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At a conference several years ago, I was responsible for a display of children’s books. All throughout the afternoon, parents approached and bought books for their children.
Occasionally a parent would tell a child to choose any book on the table—but only one. The smallest children inevitably chose the same book: The Stations of the Cross. I had thought that the image of the crucified Jesus on the cover would frighten them, but in their innocent simplicity, they could see beyond the horror of the cross to the love it expresses.
It is that love we celebrate when we pray the stations of the cross. We are not just commemorating events that occurred two thousand years ago. We are entering into the passion of Christ to experience how he poured out his life and love for the forgiveness of our sins.
The Origins of the Stations. The stations seem to have originated in the pious practice of pilgrims to the Holy Land who visited the sites of the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Among other sites, pilgrims would visit Golgotha and the tomb, both of which were soon enclosed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These pilgrims found that there was something powerful in actually touching the place where Jesus died and rose.
We have an account, in fact, of a Spanish nun named Egeria who visited the Holy Land in the fourth century a.d. She describes the liturgy that was celebrated at the holy sites. On Sunday, for example, the celebrant would read the biblical story of the resurrection of the Lord. She wrote, “When the reading is begun, there is so great a moaning and groaning among all, with so many tears, that the hardest of heart might be moved to tears for that the Lord had borne such things for us.” Likewise, she describes how on Good Friday, “the emotion shown and the mourning by all the people at every lesson and prayer are wonderful; for there is none, either great or small, who, on that day during those three hours, does not lament more than can be conceived, that the Lord had suffered those things for us.”
This practice of commemorating Jesus’ passion was so esteemed that churches and monasteries in Europe began to establish reproductions of the holy sites. Thus, those who could not afford the long and arduous pilgrimage to the Holy Land could nevertheless experience a spiritual visit there.
Two events further fostered this devotion. The first was the Crusades. Many people traveled to the Holy Land, and many more heard of their travels and longed to experience what they had described, if only in a symbolic manner.
The second stimulus occurred in 1342, when the shrines throughout the Holy Land were entrusted into the care of the Franciscan Friars. They prepared proper accommodations and obtained special indulgences for the pilgrims so that their visit would be as spiritual as possible. They also spread devotion to the passion of Jesus throughout the Christian world.
The Franciscans and Their Influence. Franciscans have always had a great love for anything associated with the life and death of Jesus. St. Francis helped popularize the Christmas crib when he set up a living manger scene in Greccio, Italy, in 1223. He also loved to meditate upon the passion of Jesus, even writing his own Office of the Passion to commemorate it. Francis saw in the birth and death of Jesus the two key moments when Jesus’ humanity and humility were most clearly visible. He saw in them the summit of Jesus’ surrender to God, a surrender of total love.
St. Francis was so moved by this love that it became visible. When he was at Greccio, he was so inflamed with gratitude that those around him saw him holding the child Jesus in his arms, even though there was no child present at the scene. Likewise, when he was on Mt. Alvernia several months later, Francis received the stigmata, the very wounds of Jesus in his flesh, thus making his body a living remembrance of the passion. The lover, St. Francis, came to resemble the beloved.
From their very beginning, then, the Franciscans have seen it as their duty to foster devotion to the stations and the Christmas crib. At first, the stations that they built were located outside churches, but by the middle of the seventeenth century, they were being placed indoors instead. Franciscans were so identified with this devotion, in fact, that until recently they were the only ones who were given the privilege of blessing newly erected stations.
How to Pray the Stations. There are many different ways to pray the stations. Many parishes celebrate them as a community, especially during Lent. While suffering tends to separate and isolate us, commemorating Jesus’ suffering as a community tends to bind us together. It makes us more fully one with him and with each other.
There are, of course, times when we pray the stations by ourselves, more as a silent meditation. Praying them in this way can be a deeply intimate experience, giving us the sense that we are walking alongside Jesus on his way to the cross.
The walking associated with the stations is also a form of prayer in itself. In a sense, we are praying with our feet. All too often we pray only with our minds. But walking the stations helps make our prayer more complete as we bring our bodies in line with our minds, similar to the way Jesus did on his way to Golgotha and the way Francis learned to do when he received the stigmata.
Remembering and Reliving. It’s important to know that when we pray the stations, we are not only recalling ancient history. The Jewish people believe that by recounting a past event, we can somehow participate in that event. This is called anamnesis, and it is the basis for our understanding of the Mass. At the Eucharist, we are present in our own churches, but we are also somehow present at the Last Supper, before the cross, and at the empty tomb. We pass beyond our present time and mystically experience a bit of eternity.
This is also what we do when we pray the stations. We are not only telling the story, we are entering into it. Jesus’ love for us as expressed in the stations and our love for him bridge the gap between what happened then and our lives today. We see Jesus fall under the weight of the cross and are horrified at his pain. We become Veronica and offer to wipe his face. We stand with Mary as she watches her beloved son die. No longer disinterested bystanders, we, like Francis, become united with Christ.
Our Passion. Jesus told his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him, and the stations give us the opportunity to do just that. We die to ourselves when we reflect upon our sin and remember that Jesus died for our forgiveness. As we remember the sufferings of Jesus, we can also recall how we have sinned against God and each other.
When we remember how Jesus was judged, we can ask whether we have misjudged others. As we commemorate the three falls of Jesus, we can recall the times we have fallen into sin as well as the times we have seen others fall and did not help them.
We also take up our cross in the stations by joining our sufferings to those of Jesus. Suffering often makes us feel as if we were upon a cross with no one to help us. But in the stations we are reminded who is on the other side of that cross: Jesus, who is always with us.
The stations can also encourage us to take up the cross of the challenge to live our faith in a more profound manner. They help us find the courage to reject those things that separate us from God’s love, to be crucified to the world so that we can give ourselves to God and others more fully.
Finally, the stations offer us the opportunity to be in solidarity with the suffering of the world. When we pray the stations, we can exercise compassion—a word that means “to suffer with.” We can take other people’s suffering upon ourselves so that they no longer have to carry their burdens alone.
Never the Same Again. There are certain events in our lives that change us forever. The death of a loved one, a wondrous triumph, a new insight—all of these leave an indelible mark on us. The stations are just such an event. How could life be the same after we have experienced so much love? How could we look at ourselves or the world around us with the same eyes after having gazed upon the one who was pierced for our sins? Jesus literally loves us to death. How can we not be filled with overflowing gratitude and a willingness to live in that love? n
Fr. Winkler writes from Ellicott City, Maryland.