The First Station
Opening Prayer:
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death
Meditation
Pilate was eager to release Jesus. He knew that Jesus was innocent and had been handed over to himself as the Governor only because the Chief Priests wanted the hated Romans to take the blame for the death of Jesus in the eyes of the people. But Pilate’s strategies for finding a clever way of releasing Jesus led Him at last into the injustice he did. He was too pragmatic and self-confident a person to have or to trust the simple vision his wife tried to share with him: “Have nothing to do with that Just Man….”
Prayer
Father, free us of our cynicism. Grant that we may always seek the truth and never sacrifice it for success or convenience. Let us be moved to begin all that we would do with our minds and hearts prayerfully open to your will, for Your will alone is what truth is.
The Second Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Second Station: Jesus takes up His cross.
Meditation
Before leaving the place of His trial, Jesus had a heavy crossbeam laid upon Him. How painfully it must have pressed on His lacerated neck and shoulders, and arms and back, and pushed against the thorns still plaited over His head! It is surprising that He had the strength even to begin the way to Calvary.
Prayer
Father, we want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and ponder the Stations marking His way to Calvary. But how can we begin to share this arduous way of His, or follow His way through any of life, without ourselves frequently going off alone to pray as He did?
The Third Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Third Station: Jesus falls the first time.
Meditation
Even a healthy man might easily be thrown off balance and toppled to the ground by a weight as heavy as a crossbeam if He tripped or twisted His ankle in the streets that Jesus had to tread on the way to Calvary. All the more so Jesus, then, who had been denied sleep and food and drink and had suffered constant physical abuse since the night before. He was on His last legs; and they were beginning to fail Him.
Prayer
Father, whenever Jesus fell and got up again, he took in turn three basic prayer positions: full prostration on the ground after falling, a kneeling position as He got up, and a standing position when back on His feet. Every repetition of this expressed yet once again the fullness of His sacrifice to you in supplication for us. Grant that everything that befalls us may also become part of our prayer, part of our offering of self to You.
The Fourth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Fourth Station: Jesus Meets His Mother.
Meditation
Mary the Mother of Jesus, and John and is mother Salome, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and many other women who followed Jesus, stationed themselves near the Pretorium to meet Jesus as soon as He was brought out so they could stay close to Him all the way to Calvary. They wanted to give Him the only thing they now could: their loving companionship in these last cruel hours of His life. And so it was that they became His prayer partners, as Peter and James and John himself had earlier failed to do in the Garden. They remained the prayer partners of Jesus throughout the final hours of His self-surrender to the Father for the salvation of all peoples.
Prayer
Father, help us to realize from this moment on that it is precisely when we join our seemingly hopeless sufferings to those of Jesus, as did Mary and John and the others, that we become the faithful prayer partners of Jesus.
The Fifth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Fifth Station: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus.
Meditation
We hate to be forced to do anything. Simon of Cyrene was forced by Roman soldiers to help a man condemned to crucifixion carry his crossbeam through a mocking mob to the place where He would be executed. Actually, of course, Simon was being coerced into helping Jesus save the world; and along the way to Calvary he began to realize faintly that he was helping this Man achieve something He was anxious to undergo even for His executioners and those who were mocking Him.
Prayer
Father, there are many things that life imposes upon us. Grant us those powers of insight and reflection, the fruits of meditation that we so need, to distinguish among the things imposed upon us what is of your will and far better than what we would have chosen on our own, so that we may embrace those impositions with all that we are.
The Sixth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
Meditation
The Gospels make no mention of such an incident on the way to Calvary. Indeed, this version of the story dates no further back than the Middle Ages. But the Veronica legend illustrates a great truth. And that is undoubtedly why it was added to, and also has maintained itself as, one of the Fourteen Stations on the way from the condemnation of Jesus to His burial. Those who help the suffering help Jesus Himself; and they will be rewarded for their compassion by receiving the Face or Person of Jesus in the face or person of the suffering, the “Vera Icon” or true likeness of Jesus.
Prayer
Father, grant us the “Veronica Experience”. Move us to take action for those who suffer that we may see the Face of Jesus Your Son, and touch and serve him where He truly is among us.
The Seventh Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Seventh Station: Jesus Falls a Second Time
Meditation
To humble oneself means to come down to earth, all the way down to the dirt; and this is what Jesus did quite literally when He fell to the ground again and again, falling down not just on all fours, but as low as possible, flat on His face. In His prayer for us, His sacrifice of Himself to God for us, the Sinless One took the posture we sinners should take before God. He did not cling to His equality with God but emptied Himself out, becoming One of us, and lower still, taking the form of the slave of all, humbling Himself obediently to death, even to death on a Cross, suffering all the degradation of such a death.
Prayer
Father, Jesus taught us to pray with humility, not just in the words of His parables, but in the deeds of His sacrifice for us. Grant that we may humble ourselves with Him, so that with Him we may be exalted to Your right hand.
The Eighth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Eighth Station: Jesus Speaks to the Women of Jerusalem
Meditation
Jesus tells the women of Jerusalem to weep for themselves and their children rather than for Him because there is coming upon them a time so terrible that women without children will be considered blessed, a time so terrible that people will rather the hills fall on them than that it befall them, a time so terrible that present evil can be compared to it only as green wood is to dry. Some forty years later, after revolting against Rome and fighting to the death even among themselves, the children of these women would be shut up in Jerusalem by Titus, overcome by starvation and attack, their beloved city set afire, and they themselves crucified until the Romans ran out of Wood.
Prayer
Father, grant that our meditation and prayer will prepare us to sustain, with only deepening trust in You, the evils we cannot prevent by anything we are able to do.
The Ninth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Ninth Station: Jesus Falls the Third Time
Meditation
Jesus taught us to pray to God with perseverance as well as with faith in Him and humility before Him. Nowhere does Jesus more dramatically demonstrate His own perseverance in prayer than His getting up again after every fall so as to make it to Calvary before death could take Him, to the “high place” of crucifixion where He would consummate His own self-sacrifice to the Father for our salvation.
Prayer
Father, grant that with Jesus we too may make the whole of our life a prayer of sacrifice to You for the salvation of all. Whenever we fall before reaching this goal, help us rise again until we do reach it: by the example of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit He sends us from You.
The Tenth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Tenth Station: Jesus is Stripped of His Clothes
Meditation
Jesus was stripped of His clothes, of His last personal possessions, and left stark naked before being nailed to the cross to die. This aspect of execution by crucifixion provides an exterior illustration of the essence of contemplative prayer, which is to let go of absolutely everything in surrendering to God, holding back nothing at all. In the garden, Jesus surrendered the last of His will; on the cross, He would surrender what remained of His life. The self-sacrifice of Jesus to His Father was always total, but now it would be consummated.
Prayer
Father, give us the contemplative attitude of mind and heart so perfectly realized in Jesus Your Son that we may cling to nothing but You. Let us be one with Him, who is one with You, that we too may be one with You.
The Eleventh Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
Meditation
In addition to praying with faith and humility and perseverance, Jesus taught us to pray with forgiveness, both seeking forgiveness from those we have wronged and extending forgiveness to those who have wronged us. He had brought His gift to the altar of the cross and had no need to go anywhere else first to be reconciled with another because He alone had never wronged anyone. Now, as He stiffened at the searing pain of the nails being struck through His wrists, His thumbs curling rigidly inward, He realized that His executioners had locked Him into the final grip of death. But this only moved Him to pray for them as He taught us we must for our enemies. He did not condemn but even excused them, asking His father to forgive them because they had no real grasp of what they were doing.
Prayer
Father, let us never forget nor fail to act upon the example of forgiveness and prayer for our enemies that Jesus gave us when His executioners nailed Him to the cross so that we may merit to retain the forgiveness You have given all sinners in Jesus and truly deserve to be called Christian.
The Twelfth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Twelfth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
Meditation
If the cross was a pulpit from which Jesus preached the greatest sermon ever on God’s love for sinners, it was also a prie-dieu on which Jesus prayed Psalms 22 and 31 to their perfect fulfillment. One has to realize that the ancient Jews did not refer to the Psalms by number but by their first or best known line. Psalm 22:1 Reads: “My God, My God, why have You Forsaken Me?” And Psalm 31:5 Reads: “Into Your hands I place My Spirit.” Jesus prayed these Psalms to their perfect fulfillment because they are Psalms in which the faithful servant of God expresses His confidence in God’s ultimate vindication of Him despite the persecution and suffering now heaped upon Him.
Prayer
Father, help us remember always, not just that Jesus prayed on the cross, but also that He perfected all prayer there, making the cross the best of altars upon which He finished the complete surrender of Himself to You that puts us all at one with You.
The Thirteenth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Thirteenth Station: Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross
Meditation
The rigid husk of what had been Jesus was lowered from the cross into the raised and waiting arms of John and Mary and the others. They held His body and kissed His face, but there was nothing. He was not there. Only a wretched remnant of what had been His was among them, torn and punctured, disfigured and discolored, a corpse not fit for a good shroud and new tomb. Did any of them recall His words then, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”?
Prayer
Father, help us to endure through those darkest moments when we seem to have no faith or hope left, just a mortally wounded love that continues to ache for what now seems wholly gone. Let Mary holding the dead body of her beloved Son sustain us during the dark night of the soul until we can experience the risen Jesus among us and the Holy Spirit He sends.
The Fourteenth Station
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, open our minds and hearts now to your presence that we may be renewed in our following of Jesus, Who is the Eternal Radiance of Your Face that You have shone into our darkness to show us the way to union with You.
We make our prayer to You through Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and Your Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and Ever! Amen.
The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
Meditation
They quickly carried the body of Jesus to Joseph’s new tomb hewn out of rock, wrapped it in a shroud, rolled a great stone across the entrance and hurried off to observe the Sabbath rest. Only thereafter could they finish the burial. Little did they realize then that their prayers for the deliverance of Jesus had not only not gone unanswered but had already been more than answered, for their prayers were accepted with Jesus Himself when Jesus, dying on the cross, surrendered His Spirit into the hands of His Father. This would be made manifest to them in the risen Jesus; and it would be made manifest to them soon, already on the third day, and to some of them, even at the crack of dawn on the third day.
Prayer
Father, when our prayers seem to go unanswered, help us to realize that our prayers are answered in Jesus already, frequently in ways that go far beyond our expectations, and also that this is experienced sooner by those who do more to get and stay close to Jesus.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the prayer we have shared here walking together with Jesus the way to Calvary. May we always walk with Him faithfully until we are lifted up by His cross to where He is, at your right hand in glory. We make our prayer to You in His Name, Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen!