Christians celebrate the 14 step devotion of the Stations of the Cross in devout commemoration of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the first Good Friday.
The 14 devotions, or stations, focus on specific events of Jesus' last day on earth, beginning with His condemnation.
The stations are used as a mini pilgrimage, with the pilgrim moving from station to station.
At each station we remember the event, meditate and pray upon the significance of what happened.
After prayer, we move forward on to the next station, until all are completed.
You may wish to make the following Stations of the Cross. Simply read the name of the station and reflect for some time on the event in Jesus' life and death named in the station.
Present at Christ’s journey to his death was the Blessed Virgin Mary. Watching her Son die, she suffered with him. Let us remember her as we honor Jesus, the Son of God.
First Station: Jesus is condemned to death
Though he knew that Christ was blameless
Pilate in a deed most shameless
To the cross him did condemn
Second Station: Jesus takes up his cross
With contempt the rabble varmints
Robed the King in royal garments
To deride his royalty
Third Station: Jesus falls the first time
Weakened by the brutal flaying
Yet the wicked rule obeying
Jesus fell beneath the cross
Fourth station: Jesus meets his mother, Mary
When he met his holy Mother
Who had served him as no other
Eyes at eyes in silence gazed
Fifth Station: Simon helps Jesus carry the cross
Seeing Jesus in his meekness
Tremble from exhausted weakness
Simon helped him bear his cross
Sixth Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
The image of his holy face
Never after was erased
From Veronica’s soothing cloth
Seventh Station: Jesus falls the second time
For the second time he stumbled
Flattened by the cross he crumbled
Yet he rose despite the pain
Eighth Station: Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
Mothers of Jerusalem
Wept until he counselled them:
Save your weeping for your own
Ninth Station: Jesus falls the third time
Once again he tripped and fell
Still amid the taunts of hell
Rose and bore the cross again
Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments
Lily of all purity
How they shamed thy dignity
When they tore thy garments off
Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross
Hideous nails through hands and feet
Still the Lamb refused to bleat
As his mother‘s heart was pierced
Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the cross
When she stayed close by his side
For the time until he died
She sustained him by her love
Thirteenth Station: Jesus is taken down from the cross
When they took him down they laid him
In her arms a cradle made him
For her Son, the King of kings
Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the sepulchre
Joseph’s sepulchre received him
He was dead – yet she believed him
Three days on he rose from death
Luky Whittle - 1998
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STATIONS OF THE CROSS? VISIT
*The seven dolours (or sorrows) of the Blessed Virgin were the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, three day's loss of Jesus, meeting Jesus on the way to Calvary, Mary at the foot of the cross, Jesus is taken down from the cross and the burial of Jesus.
