Master Stations of the Cross

7/31/2019 Master Stations of the Cross

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1The Stations

of the Cross


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The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,

begotten, not made, of one being with the Father;

through Him all things were made.

For us and for our salvationhe came down from heaven

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures;

he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

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The First StationJesus is Condemned to Death

Jesus, you stand before Pontius Pilate, one of the powerful ones and

your judge. What do you feel when he tells you that you will be tortured to

death on the Cross? Do you feel like shouting out your innocence? If you

feel like that, we know that you keep quiet because you know that this painand suffering will somehow save us. You know that your innocence itselfwill save us who are guilty of so many sins.

When I feel my hands chained in a courtroom, let me know that your

hands, Lord, were tied roughly when you were made to stand before Pilate.

When I come before judges, Lord Jesus, let me feel that you are near to me.

When I hear my sentence, dont let me despair; instead let me trust that you

will be with me in every-thing that happens to me. Innocent or guilty, I give

my life into the Fathers hands as you did.Pray the Our Father, if you know it. (found on page 2)

The Second Station

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Jesus Takes Up His Cross

Lord Jesus, you told your disciples that, to follow you, they had to

take up their crosses and follow you every day. Now a huge cross is thrownon your shoulders which are already bloody from the whipping they gave

you. The blood pours down your back and stains the ground that you stumbleon. What gives you the strength and courage to carry this cross for us? What

makes you put up with the pain for us who cause so much pain in others?

Jesus, in my cell, let my heart change as I think of the cross that

crushes and bloodies you. Lord Jesus, let me promise you that I will not causeothers pain, that I will try my hardest not to be a heavy, a bloody, cross for

others to carry. Jesus, my Savior, here locked away, I will try to take up my

cross, as heavy as it seems to me, and I will carry it without anger or hatred or

bitterness. I will follow you! Our Father. . .

The Third Station

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Jesus Falls for the First Time

Jesus, I imagine that the cross is so heavy, your back is so shredded

and your body so drained by lack of sleep and loss of blood that you stumbleand fall. The soldiers surround you and beat you until you get to your feet.

You were always compassionate to people who were weak and sinful. Nowthere is no compassion for you, just a huge cruelty and brutality.

Jesus, I have stumbled and I have fallen many times. Thats probably

why I am where I am now. Please, dont let the cruelty of the soldiers stop

you from being compassionate and forgiving to someone like me. Pleasedont learn the lesson that caring for the weak and the fallen is a waste of

time. Look with mercy on me who has fallen. And help me, Lord, to never

gang up on anyone else who has fallen or sinned, no matter what they have

done. Let me be as forgiving as you were. Our Father. . .

The Fourth Station

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Jesus Meets His Mother

Lord Jesus, we know that your mother stood by your cross. Did shesee you led through the streets of Jerusalem like an animal on its way to the

slaughterhouse? Did you catch a glimpse of her exhausted face as she called

out your name, not believing that this was the son she loved with all her heart

being dragged and shoved to his horrible death? Did your heart break as yousaw her heart breaking with pain and grief?

Jesus, when I have gotten visits, I have often seen the pain and thetears that my family feels when they see me. Sometimes, Lord, it is harder to

take than my own frustration at being locked up. Sometimes I think back to

things that I did to hurt my family, or ways that I didnt help or that I ignored

them, and my heart wants to break with guilt. Lord Jesus, help me to be as

good to my loved ones now as I can and strengthen them in this hard time.

Our Father. . . .

The Fifth Station

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Simon Helps Jesus

Lord Jesus, the Bible tells us of a man who was forced to help you

carry your cross when the soldiers became afraid that you might die beforethey could nail you to the cross. His name was Simon of Cyrene. I think you

must have looked at him with gratitude when he lifted the cross off your

shoulders and placed it on his own. You must have thanked your Father that

even at this time of greatest trial, he sent someone to help you, a worker,

someone just coming in from working in the fields.

The other inmates around me, Lord, also carry many heavy loads:their fears for their families, their sins and sense of guilt, the uncertainty of

their future, anger, frustration and sadness. Lord Jesus, show me how to help

them carry these crosses. Make me strong enough not to shut myself in my

own world, but let me reach out to others with your help. Our Father. . . .

The Sixth Station

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Veronica Wipes Jesus Face

Lord Jesus, there is a story that has been passed down through thecenturies of a woman named Veronica who saw your face covered with

blood, sweat, and spit, almost blind from the abuse. She was so sad because

of your suffering that she broke through the soldiers and wiped your face with

the veil that covered her head. As a miracle, she found that a picture of yoursuffering face was pressed into her veil.

I dont know about the truth of this story, but I do know that I wouldlike to be so filled with sadness at your suffering that I would try to do

something about it. I want to see in anyone who suffers or is in pain an image

of you, Lord Jesus. In seeing you in them, let me never want to hurt them

because they are weak, but rather let me pray for them and try to make their

suffering lighter if I can. Let me see your face, Lord, in everyone who

suffers. Our Father. . .

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The Seventh StationJesus Falls for the Second Time

Lord Jesus, I think that your body begins to break down. One shove

more and you fall and hit the ground again. They kick you and whip you and

you slowly pull yourself up. I wonder if you begin to feel that you might betoo weak to make it to their planned way of killing you. Are our sins also a

weight on your body, a sadness in your soul?Here, locked away, O Lord, I have turned my life over to you. But

Lord I still fall, and sometimes I fall heavily. The good way of life you call

me to, sometimes it seems far away. Sometimes I give in to my own

weakness, my own way of still being trapped by the ways I used to live

before I came to know you. I fall and I fail you. Lord, dont give up on me.

Be at my side to lift me up and put me on the right path again. Help me toask for forgiveness and start again on your path. Our Father . . .

The Eighth Station

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Jesus Comforts the Weeping Women

Lord Jesus, the Bible tells us that you comforted a group of your

friends who met you on the way to your death. Your spiritual strength is

incredible because you think of them and their sorrow in the midst of yourown torture. You continue the work that brought you to us right until your

last moments.Show me, Lord, how to comfort my loved ones in my situation. Let

me be patient and understanding with them, let me never start arguing with

them, and if they speak harshly, let me respond peacefully. Help me to love

them and not to control them or make demands. Comfort my family andbring it lots of peace as we face my time of incarceration. Make us a stronger

family, but, if, Lord, that doesnt happen, though I really want it, then comfort

me and help me to continue to love them as I feel their distance from me andmy loss of them. Our Father. . .

The Ninth Station

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Jesus Falls for the Third Time

Jesus, you reach the place where they will kill you and you fall onelast time. All your life has been headed in this direction, to this hill named

Golgotha, the place of the Skull. As you lie there, I think you give your life

into God, your Fathers hands, another time. Your will, O Father, not mine .

. . you say. Your life and your death you have given over to the Father.

Lord Jesus, teach me to surrender my life into the Fathers hands. Let

me place in his hands the anger I feel inside me, the frustration of being here,all my temptations, my hopes and my fears, the darkness and sadness that

sometimes surrounds me, all the misunderstanding that comes my way, all the

other inmates I see every day. Everything in my life, Lord, I surrender into

the hands of the Father, and ask only that he send me his love, his forgivenessand his peace. Our Father . . .

The Tenth Station

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Jesus is Stripped of His Clothes

Lord Jesus, in a mechanical way they prepare to kill you, and firstthey want to humiliate you one last time. They tear the clothes off you,

opening your wounds on your back again and exposing your body for anyone

to mock and disrespect you. In all this, the Bible tells us you are silent like a

sheep who is led to slaughter.Lord Jesus, there will always be people who disrespect me, officers

and inmates who open old wounds of anger or hardness in my heart and makeme want to respond to them with violence in word and action. Here,

disrespect can become a game of power or strength or toughness. Jesus, show

me how to act as you did on the way to your death. Let me find the greatest

strength from you that has ever been: the strength of living quietly respectful

in the midst of so much disrespect. Our Father . . .

The Eleventh Station

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Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross

Lord Jesus, what goes through your mind as they throw you to the

ground and kneel on your arms so that they can steadily drive iron nails into

each of your hands, as they tie your legs to the cross so that they can force

your feet together and pound the nails through them and smash them tightagainst the wooden board? Are you even able to think as your brain isattacked by so much pain, a pain that becomes even worse when they pull the

cross upright and your whole bodys weight falls suddenly and horribly on

your nailed hands and feet? You stay on that cross, leaning forward,

suffering because each breath you take means that you must pull on your

nailed hands and push up on your bloody feet.

Lord Jesus, I know that I will never suffer as you did, and you did itbecause you loved me. Just help me to be faithful to you. Our Father. . .

The Twelfth Station

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Jesus Dies

Lord Jesus, the end comes for you more quickly than they expect. In

you there is no fight to stay alive, to hold onto life. All is in your Fathers

hands; everything has always been in your Fathers hands. But for us, the

light goes out. The person who had made God the whole center of his life,

the one who had brought forgiveness to those who were hated, the one whohad spoken the good news to the poor and the sick hangs dead on a cross,

dead on a device of torture and cruelty so evil it seems hard to believe we

people could invent it.

Lord Jesus, as I think about your death, I ask forgiveness for anything

I have done to hurt anyone. I place at the foot of your cross anyone who is a

victim of what I have done. I ask you to bless them and keep them close to

you, and I ask that you change me so that no one else will ever be a victim ofmy actions. Our Father . . .

The Thirteenth Station

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Jesus is Taken from the Cross

Lord Jesus, they take your body from the cross and place it in your

mothers arms; she holds you for a few moments. Does she remember how

she held you when you were a baby or little boy? Do her clothes becomestained with the blood that flowed from a hundred places on your body? And

does she wonder how there could be so much cruelty in the world that theycould want to hurt you so badly? Does she tear the crown of thorns from

your head and throw the evil thing that others thought so funny into the

bloody mud at the foot of your cross?

Lord Jesus, wake up within me a little compassion for all the womenwho suffer from the sufferings of their children. Let me know a little of their

grief and sorrow. Let me sense it in the sadness of your mother at your death.

Let me live in way that I will not add any sorrow to the sorrow of any othermother. Our Father . . .

The Fourteenth Station

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Jesus is Buried

Lord Jesus, your friends do what they can to clean up your body; theybury you in a borrowed tomb. When the stone rolls over the entrance,

weeping and exhausted they walk slowly away and wonder how the light of

the world could be put out by the forces of darkness. It must have seemed

that their lives also had ended with yours at Calvary. There was nothing tolive for since they did not see the glory of your Easter rising rushing at them

from three days away.Lord Jesus, where I am now often seems like a tomb, like a complete

end of my life, the death of every hope and dream I ever had. How can I get

through this time, Lord? Even if I get through it, my future often looks empty

or like an endless series of more problems. Send me, O Lord, the glory of

your rising to fill me with hope. Fill me with your glory and peace, Jesus my

Friend, my Savior, my Lord. Our Father . . .

The Fifteenth Station

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Jesus rises in Glory, Victorious overDeath

At what could be a last station we are lifted from our despair as we see

Christ risen from the dead. The tomb is opened and the stone rolled back.

He is not there but is risen. It was not the end of their dreams but the

beginning of a life they never knew possible. He appeared to many of His

friends and empowered them to go out and preach the good news - He will bewith us always. If death had been His end, we would have thought him amere man. But now we see that He is more than man. He is our God in the

flesh of man. Now our lives take on new meaning. We can bear our

difficulties with faith that He is with us and hope for the new & better life

born out of times of trial and with love - the love He showed us and which we

pass on.Our Father...

O my Lord Jesus, through your passion and death you gave new life to

the world; deliver us from our sins and from all evil, help us to live according

to your wishes, and do not let us ever be separated from You, Who lives and

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reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: Arentyou the Christ? Save yourself and us! But the other criminal [St.Dismas] rebuked him. Dont you fear God, he said, since you areunder the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we aregetting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing

wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come intoyour kingdom. Jesus answered him, I tell you the truth, today youwill be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:39-43)

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Master Stations of the Cross

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