Stations of the Cross - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Stations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours (or Passion

Passion (Christianity)

The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...

) of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St. Francis of Assisi and extended throughout the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

in the medieval period. It is commonly observed in Lutheran

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

churches, but it is less often observed in the Anglican

Anglicanism

Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...

churches. It may be done at any time, but is most commonly done during the Season of Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

, especially on Good Friday

Good Friday

Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...

and on Friday evenings during Lent.

History

The Stations of the Cross originated in pilgrimages to Jerusalem. A desire to reproduce the holy places in other lands seems to have manifested itself at quite an early date. At the monastery of Santo Stefano at Bologna a group of connected chapels was constructed as early as the 5th century, by St. Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, which was intended to represent the more important shrines of Jerusalem, and in consequence, this monastery became familiarly known as "Hierusalem.” These may perhaps be regarded as the germ from which the Stations afterwards developed, though it is tolerably certain that nothing that we have before about the 15th century can strictly be called a Way of the Cross in the modern sense. Although several travelers who visited the Holy Land during the twelfth, thirteenth, and 14th centuries (e.g. Riccoldo da Monte di Croce

Riccoldo da Monte di Croce

Riccoldo da Monte di Croce or Ricoldo of Monte Croce , c.1243 - 1320, was an Italian Dominican monk, travel writer, missionary, and Christian apologist.-Life:...

, Burchard of Mount Sion

Burchard of Mount Sion

Burchard of Mount Sion, or Burchard de Mont Sion, also wrongly called Brocard or Bocard, was a German Dominican who travelled to the Middle East at the end of the 13th century....

, James of Verona), mention a "Via Sacra,” i.e., a settled route along which pilgrims were conducted, there is nothing in their accounts to identify this with the Way of the Cross, as we understand it. The devotion of the Via Dolorosa

Via Dolorosa

The Via Dolorosa is a street, in two parts, within the Old City of Jerusalem, held to be the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to his crucifixion. The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions...

, for which there have been a number of variant routes in Jerusalem, was probably developed by the Franciscans after they were granted administration of the Christian holy places in Jerusalem in 1342.

The earliest use of the word “stations,” as applied to the accustomed halting-places in the Via Sacra at Jerusalem, occurs in the narrative of an English pilgrim, William Wey, who visited the Holy Land in the mid-15th century, and described pilgrims following the footsteps of Christ to the cross. In 1521 a book called Geystlich Strass was printed with illustrations of the stations in the Holy Land.

During the 15th and 16th centuries the Franciscans began to build a series of outdoor shrines in Europe to duplicate their counterparts in the Holy Land. The number of stations varied between eleven and thirty. In 1686, in answer to their petition, Pope Innocent XI granted to the Franciscans the right to erect stations within their churches. In 1731, Pope Clement XII extended to all churches the right to have the stations, provided that a Franciscan father erected them, with the consent of the local bishop. At the same time the number was fixed at fourteen. In 1857, the bishops of England were allowed to erect the stations by themselves, without the intervention of a Franciscan priest, and in 1862 this right was extended to bishops throughout the church.

Spiritual significance

The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer, through meditating upon the chief scenes of Christ's sufferings and death. It has become one of the most popular devotions for Roman Catholics, as well as featuring other Christian artifacts of the local area.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the meditation is often performed in a spirit of reparation

Acts of reparation

In the Roman Catholic tradition, an Act of Reparation is a prayer or devotion with the intent to repair the "sins of others", e.g. for the repair of the sin of blasphemy, the sufferings of Jesus Christ or as Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary...

for the sufferings and insults that Jesus endured during His Passion.

In his encyclical

Encyclical

An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...

letter, Miserentissimus Redemptor
Miserentissimus Redemptor
Miserentissimus Redemptor is the title of an encyclical by Pope Pius XI, issued on May 8, 1928. This encyclical deals with the concepts of Acts of Reparation and atonement...

, on reparations, Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...

called Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ

Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ

Roman Catholic tradition includes specific prayers and devotions as Acts of Reparation for insults and blasphemies against Jesus Christ and the Holy Name of Jesus. These include the sufferings during the Passion of Jesus...

a duty for Catholics and referred to them as "some sort of compensation to be rendered for the injury" with respect to the sufferings of Jesus.

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

referred to Acts of Reparation

Acts of reparation

as the "unceasing effort to stand beside the endless crosses on which the Son of God continues to be crucified".

Traditional form

The Stations themselves are usually a series of 14 pictures or sculptures depicting the following scenes:

Jesus is condemned to death
Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus
The Sanhedrin trial of Jesus refers to the Canonical Gospel accounts of the trial of Jesus before the Jewish Council, or Sanhedrin, following his arrest and prior to his trial before Pontius Pilate...
Jesus is given His cross
Jesus falls the first time
Jesus meets His Mother
Simon of Cyrene
Simon of Cyrene
Simon of Cyrene was the man compelled by the Romans to carry the cross of Jesus as Jesus was taken to his crucifixion, according to all three Synoptic Gospels...

carries the cross
Veronica
Saint Veronica
Saint Veronica or Berenice, according to the "Acta Sanctorum" published by the Bollandists , was a pious woman of Jerusalem who, moved with pity as Jesus carried his cross to Golgotha, gave him her veil that he might wipe his forehead...

wipes the face of Jesus
Jesus falls the second time
Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem
Jesus falls the third time
Jesus is stripped of His garments
Crucifixion
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...

: Jesus is nailed to the cross
Jesus dies on the cross
Jesus' body is removed from the cross (Deposition or Lamentation
Lamentation of Christ
350px|thumb|Lamentation by [[Giotto di Bondone]] in the [[Scrovegni Chapel]]The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends and family mourned over his body...

)
Jesus is laid in the tomb
Entombment of Christ
The Entombment redirects here. For other uses, The Entombment The Entombment of Christ, that is to say the burial of Jesus Christ, occurred after his death by crucifixion, when, according to the gospel accounts, he was placed in a new tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea.-Biblical account:All four...

and covered in incense.

Although not traditionally part of the Stations, the Resurrection of Jesus

Resurrection of Jesus

The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...

is sometimes included as a fifteenth station.

Scriptural Way of the Cross

Out of the fourteen traditional Stations of the Cross, only eight have clear scriptural foundation. Stations 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9 are not specifically attested to in the gospels (in particular, no evidence exists of station 6 ever being known before medieval times) and Station 13 (representing Jesus's body being taken down off the cross and laid in the arms of His mother Mary) seems to embellish the gospels' record, which states that Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus down from the cross and buried him. To provide a version of this devotion more closely aligned with the biblical accounts, Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

introduced a new form of devotion, called the Scriptural Way of the Cross

Scriptural Way of the Cross

The Scriptural Way of the Cross or Scriptural Stations of the Cross is a version of the traditional Stations of the Cross inaugurated as a Roman Catholic devotion by Pope John Paul II on Good Friday 1991. Thereafter John Paul II performed the scriptural version many times at the Colosseum in Rome...

on Good Friday

Good Friday

1991. He celebrated that form many times but not exclusively at the Colosseum

Colosseum

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...

in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...

approved this set of stations for meditation and public celebration: They follow this sequence:

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,
Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested,
Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...

,
Jesus is denied by Peter
Denial of Peter
The Denial of Peter refers to three acts of denial of Jesus by the Apostle Peter as described in the three Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament....

,
Jesus is judged by Pilate,
Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns,
Jesus takes up His cross,
Jesus is helped by Simon to carry His cross,
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem,
Jesus is crucified,
Jesus promises His kingdom to the repentant thief,
Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other,
Jesus dies on the cross,
Jesus is laid in the tomb.

Modern usage

The devotion may be conducted personally by the faithful, making their way from one station to another and saying the prayers, or by having an officiating celebrant move from cross to cross while the faithful make the responses. The stations themselves must consist of, at the very least, fourteen wooden crosses, pictures alone do not suffice, and they must be blessed by someone with the authority to erect stations.

In the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

led an annual public prayer of the Stations of the Cross at the Roman Colosseum

Colosseum

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...

on Good Friday. Originally, the Pope himself carried the cross from station to station, but in his last years when age and infirmity limited his strength, John Paul presided over the celebration from a stage on the Palatine Hill

Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city...

, while others carried the cross. Just days prior to his death in 2005, Pope John Paul II observed the Stations of the Cross from his private chapel. Each year a different person is invited to write the meditation texts for the Stations. Past composers of the Papal Stations include several non-Catholics. The Pope himself wrote the texts for the Great Jubilee

Great Jubilee

The Great Jubilee in 2000 was a major event in the Roman Catholic Church, held from December 24, 1999 to January 6, 2001. Like other previous Jubilee years, it was a celebration of the mercy of God and forgiveness of sins...

in 2000 and used the traditional Stations.

The celebration of the Stations of the Cross is especially common on the Fridays of Lent, especially Good Friday. Community celebrations are usually accompanied by various songs and prayers. Particularly common as musical accompaniment is the Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...

. At the end of each station the Adoramus Te

Adoramus Te

Adoramus Te is a stanza that is recited/sung mostly during the Stations of the Cross of the Catholic tradition. It is retained in some confessional Anglican and Lutheran traditions during the Good Friday liturgy, although generally in the vernacular. It is recited or sung between stations...

is sometimes sung. The Alleluia is also sung, except during Lent.

Structurally, Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

's 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...

, follows the Stations of the Cross. The fourteenth and last station, the Burial, is not prominently depicted (compared to the other thirteen) but it is implied since the last shot before credit titles is Jesus resurrected and about to leave the tomb.

Sean Blodgett’s 2010 motion picture, “Walking with the Promise”, uses the resurrection of Jesus to complete the traditional Stations of the Cross.[9] The movie ends with the ascension of Christ.

Place of Christ's resurrection

Some modern liturgists say the traditional Stations of the Cross are incomplete without a final scene depicting the empty tomb

Empty tomb

Empty tomb most often refers to the tomb of Jesus which was found to be empty by the women who were present at Jesus’ crucifixion. They had come to his tomb to anoint his body with spices...

and/or the resurrection of Jesus

Resurrection of Jesus

, because Jesus' rising from the dead was an integral part of His salvific work on earth.

Advocates of the traditional form of the Stations ending with the body of Jesus being placed in the tomb say the Stations are intended as a meditation on the atoning death of Jesus, and not as a complete picture of His life, death, and resurrection.

The Stations of the Resurrection

Stations of the Resurrection

The Stations of the Resurrection, also known by the Latin name Via Lucis , are a form of Christian devotion, encouraging meditation upon the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and some of the Resurrection appearances and other episodes recorded in the New Testament...

(also known by the Latin name of Via Lucis) are used in some churches at Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

tide to meditate on the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ.

Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church

As part of a process of de-Latinization, the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church eliminated the devotion of the Stations of the Cross. In response to this, a schismatic group called the Society of Saint Josaphat

Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat

The Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat Kuntsevych is a society of traditionalist priests and seminarians originating from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church which is led by the excommunicated priest Basil Kovpak. It is based in Riasne, Lviv, Western Ukraine...

(SSJK) has formed with a seminary of its own in Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

with thirty students at present.

Music

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

wrote a Via Crucis for choir, soloists and piano or organ or harmonium in 1879.

David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

regarded his 1976 song, "Station to Station

Station to Station (song)

"Station to Station" is a song written by David Bowie in 1975 and released in 1976. It is the title track and opener for the album of the same name. The song is Bowie's longest studio recording, clocking in just above 10 minutes...

" as "very much concerned with the stations of the cross."

Michael Valenti (known predominantly as a Broadway composer) wrote, with librettist Diane Seymour, an oratorio depicting the fourteen Stations of the Cross entitled "The Way." It was premiered in 1991.

Stefano Vagnini

Stefano Vagnini

Stefano Vagnini is an Italian musician, composer, poet and Modular Art theorist who lives and works in Italy and in the United States.-Biography:Stefano Vagnini was born in Fano, Italy....

's 2002 modular oratorio, Via Crucis, composition for organ, computer, choir, string orchestra and brass quartet, depicts the fourteen Stations of the Cross.

External links

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History

Spiritual significance

Traditional form

Scriptural Way of the Cross

Modern usage

Place of Christ's resurrection

Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church

Music

See also

External links