so you don’t necessarily need to carry a book with you).

3. Use a traditional prayer format (with a Catholic prayer book which includes the Stations, or with a separate Stations of the Cross booklet) to pray the Stations at home.

4. Pray the Stations with a Stations of the Cross rosary 

5. Pray the Stations with an audio CD at home or while commuting.

6. Pray with your children using children’s Way of the Cross multi-media tools.

7. Design and erect your own Stations of the Cross for your home or garden. Get creative!

A little History

This centuries old devotion on suffering emerged from the de­sire of Jesus’s earliest followers to reverently trace his steps in the final hours before his death. Over time, more and more peo­ple joined in this practice and it spread throughout the Western world. In the early development of this devotion, many would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to walk the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, to experience the actual sites described in the biblical accounts of Christ’s Passion -- that is, until the Crusades, when travel to the Holy Land became increasingly perilous. When it became too dangerous for people to make these trips, many churches adapted the walk by constructing artistic images of these events in Jesus’s life and placing them on cathedral walls, thereby opening up the practice to locals in a new and much safer way.

The 14 Stations

Traditional Stations of the Cross

  • The First Station: Jesus Is Condemned to Death
  • The Second Station: Jesus Carries His Cross
  • The Third Station: Jesus Falls for the First Time
  • The Fourth Station: Jesus Meets His Mother
  • The Fifth Station: Simon of Cyrene Helps Carry the Cross
  • The Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
  • The Seventh Station: Jesus Falls the Second Time
  • The Eighth Station: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem
  • The Ninth Station: Jesus Falls the Third Time
  • The Tenth Station: Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments
  • The Eleventh Station: Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross
  • The Twelfth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
  • The Thirteenth Station: Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross
  • The Fourteenth Station: Jesus Is Buried in the Tomb