When do stations begin?

• At 7:00pm on Friday April 4 and April 11 and then at noon on Good Friday, April 18^th.
• Stations of the Cross take about 30 minutes to complete.

Where are station prayed?

• In the main church.  Come in and grab your favorite seat in the pews.

I’ve never done this before, what happens?

• The congregation sits in the pews.
• There are stations of the cross booklets in the back of the church that have all the prayers and readings in them. 
• The booklet we are using will cue you to read wherever it says “All”.  Other parts of the booklet are read by the minister leading the stations and by readers who have volunteered to help. 

What’s that song we sing at the end of each station?

• That’s a verse from the Stabat Mater hymn.  It was written back in the thirteenth-century in Latin, and it means "the Mother was standing."  It describes the Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Jesus’ Passion.
• Feel free to sing along, the melody is easy to learn.

What does praying Stations of the Cross mean?

• The Stations of the Cross are also known as the Way of the Cross or Via Crucis.
• They help us to make a virtual pilgrimage to the places and events of Jesus’ last day before his crucifixion. 
• The practice began as pilgrims to the Holy Land would trace Jesus’ path through Jerusalem on the Via Dolorosa (“Way of Suffering” in Latin), a road in the old city of Jerusalem, where Jesus walked carrying the cross to Calvary.
• For those who could not make a trip to Jerusalem, a practice developed that eventually took the form of praying at fourteen stations that represent the stops made on the Via Dolorosa. Stations of the Cross are found in almost every Catholic church.
• The devotion is carried out by moving from Station to Station, with certain prayers or readings at each and devout meditation on what happened at each station.

Is there an indulgence for praying the stations?

• Yes, there is and it’s a plenary indulgence, which means it remits all the temporal punishment for those sins we have sacramentally confessed.
• To gain a plenary indulgence, one must perform the work attached to the indulgence (praying and meditating on the Stations of the Cross), make a sacramental confession, receive Holy Communion, and pray for the intentions of the Holy Father (reciting one Our Father and one Hail Mary, or any other suitable prayer).  The conditions may be met several days before or after performing the work of the indulgence.
• You can learn more about indulgences and how they work and what they do here: https://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-are-indulgences/