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The 12th Station of the Cross - Jesus dies on the Cross. This particular station is found in St. Raphael's Cathedral, Dubuque, Iowa.

10th Station of the Cross - Jesus is stripped of His garments
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

The Stations of the Cross (or Way of the Cross; in Latin, Via Crucis; also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, or simply, The Way) refers to the depiction of the final hours (or Passion) of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St. Francis of Assisi and extended throughout the Catholic Church in the medieval period. It is less often observed in Anglicanism, and Lutheranism as well. It may be done at any time, but is most commonly done during the Season of Lent, especially on Good Friday and on Friday evenings during Lent.

The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer to the chief scenes of Christ's sufferings and death, and this has become one of the most popular devotions for Catholics.

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

1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus receives the cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets His Mother
5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross
6. Veronica wipes Jesus' face with her veil
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of His garments
11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus' body is removed from the cross (Pieta)
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb

An alternate set of stations.

1. Jesus institutes the Eucharist
2. Jesus prays in Gethsemane
3. Jesus before the Sanhedrin
4. Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns
5. Jesus carries the cross to Calvary
6. Jesus falls under the weight of the cross
7. Jesus is helped by Simon of Cyrene
8. Jesus meets the pious women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus is nailed on the cross
10. Jesus promises Heaven to the repentant thief
11. Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus is laid in the tomb
14. Jesus rises from the dead

The alternate version is widely used in the Philippines, where most of the population is Roman Catholic. Although not part of the traditional set of Stations, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is now more and more integrated as part of The Way.

The stations began as an attempt to recreate, or as a substitute for, the devotions in Jerusalem (now the Via Crucis) visiting in turn what were believed to be the original sites of the events. By at least the 15th century the occasional practise of setting up stations in Western Europe was established, although it did not reach the majority of Catholic churches until the 17th century. Anglican examples all post-date the Oxford Movement.

Pope John Paul II led an annual public prayer of the Stations of the Cross at the Roman Colosseum on Good Friday. Originally, the Pope himself carried the cross from station to station, but in his last years, he presided over the celebration from a stage on the Palatine Hill, 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 in the Vatican. 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 Holy Father himself wrote the texts for the Jubilee year 2000 and used the traditional Stations.

Pope John Paul II created a version in which all of the Stations were taken from Scripture known as the Scriptural Way of the Cross. It was first publicly celebrated by Pope John Paul II on Good Friday 1991 in the Coliseum in Rome. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved this set of stations for meditation and public celebration: They follow this sequence::

(1) Jesus in the Garden of Olives,

(2) Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested,

(3) Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin,

(4) Jesus is denied by Peter,

(5) Jesus is judged by Pilate,

(6) Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns,

(7) Jesus takes up his cross,

(8) Jesus is helped by the Cyrenean to carry his cross,

(9) Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem,

(10) Jesus is crucified,

(11) Jesus promises his kingdom to the good thief,

(12) Jesus and his mother and disciple,

(13) Jesus dies on the cross,

(14) Jesus is laid in the tomb.

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 sequence Stabat Mater Dolorosa. At the end of each station, the Adoramus Te is sometimes sung. The Alleluia is also sung; however, that holy word is buried during Lent.

Today, many^{[citation needed]} advocate the addition of a 15th station depicting Christ's Resurrection, because without his rising from the dead he would not have accomplished the salvation that Christians believe was his mission – the same consideration that causes the three days commencing with the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday and concluding with Vespers on the evening of Easter Sunday to be regarded as a liturgical unity, the so-called Holy Tridium, the Easter Tridium or Paschal Triduum. Others have begun the practice of the Via Lucis in Eastertide to meditate on the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord.

Structurally, Mel Gibson's 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ, 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.

In recent years, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has embarked on a campaign of de-Latinization reforms consisting of the removal of the stations of the cross, the rosary and the monstrance from the liturgy and parishes of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In response a schismatic group, the Society of Saint Josaphat, abbreviated as the SSJK has formed with a seminary in Lviv, at which currently thirty students reside, and is affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X. Critics claim that the SSJK's liturgical practice favours severely abbreviated services and favours imported Roman devotions over the traditional and authentic practices and devotions of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Proponents counter that these symbols and rituals, borrowed from their Roman Catholic Polish neighbors have been practiced by Ukrainian Greek Catholics for centuries now, and to deny them is to deprive themselves of a part of their sacred heritage.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Stations of the Cross

• Passion play
• Poor Man's Bible
• Sacri Monti

Other pictures related to the stations of the cross

From The Cloisters in New York City.

Station in Upper Swabia, Germany

Station in Fuensanta Sanctuary, Murcia, Spain

Elaborate 19th century stations I and II, Sacré-Coeur Paris

• the Catholic Encyclopedia
• A list of recent Via Crucis used by The Vatican on Good Fridays..
• Tributes for Kings: a modern Stations of the Cross including The Resurrection
• Online Stations of the Cross with audio recorded meditations and prayers (mp3)
• Online Stations of the Cross
• Esquivel's (Nobel Peace Prize) Stations from Latin America
• Dom Martin's Stations of the Cross (1972) in the Bom Jesus Basilica, Old Goa, India
• Alternate Stations of the Cross as celebrated by Pope John Paul II on Good Friday 1991
• Stations of the Cross from the perspective of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Carving of Stations of the Cross
• Web site for European Sacred Mountains, Calvaries and Devotional Complexes
• Scenes of The Passion Prints by Albrecht Dürer and Adrian Wiszniewski. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.