My love of art and architecture has taken me to many beautiful and fascinating churches locally and overseas. In almost every Catholic Church, from the most ornate imposing cathedral to the humblest rural chapel, I am fascinated by the Stations of the Cross. These series may be in the form of paintings, icons, sculptures, mosaics, tapestries, stained glass or just a set of plaques or numerals. Some are classic, some modern, some abstract, some primitive or naive. They are usually found around the church nave; others can be seen in monastery cloisters, cemeteries, or in outside shrines on footpaths. They are found not only in Roman Catholic buildings, but also in some Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist churches. Typically, the Stations of the Cross (also known as Way of the Cross or Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis) are a series of 14 images depicting the Passion of Christ and his crucifixion. Many Catholics and others use these images to pray, reciting specific prayers, and to meditate on the last hours of Christ, a mini pilgrimage, as they move from station to station. At each station, the person reflects on a specific event from Christ’s last day. This practice originated from early Christian pilgrims in 13th century who visited Jerusalem and walked the Via Dolorosa (Latin for way of suffering), the supposed path Jesus walked to Mount Calvary or Golgotha. However, as a trip to the Holy Land was (and still is) beyond the means of most people, the Stations of the Cross originated as Christians marked their own devotion and sorrow in their home churches. Apparently St Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans popularised the devotion after it became too dangerous to make pilgrimages to the holy places in Jerusalem. From that time onwards, western art has reflected the well-known iconography of the Stations, and artists were attracted to the themes – Fra Angelico, Rubens, Raphael, Bruegel, Memling, Tintoretto, Titian, Caravaggio, Jan van Eyck, even Damien Hirst. This has become one of the most popular devotions, commonly done individually or in a procession or group, during the season of Lent, and especially on Good Friday. The devotions can involve standing, kneeling and genuflections and reflect a spirit of reparation for the sufferings and insults that Jesus endured during his Passion, as well as the Christian themes of repentance and mortification of the flesh. Only eight of the 14 traditional Stations of the Cross have a clear scriptural foundation. Although not traditionally part of the series, the Resurrection of Jesus is sometimes included as an unofficial fifteenth station.

The series of stations is as follows:

  1. Jesus is condemned to death
  2. Jesus takes up his cross
  3. Jesus falls the first time
  4. Jesus meets his mother
  5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross
  6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
  7. Jesus falls for the second time
  8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
  9. Jesus falls for the third time
  10. Jesus is stripped of his garments
  11. Jesus is nailed to the cross
  12. Jesus dies on the cross
  13. Jesus is taken down from the cross
  14. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

The prayers and scriptures related to each station can be found on various Catholic websites. As musical accompaniment a few verses of the “Stabat Mater”, composed in the 13th Century by Franciscan Jacopone da Todi, are often sung after each Station during Lent and Good Friday in Catholic churches. Franz Liszt wrote a Via Crucis for choir, soloists and piano or organ or harmonium in 1879.

During this time of Lent leading up to Good Friday, I invite you to consider the last tragic earthly hours of Christ by a contemplation of the 14 stations. There are many well-known ones by famous artists, but I have chosen two unusual series:

THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS BY VIRGINIA MAKSYMOWICZ, an American artist. She was commissioned by St Thomas Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the USA and completed in the 2005. She says it is her “own contemporary vision to an artistic form that dates back to the 13th century”. Each piece is about 61 cm square and were cast from life using a fast-setting gypsum.

HENRI MATISSE

Everything in the exquisite Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France, from its glorious stained glass windows and portraits of St Dominic and the Virgin and Child, to the altar, vestments, liturgical objects, was designed by the French artist Henri Matisse. Then in his 70s, he was frail by this time, recovering from cancer, and worked from a wheelchair. Using a long stick with a brush strapped to his arm, he drew the almost childlike silhouette outlines onto construction paper 25 hanging on a wall and skilled craftsmen then transferred these images onto white tiles. This is not a physical journey like the individual Stations in a church, but an internal pilgrimage by the viewer as all 14 Stations are depicted in a cohesive composition on the back wall of the chapel. The numbered series begins at the bottom left and ends in the three central images (raising of the cross, crucifixion itself and taking the body of Christ down) at the top in the centre.

Christa Berhammer-Böhmer