Stations of the Cross
We invite you to walk the Stations of the Cross in the monastery church or walk the Stations in our beautiful grotto. And if you choose the grotto, the Sisters can accompany your walk through these videos. Our hope is that this provides you with an opportunity to reflect on each Station more deeply and consider how it touches you and your life. As you do, know that our prayers go before you, for God to move your heart in a special way. We ask that you not use the videos when praying the Stations in the church, unless you have earbuds or headphones, so that you don’t disturb anyone else who may be praying in the church.
Station 1 – Jesus Is Condemned to Death
“As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ He answered him, ‘You say so.’ Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, ‘Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.’ But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed…So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.”
Mark 15: 1-5,15
Station 2 – Jesus Carries His Cross
“When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.’ They cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ Pilate asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but the emperor.’ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.”
John 19:6,15-17
Station 3 – Jesus Falls the First Time
“Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and striking him on the face.”
John 19:1-3
Station 4 – Jesus Meets His Mother
“Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.”
John 19:25-27
Station 5 – Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross
“They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.”
Mark 15:21
Station 6 – Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
“For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.”
Isaiah 53:2-3
Station 7 – Jesus Falls the Second Time
“What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:31-39
Station 8 – Jesus Meets the Women
“A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’”
Luke 23:27-31
Station 9 – Jesus Falls the Third Time
“I am overwhelmed by a burden beyond my strength. I am stooped and deeply bowed; all day I go about mourning. My heart shudders, my strength forsakes me; the very light of my eyes has failed. Friends and companions shun my pain; my neighbors stand far off. Those who seek my life lay snares for me; they seek my misfortune, they speak of ruin; they plot treachery all the day. I am very near to falling; my pain is with me always. Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my salvation.”
Psalm 38
Station 10 – Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments
“When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.’ This was to fulfill the scripture, ‘They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’”
John 19:23-24
Station 11 – Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross
“And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.”
Luke 23:33-34
Station 12 – Jesus Dies on the Cross
“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last.”
Luke 23:44-46
Station 13 – Jesus’ Body Is Removed from the Cross
“Now there was a virtuous and righteous man named Joseph who went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate permitted it. So Joseph came and took his body. Nicodemus also came. They took the body of Jesus and bound it with burial cloths along with spices, according to the Jewish burial custom.”
John 20:38-42
Station 14 – Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb
“And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed.”
Matthew 27:57-60
The 14 Stations of the Cross are based on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, the traditional route symbolizing the path Jesus walked to Calvary. They were created to help Christians contemplate the Passion of Christ. While they were initially created by and for the Franciscans, Pope Clement XII gave all churches the right to display them in 1731, officially fixing the number of Stations at fourteen.
If this guide has been helpful or moved you as you walked the Stations of the Cross, we invite you to make a donation to support future endeavors like this from the Sisters.