Photo of the Jerusalem Street marking showing Pilgrims'

The Way of the Cross

 

 

Stations of the Cross are primarily a devotion for the Lenten Season.  However, they are also proper devotions for Friday during the rest of the Church year. For your private contemplations, we are pleased to bring you an on-line version of the Stations of Cross drawn from the traditional version, used by most Roman Catholics, found in our St. Augustine Prayer Book, and the Episcopal Church version used by All Saints' Church. The St. Augustine Prayer Book is a series of devotions and liturgies designed for members of the Episcopal Church.  Many of the Anglo-Catholic rituals practiced  in our church are drawn from this prayer book.

 

 

The devotion text used here will be combination of traditional text, which includes the Hail Mary, the Glory Be and quotes from the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, (click on Stabat Mater Dolorosa for more information on the history of this great 13th century Latin hymn) and the Episcopal Church version used by All Saints' Episcopal Church. It should be noted that there are many variations on text for the Stations of the Cross used in both the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches.  Our version is more scripturally based. Others use text styled as a devotional story. Over the years text have been written by such Christian luminaries as John Henry Cardinal Newman(1801-1890) and St. Francis De Sales(1567-1622). 

 

Your personal devotional period with our Stations of the Cross should take about 20 minutes depending on the speed of your connection and computer.  If you do not have time now, please join us at a later time. The link to the Opening Prayers is below this short history.

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

 OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS

 

Information for this historical background is drawn from the Catholic Encyclopedia

and archives at Canterbury Cathedral and the Vatican Library.

 

Since ancient times, Christians have traveled to Jerusalem to walk the Way of the Cross (also called Stations of the Cross, Via Crucis, and Via Dolorosa).  Today, the way is marked as Via Dolorosa. (Way of Tears)  The preservation of this traditional path of Our Lord's suffering  is done by the State of Israel with the aid and assistance of the major Christian dominations who have representatives in the Jerusalem, including Anglicans. 

 

The Via Dolorosa at Jerusalem (though not called by that name before the sixteenth century) was reverently marked out from the earliest times and has been the goal of pious pilgrims ever since the days of Constantine. Tradition asserts that Mary used to visit daily the scenes of Christ's Passion and St. Jerome speaks of the crowds of pilgrims from all countries who used to visit the holy places in his day. There is, however, no direct evidence as to the existence of any set form of the devotion at that early date. The first indication of replication of the Shrines of Jerusalem came in the fifth century.  At the monastery of San Stefano at Bologna a group of connected chapels were constructed by St. Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, which were 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. 

 

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 1458 and again in 1462, and who describes the manner in which it was then usual to follow the footsteps of Christ in His sorrowful journey.   Wey's journey was the reverse of what it is today, beginning at Mount Calvary ending at the traditional location of Pilate's House. In the 15th and until the early 16th centuries, pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem traveled the Way of the Cross in the opposite direction, beginning at Mount Calvary and ending at the traditional location of Pilate's house.  Early in the 16th century logic set in and it was reversed.

 

Also beginning in the 15th century, several returning clerical pilgrims built replicas of the Way of the Cross in Europe.  The earliest "replicas" has been attributed to a Dominican Friar Blessed Alvarez (d. 1420) built at his friary in Cordova, Spain.

 

With regard to the number of Stations it is difficult to determine how this came to be fixed at fourteen, for it seems to have varied considerably at different times and places. In the Roman Church, the late Pope, John Paul II attempted to change the tradition by adding a 15th station, the Resurrection, with little or no success. And, naturally, varying the number and incidents of the Passion changes the liturgy of the Stations of the Cross. 

 

Wey's account, written in the middle of the fifteenth century, gives fourteen, but only five of these correspond to what we know as today's Stations of the Cross. Number have varied to a low of five to a high of 31.  Throughout the history of this devotion, many parts of the passion have been added and dropped to the Stations of the Cross. If you want detailed history, click on picture of Jesus carrying the cross. According to Church scholars, it is assumed that our present series of Stations, together with the accustomed series of prayers, comes to us, not from Jerusalem, but from some of the imitation Ways of the Cross in different parts of Europe, and that we owe the propagation of the devotion, as well as the number and selection of our Stations, much more to the pious ingenuity of certain sixteenth-century devotional writers than to the actual practice of pilgrims to the holy places. It should be noted there is scriptural basis for all but the 6th station, St. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.  When you come to that station, you will see a brief essay on St. Veronica.

 

Acting on a papal charge, the first stations erected in Churches were by the Franciscans and came at the end of the 17th century.  Pope Clement XII, (1730-40) set the stations at fourteen with today's devotions in place. The first stations came to English Churches, both Roman and Anglican, in and about 1857 when the Pope Pius IX gave the English Catholic Bishops permission to erect them because there were no Franciscans available to do so. As to Anglicans, you will find them in most English churches.  However, in America, although you will find in many Episcopal Churches, some of our more Protestant Churches, still view them as some sort plot by Rome to take over the church.

 

The Roman and to a less extent our own Anglican Church has kept the tradition of Franciscans erecting the Stations in a Church.  However, with permission of the local Bishop, a rector may erect them if no Franciscan is available.  Originally, they were to made of carved wood, as in All Saints' Church, however, today exceptions are often made in that famous artists are often commissioned to make them.  The most noteworthy of all stations art work are the tempera on wood versions by Pieter Paul Rubens (1577 -1640) found in the Cathedral of Our Lady at Antwerp in the Netherlands.  Our 13th Station will show an example of those great works of art, (Jesus is taken down from the Cross) from that master Dutch painter. 

 

However, we hope you will find the unique collection of Station Art spiritually rewarding, ranging from excellent children's art, masterworks, traditional Franciscan art to unique treatments by Catholic,  Episcopal Orthodox Churches throughout the world.

 

 We are grateful to the following organizations who have allowed us to use art for our Stations of Cross devotion: 

 

  1. St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Hastings Nebraska.

  2. Our Lady of Lourdes Depere, Wisconsin

  3. 7th Grade Children, Arcadia Catholic School, Plover, Wisconsin

  4. St. Marks Episcopal Cathedral, Hastings, Nebraska

  5. St. Hugo of the Hills Catholic Church, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

  6. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

  7. Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Berlin, Germany

  8. Episcopal Franciscan Orders for use of their traditional art.

Other art sources such rights-free masterworks are indicated on each station. Please click below to go the Opening Devotions.

 

 

 

Click on Next to Go to the Opening Devotions

 

 

 

 

Click on the Shield to Return to All Saints' Home Page.