Second, many, many people could not go on Pilgrimage to Jerusalem – it was too expensive, they could be away for months or years, long-distance travel was very dangerous, and the ebb and flow of the Crusades made getting to Jerusalem more or less difficult, or even impossible – so the Stations provided a way of making that pilgrimage while not having to travel to the Holy Land.

In the Stations of the Cross, we follow Jesus Christ in his passion and to see ourselves mirrored in him. We bear the imprint of the Way of the Cross. We are judged unjustly, we fall, we find life’s journey hard, we know the mystery of death, and we recoil from it. To face life’s dark side in ourselves and in our world, we need images of hope, and Jesus offers images of hope in his passion.

As TS Elliot said, ‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality.’ Through his passion and resurrection, Jesus transforms the reality of evil we find hard to bear. By accompanying him on the Way of the Cross, we gain his courageous patience and learn to trust in God who delivers us from evil – we very much do all of these devotions because they are effective not for the sake of it.

A typical format for the Stations of the Cross:

The Stations of the Cross is often led by a Priest or Deacon, robed in cassock and cotta, especially in Lent when it forms part of a parishes Lenten devotions. However, there is no reason why Stations should not be lead as a group devotion by a member of the clergy not robed, or by a member of the laity, or done alone as a private devotion.

1. Start at the Altar with prayer.
2. Move to the first or next station, singing or saying a verse from the Stabat Mater (the hymn At the Cross her station keeping, which can be found in most comprehensive hymn books, such as the Celebration Hymnal for Everyone No. 57, or the New English Hymnal No. 97).
3. The station is announced.
4. All Genuflect as leader says ‘We adore you O Christ and we bless you’.
5. The response is ‘Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world’.
6. After a brief silence, a scriptural or similar reading relating to that station is read, followed by a mediatation and prayer.
7. All then move on to next station.
8. This pattern is repeated for each station, with the exception that at the twelfth station (Jesus dies on the Cross) one convention is that one does not simply genuflect but remains kneeling throughout the station and keeps a longer silence before the reading or meditation.
9. After the fourteenth station, the leader of the devotion returns to the Altar for concluding prayers.