Many Christians use the Stations of the Cross liturgy during Lent and Holy Week. We want to draw your attention to some of the many online opportunities to pray using this ancient liturgy.

Online Stations of the Cross for Adults

• Catholic Online has created a version of the Stations of the Cross that is available as a devotion on their website and as a video on YouTube.  This version is highly produced, with professional voice-over, music, and editing. It uses both video footage of religious sites in the Holy Land and actors who silently play the roles in the passion story as the voice-over narrates the events for each station and meditates on these events It starts with a short introduction to the Stations of the Cross; the stations themselves begin a little over two minutes into the video.

• Busted Halo’s Virtual Stations of the Cross offers videos with music and images. Participants read the reflections at each station to themselves.
• Creighton University’s Online Stations of the Cross offers images of each station and prayers that users may read themselves.
• You might also try a virtual pilgrimage through sites in Jerusalem that traditionally have been associated with each of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. The site brings visitors to a numbered map through Jerusalem. At each numbered station on the map, the site offers an introduction to what viewers will find there and a slide slow of the buildings and the markers that designate the site as one of the traditional locations for each station. (Be patient with the slide show; it moves slowly.) After the slide show, viewers are shown an image of the altar associated with each station and invited to pray. Each virtual prayer station includes background music and textual prayers.
• Another video version of the Stations of the Cross utilizes paintings by Pietro Rudolfi of St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco. This version uses sacred chant and voice-over prayers, reading, and meditation.
• You might also enjoy ChurchNext’s course on Praying the Stations of the Cross, in which artist Kathrin Burleson discusses and reflects on her series of fourteen paintings representing the Stations of the Cross. This is not a service so much as an introduction to the devotion and the artist’s reflections on the paintings for each station.
• YouTube offers many other Stations of the Cross resources — too many to list here — some highly produced and some very simple. If you are interested in finding more online Stations of the Cross resources, YouTube is a good place to explore.

Online Stations of the Cross for Children

• Loyola Press offers a multimedia Stations of the Cross for children. Using music, images, and simple meditative text, it offers a child-friendly service that older children who can read can use alone and that younger children can use with their parents’ help.

• The Catholic Online version of the Stations of the Cross described in the section above very clearly addresses the first part of each mediation to children and the second part to adults.
• This is another child-friendly version of the Stations of the Cross. It uses meditations and images appropriate for children.

We hope that these online Stations of the Cross resources help you during Lent and Holy Week this year.