I understand Protestants do not pray the Stations of the Cross in the way Catholics do. One Protestant friend told me that this is because some of the stations do not have a biblical source, and that during the reformation the “baby was thrown out with the bathwater” so to speak.
Can anyone confirm that this is the reason why Protestants do not pray the Stations of the Cross, and if so which stations they feel do not have a Biblical basis.
AFAIK, the current practice of praying to the Stations of the Cross emerged from the laity, and didn’t take its current form until roughly the time of Martin Luther - or even later. It is hardly surprising that many Protestants didn’t adopt a practice which did not yet have official standing in the Catholic Church or elsewhere, and may not even have existed (in a single formalized form) yet.
The Catholic Encyclopedia article recounting the history of “Passion of Christ” has thIs to say: “The people, of course, lagged far behind the mystics and the religious orders, but they followed in their wake; and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we have innumerable illustrations of the adoption by the laity of new practices of piety to honour Our Lord’s Passion. One of the most fruitful and practical was that type of spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Jerusalem, which eventually crystalized into what is now known to us as the “Way of the Cross”.”
Oops, I meant to add “[emphasis mine]”
I have no idea why different groups do or do not meditate on the Stations of the Cross. (It could have been cast off as too much ritual (another Protestant complaint) as easily as being non-biblical. There is also the association with various indulgences being associated with the Way which would have been anathema to Protestants.)
Several of the Stations are taken from extra-biblical traditions, generally associated with sites around locations in Jerusalem where particular events are supposed to have occurred. The “non-biblical” events are the three falls, the meeting with Mary on the street before the crucifixion, and the wiping of the face of Jesus by the legendary St. Veronica.
1 Jesus condemned to death; *Mt 27:26 Mk 15:15 Lk 22:24-25 Jn 19:16*
2 the cross is laid upon him; * (implied in Mt, Mk, Lk) Jn 19:17*
3 His first fall; *(tradition that Jesus fell three times)*
4 He meets His Blessed Mother; * (in Jn 19:26, Jesus addresses Mary from the cross)*
5 Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross; *Mt 27:32 Mk 15:21 Lk 22:26
6 Christ's face is wiped by Veronica; *legend -- the name Veronica means "true image" and refers to the image of his face being miraculously preserved on the cloth she used.*
7 His second fall; *(tradition that Jesus fell three times)*
8 He meets the women of Jerusalem; Lk 22:27-31*
9 His third fall; *(tradition that Jesus fell three times)*
10 He is stripped of His garments; *Mt 27:35 Mk 15:24 Lk 22:34 Jn 19:23*
11 His crucifixion; *Mt 27:35 Mk 15:24 Lk 22:33 Jn 19:23*
12 His death on the cross; *Mt 27:50 Mk 15:36 Lk 22:46 Jn 19:30*
13 His body is taken down from the cross; *Mt 27:59 Mk 15:46 Lk 22:52 Jn 19:38*
14 His body is laid in the tomb. *Mt 27:60 Mk 15:46 Lk 22:52 Jn 19:40-42*
A history of the Via Crucis is found in the Catholic Encyclopedia - The Way of the Cross
Tomndeb, thanks. Your suggestion that certain stations were taken from extra-Biblical sources is what I suspected. However, you provide Biblical references to even these stations. Can you elaborate on the Protestant opposition to these?
BTW, I understood the practice to have originated as early as the 4th Century after actual pilgrimages to Jerusalem became impossible after the Muslims took Jerusalem.
OK, I’m gonna ask a totally ignorant question: what does “praying to the stations of the cross” mean? I wasn’t raised Christian although I have a basic understanding of the Bible (I’ve read the Story Bibles by Pearl S. Buck so I would have some understanding of the narrative). Do you pray to different locations on the cross? Or specific locations of the world? Or is it just certain things you think about while praying?
Neither in fact.
I was raised a Catholic, but no longer practice(sp?).
I remember going to the “Stations of the Cross” every Good Friday (The Friday before Easter Sunday, traditionally the day of the crucifixion of Christ) and praying the stations.
There are 12 stations, each depicting a place on the journey of Christ to Clavary, as outlined above bytomndebb.
Each station is shown in every church as a kind of plaque on the wall, at equal intervals around the interior wall of the church, as far as I remember starting to the left as you walk in, and continuing on around to the 12th which would be at the right hand side of the door.(other peoples MMV).
Now, as far as I remember, each station has a different prayer, or at least you say a prayer at each station, it took about 45 mins to complete in my local church.
Each station would represent a different stage on Christ’s journey to being killed, so I suppose one would be supposed to be reflecting on this at each station?
I have never heard of protestants not observing this tradition…then again, I don’t think I know any protestants personally.
The ‘stations’ originated from European pilgrims going the Holy Land and walking the “Via Dolorosa” (Sorrowful Way), i.e., the route of Jesus from Pilate’s palace to the Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. They would stop along the way at specific ‘stations’ to comemmorate the events of Jesus’ passion. There are actual places one can see marked to this day where the medieval pilgrims stopped for the stations.
These pilgrims brought this practice back home to the churches, and from there the devotion grew in popularity (especially in Catholic churches). As with most popular devotions of the middle ages, scriptural accuracy was not a concern.
How one ‘prays’ the stations can vary greatly. Most Stations have pictoral representation of each station. One can simply move from station to station and meditate on the representation with personal prayer. There are hundreds of different written rituals with set prayers and written meditations and accompanying hymns. An internet search will provide you with many samples.
Peace.
What biblical references did I link to the tradition of Jesus falling three times or of some woman, later assigned the name Veronica, wiping the face of Jesus? I’m confused.
As to the Protestant objections: as I noted, I suspect that their objections had less to do with Scriptural authority and more to do with Catholic ritual and the association of indulgences with the prayers. The Calvinists were quite offended by the ceremony and ritual that they saw the Catholics using, considering it pagan in origin and unecessarily imitative of pagan pomp and ceremony. The Lutherans, of course, would have been quite upset at the notion of any indulgence attached to any activity.
You can get a fairly decent overview of the history of the meditation in the Catholic Encyclopedia article to which I linked. (NITPICK: There could not have been any Muslim interference with pilgrims in the fourth century as Islam did not arise until the seventh century.) It is probably more accurate to note that few nobles and no peasants could afford a journey from Europe to the Middle East in the fourth century (or any century up to the 20th) and that the tradition arose in an attempt to re-create the experience of the Via Crucis locally for any Europeans.
Not “praying to the stations of the Cross,” just “praying the stations of the Cross.” It is a meditation on the Passion of Jesus during which one prays–to God.