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Stations of the Cross

Sta­tions of the Cross is a tra­di­tion­al devo­tion for Lent, and espe­cially for Holy Week. It ori­gin­ated in Jer­sualem, where pil­grims would lit­er­ally walk along the route from the centre of the city to the tra­di­tion­al place of Christ’s exe­cu­tion, stop­ping en route to recall vari­ous incid­ents recor­ded in the gos­pels, or else­where in the tra­di­tion. The num­ber and names of the sta­tions were later codi­fied at four­teen (to which a fif­teenth sta­tion of the Resur­rec­tion was added in more recent times). Many sets of words and pray­ers have been writ­ten to acccom­pany the walk. I com­piled this par­tic­u­lar set for an ecu­men­ic­al ser­vice in my home par­ish, and sub­sequently pub­lished them on the Think­ing Anglic­ans blog. It envis­ages a scen­ario in which some of those who par­ti­cip­ated in or wit­nessed the ori­gin­al events are gathered to remem­ber what happened on that day.

  1. Pil­ate con­demns Jesus to death
  2. Jesus takes up his cross
  3. Jesus falls the first time
  4. Jesus meets his mother
  5. Simon helps Jesus carry the cross
  6. Veron­ica wipes the face of Jesus
  7. Jesus falls the second time
  8. Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
  9. Jesus falls the third time
  10. Jesus is stripped of his garments
  11. Jesus is nailed to the cross
  12. Jesus dies on the cross
  13. Jesus is taken down from the cross
  14. Jesus is placed in the tomb
  15. Jesus is risen
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