History Of Stations Of The Cross

History Of Stations Of The Cross. . , Tradition tells us that Jesus's mother Mary made the first Way of the Cross. On Holy Saturday, the day after Jesus was crucified, Mary walked the sorrowful path which her Son had walked the day before, thinking sadly of all that had taken place. Mary made daily visits to the sites of her Son's sufferings, death, and resurrection following His ascension into heaven. Later Mary, the disciples, and the holy women often walked that way in prayer and remembrance, visiting the scenes of the Savior's passion. Early Christian pilgrims followed the example of Mary and the disciples and journeyed to Jerusalem to walk in the footsteps of Christ on the road to Calvary., Christians came in such vast numbers to walk the Way of the Cross at Jerusalem, that the Emperor Hadrian (117-138) built a pagan temple on Mount Calvary In order to keep the pilgrims away. After 250 years of persecution, in the year 313, Emperor Constantine permitted Christians to legally worship in the Roman Empire. Pilgrims were now free to go to Jerusalem and walk "Jesus's Passion." In 325 St. Helena found the true Cross of Christ on Calvary. She had a Christian church built on the spot where Emperor Hadrian's pagan temple had stood. In 335, Emperor Constantine erected the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at the site where Jesus tomb was believed to have been. More processions of pilgrims to this church began Soon after its completion. There was such a mighty flow of people to these holy places that Jerusalem became the greatest pilgrimage site in the world. St. Jerome (347-420) speaks of the crowds of pilgrims from all countries who visited these holy places., At an early date, a desire arose to reproduce these holy places in other lands, in order to satisfy the devotion of those who were hindered from making the actual pilgrimage. At the monastery of San Stefano at Bologne, St. Petronius, Bishop of Bologna, constructed a group of connected chapels which were intended to represent the more important shrines of Jerusalem. Perhaps, these may be regarded as the genesis or beginning from which the Stations of the Cross developed., After the Crusades (1098-1492) and the fall of the Holy Land into the hands of the infidel Turks, the pilgrimage to the Holy Land could only be made in great danger and with much difficulty. To replace an actual pilgrimage many people began practicing devout and pious meditation of the Stations of the Cross. This practice was greatly enhanced with the visual representations of the Passion., Devotion to the Way of the Cross began earnestly, in 1842 after the Franciscans were granted custody of Christian sites in Jerusalem. Entrusted with guardianship of these holy places, the Franciscans introduced a devotion to the Stations of the Cross in Europe. This devotion was in place of actually going to the Holy Land and the devotion soon spread all over the world., The earliest use of the word "Stations," describing this devotion, occurs in the narrative of an English pilgrim, William Wey, who visited the Holy Land in 1458 and again in 1462. He describes the manner in which it was then usual to follow the footsteps of Christ in His sorrowful journey. The manner of meditating on or reenacting Christ's crucifixion in this way became known as the "Stations of the Cross. The object of the Stations of the Cross was to help the faithful to make in spirit, a pilgrimage to the important scenes of Christ's sufferings and death., For many years, there was a question of the number of stations to be used in the Way of the Cross, also known as the Stations of the Cross. The Way of the Cross of Louvain in 1595, by Peter Sterckx had 8 stations. When Romanet Boffin visited Jerusalem in 1515 for the purpose of obtaining correct details for his set of Stations of the Cross at Romans, two friars there told him that there should be 31 in all. But in different versions of manuals used for these stations, the number of stations vary from 19, 25, and 37. The manuscript of Saint-Trond (1550) mentions 12 episodes or places. Even more important for the subsequent development of the Stations of the Cross were John Pascha's book, "Spiritual Pilgrimage" (1563), where his stations 4 through 15 correspond to the present order of the Way of the Cross. The 1435 account by Hans Lochner mentions the addition of Veronica and the daughters of Jerusalem to the Sorrowful Way. A book entitled "Jerusalem sicut Christi tempore floruit, a written reconstruction of John Pascha's stations by one Adrichomius published in 1584, gives 12 stations which correspond exactly with the first 12 in use today. This fact is thought by some to point to the origin of the particular selection of stations afterwards authorized by the Church, especially as this book had a wide circulation and was translated into several European languages., During the sixteenth century, a number of devotional manuals, giving prayers for use when making the Stations of the Cross, were published in the Low Countries, and some of the 14 stations used today appear in them for the first time., In 1686, Pope Innocent XI, realizing that few people could travel to the Holy Land due to the Moslem (Muslim) oppression, granted the right to erect stations in all Franciscan churches with depletion of the events described in the Stations of the Cross., It was St. Leonard (1676-1751) of Port Maurice (or Porto Maurizio), Italy, a Franciscan of the Riformella, who formalized what we now know as the 14 Stations of the Cross., In 1691, Pope Clement XII allowed all churches, not just Franciscan churches, to have Stations of the Cross. He confirmed the number of stations at 14, which is the number of stations we have had ever since., During St. Leonard's long life as missionary, he erected more than 570 Stations of the Cross between the years of 1731 and 1751. Pope Benedict XIV specifically urged every church in 1742 to enrich its sanctuary with stations., In 1787 St. Alphonsus Ligouri wrote the version of the Stations of the Cross that most Americans recognize. It was used in most churches in the United States throughout the 19th and 20th centuries., The memory of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection has always been central to the Christian message. To prayerfully make the Way of the Cross enables us more literally to obey Christ's words, "to take up our cross and follow Him."