Walking the Way of Sorrows

The Stations of the Cross, also called the Way of the Cross or Via Crucis, is a Christian devotion, chiefly Roman Catholic, that follows Jesus on his path to crucifixion through a series of fourteen scenes, or "stations," from his condemnation to his burial. Represented by fourteen images or crosses spaced around the walls of a church or along an outdoor path, the stations are visited in turn, the worshipper pausing at each to contemplate the event it depicts, to pray and often to recite a set verse and response. Moving from one to the next, the devotee makes a symbolic pilgrimage along the road of Christ's passion, entering imaginatively into his suffering.

The devotion is especially associated with the season of Lent and with Good Friday, when it is prayed communally in Catholic parishes throughout the world, and it remains one of the principal ways in which the passion is meditated on outside the liturgy of the Mass.