Good Friday - Via Crucis: The Way of the Cross

Good Friday

Via Crucis: The Way of the Cross

Today, the entire Church fixes her gaze on the Cross at Calvary.

Stations of the Cross

The Stations of the Cross is a devotion to the Sacred Passion, in which we accompany, in spirit, our Blessed Lord in His sorrowful journey from the house of Pilate to Calvary, and meditate on His sufferings and death.

Before each Station say: We adore You O Christ, and we bless You. Because by Your holy Cross, You have redeamed the world.
After each Station say: One Our Father, One Hail Mary, One Glory Be

Station One Jesus is Condemnded  to Death
Consider how Jesus, innocent and without sin, after having been sourged and crowned with thorns, was  condemned by the crowds with the words "Crucify him!: (Luke 23:21)

Station Two Jesus Accepts His Cross Consider how Jesus, in  making this journey with the Cross and the weight of all our sins on His shoulders, thought of us, and offered to His Father, for us, the death He was about to undergo.

Station Three Jesus Falls the First Time
Consider this first fall of Jesus under His Cross, His flesh was torn by the scourges, His head crowned with thorns, and He had lost a great amount of blood.  He was so weakened that he could scarecely walk and yet he carried this great load upon His shoulders. 

Station Four Jesus Meets His Sorrowful Mother Consider the meeting of Jesus and His Mother on the way of the Cross.  She surely would have been there following His every step.  

Station Five Simon Helps Jesus to Carry the Cross 

Consider walking as Simon did carrying the Cross behind Our Lord. (Luke 23:26)

Station Six Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus Consider how the holy woman Veronica, seeing Jesus so afflicted, and His face bathed in sweat and blood, presented Him with a towel, with which He wiped His face.  In a tender exchange, Jesus leaves the impression of His Holy Face on Veronica's cloth.  A promise of the unfailing comfort of Jesus during our times of trial.

Station Seven Jesus Falls a Second Time
Consider the second fall of Jesus under the Cross - a fall that renews the pain of all the wounds, the wounds Jesus bears for our salvation. 

Station Eight Jesus Speaks to the Women of Jerusalem
Consider how the women of Jerusalem who met Jesus on the way of the Cross wept with compassion at seeing Him in such a pitiable state.  But Jesus said to them:  "daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, "Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed." (Luke 24: 28-29)  

Station Nine Jesus Falls the Third Time Consider the third fall of Jesus, His body so weak, His is forced to continue His way of the Cross under the extreem cruelty of His executioners.  

Station Ten Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

Consider the pain inflicted on Jesus as His garments wet and sticking to his body tore at His flesh as the soldiers stripped Him;

Station Eleven Jesus is Nailed to the Cross Consider Jesus, arms stretched out, offering Himself on the Cross, the Lamb of God, as the eternal sacrifice to the Father. "He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

Station Twelve Jesus Dies on the Cross
Consider how after three hours of agony on the Cross, Jesus bows His head and gives up His Spirit. (Luke 24:46)

Station Thirteen Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross
Consider how, after the death of our Lord, two of His disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus, took Him down from the Cross, and placed Him in the arms of His Mother, Our Lady of Sorrows.

Station Fourteen Jesus is Placed in the Tomb
Consider how the disciples carred the body of Jesus to be buried, accompanied by His Mother who arrainged the body of her son in the sepulcher.  Then the stone was rolled and the  tomb was closed.

Pray the Stations of the Cross meditating on the Virtues along the Via Dolorosa

Pray the Stations of the Cross meditating on Religious Art accompanied to the Chant of the Stabat Mater

Pray the Stations of the Cross with meditations

_____

 Art
Pieta by Bouguereau