The Stations of the Cross

How to pray the Stations

The Stations of the Cross, also called the Way of the Cross or Via Crucis, follow Jesus from his condemnation to his burial. Catholic churches have fourteen stations around the walls, and you walk from one to the next. You can also pray them at home, meditating on the Passion. This is the order the interactive Stations above follow:

1. Begin with the Sign of the Cross and an opening prayer, offering the devotion for an intention if you wish.
2. At each station, genuflect (or bow) and say: “We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”
3. Read the Scripture and spend a little time with the meditation. There is no need to hurry; this is the heart of the devotion.
4. Pray the short prayer, then an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be.
5. Move to the next station, traditionally singing or saying a verse of the Stabat Mater.
6. After the fourteenth station, pray for the Holy Father’s intentions and close with a final prayer.

A full Way of the Cross takes about twenty to thirty minutes. The prayers between stations vary from parish to parish; any devout form is welcome.

The two forms

Most churches show the traditional fourteen stations. Five of them (the three falls, the meeting with Mary, and Veronica) are not described in the Gospels; they come from the Church’s long tradition of prayer in Jerusalem and beyond. On Good Friday 1991, Pope St. John Paul II led a Scriptural Way of the Cross at the Colosseum in which every station is a scene from the Gospels. Pope Benedict XVI approved it for public celebration in 2007. Both forms are fully Catholic; use whichever helps you pray.

A short history

From the early centuries, pilgrims to Jerusalem walked the streets where Jesus carried his cross. Around 384, the pilgrim Egeria described Holy Week processions there that followed the events of the Passion. In 1342 the Franciscans were entrusted with the care of the holy places, and they encouraged pilgrims to pray along the route now called the Via Dolorosa.

Few Christians could make the journey, so churches in Europe began to set up their own “stations” as a pilgrimage in miniature. The number and choice of scenes varied widely. In 1731 Pope Clement XII allowed the Stations to be erected in any church and fixed their number at fourteen. The Franciscan preacher St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676–1751) set up more than five hundred sets, including the stations in the Colosseum in Rome for the Jubilee of 1750.

Today the Pope leads the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on Good Friday evening, a custom revived by St. Paul VI in 1964. Many parishes pray the Stations together on the Fridays of Lent. Some devotional booklets add a fifteenth station for the Resurrection; it is a private addition, not part of the fourteen stations the Church sets out.

The Way of the Cross indulgence

The Church grants a plenary indulgence to the faithful who devoutly make the Way of the Cross, or who join it devoutly while the Pope is leading it and it is being broadcast live on television or radio (Enchiridion of Indulgences, 1999, grant 13). The norms are:

• It is made before stations of the Way of the Cross that have been lawfully erected.
• Fourteen crosses are required; images of the stations are customarily added.
• Devout meditation on the Passion and Death of the Lord is enough. It is not necessary to meditate on each station’s particular mystery.
• One must move from one station to the next. When it is prayed in public and not everyone can move without difficulty, it is enough for the leader to go from station to station.
• Those who are lawfully impeded (for example by illness) can gain the same indulgence by spending some time, such as a quarter of an hour, in devout reading and meditation on the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• For the Eastern faithful, among whom this devotion is not customary, the patriarchs may set another devout exercise in memory of the Passion.
• The usual conditions also apply: sacramental Confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father, and complete detachment from all sin, even venial. A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day.

Praying the Stations on this page at home, without stations to walk to, is a good devotion in its own right. It meets the norms for the plenary indulgence only if you are lawfully impeded from going to church. To learn more, see our guide to Confession & Reconciliation and the other devotions on Prayers & Devotions.