Stations of the Cross

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.

The devotion originated in the desire of Christians to walk the actual route of Christ's passion in Jerusalem, the Via Dolorosa, a pilgrimage possible only to the few who could reach the Holy Land. From the later Middle Ages, and especially through the promotion of the Franciscans, long custodians of the holy places, the practice of representing the stages of that route in local churches spread across Europe, so that the faithful might make the pilgrimage in spirit without the journey. The number and selection of stations varied for centuries before settling at the familiar fourteen.

Several of the traditional fourteen stations, such as Jesus falling three times, and the woman Veronica wiping his face, derive from pious tradition rather than directly from the Gospel narratives, a point noted within the church itself. In response, a "Scriptural Way of the Cross" drawn entirely from events recorded in the Gospels has been introduced in modern times and was used by recent popes, and many churches add a fifteenth station of the Resurrection so that the devotion does not end at the tomb. In all its forms the Stations translate the ancient impulse of pilgrimage into a devotion that can be made anywhere.