Why pray the Stations of the Cross?

Faith, Lent & Easter, On 1st February 2022 by CTS Staff

Although the Stations of the Cross is a popular devotion, and while you may pray it with your parish every Lent, it’s helpful to understand how praying the Stations of the Cross can affect not just your own faith, but your daily life.

Here are five reasons to pray the Stations of the Cross:

1. They offer strength in times of suffering.

Praying the Stations of the Cross reminds us that we are not alone in our suffering: Jesus suffers with us. He chose to embrace every aspect of human life, including suffering and death.

2. They instil in us a compassion for those who suffer

We see in the Stations of the Cross how some people mocked Jesus, revealing the worst reactions to the suffering of others. Yet we also have the example of Mary, who stayed close to her Son throughout. In the Stations of the Cross, we are gifted with the ability to see Jesus in those who suffer and therefore to treat the suffering with compassion.

3. They remind us of the vast love of God

Seeing the horror of Jesus’ suffering reminds us of something wonderful: how much He loves us. Jesus endured His Passion because of the love He had for each individual person that would ever live, and so the Stations of the Cross remind us of how much we are loved.

4. They give us a sign of great hope

We know why Jesus suffered and we know what happened afterwards. His suffering and death was not the end of the story. He came back in glory. This is a powerful reminder that for us too, suffering and death are not where it ends. There is so much more.

5. They enable us to feel Jesus’ suffering

For our faith to grow, we need to be able to empathise with Jesus suffering on the cross and feel His pain as though it were happening to ourselves or someone we care deeply about. The Stations of the Cross help us do this by giving us fourteen focal points to meditate on.

The images used in this blog are extracted from our book Stations of the Cross: A Via Dolorosa. With meditations inspired by and written along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, these meditations will enable you too to walk the route where Our Lord carried the load of all the sin of the world.