Stations of the Cross at Home, by Jamie Quinlan

From Jamie Quinlan . . .

Stations of the Cross is near and dear to my heart! 

Attending my first Stations of the Cross 10 years ago was the tipping point that made me jump full force into the Catholic Church. That night, ten years ago as I sat in the church listening to the words and seeing the images, tears were streaming and my heart was on fire with compassion, sorrow, love and a deep reverence for the sufferings of Christ. I knew that this was right – the Catholics had it right, I had been missing this! 

We need to take time in our life to mediate, sit, cry and pray with the suffering of Jesus. It opens our hearts and helps us to allow Jesus to sit in the midst of our sufferings. He’s been there, He sees us, He knows what it feels like, we are never alone, He walked The Way of the Cross and we need to be reminded of that. That night ten years ago, I was also struck with how sitting with the suffering of the cross gave me a better perspective on the beauty and glory of the resurrection and what I am promised in that! 

We need the cross to show us the beauty!

All that being said, I love to share the Stations of the Cross with others, especially my kids! I love doing Children’s Stations of the Cross at church because I hope that by sharing “Stations” at their level and their age, they will have a positive experience with these prayers will grow to love it as I do and that it will draw them closer to the Lord as they grow older and deepen their faith.

We also do Stations of the Cross in our home. Whenever we do prayer at home, I try to make it fun, and multifaceted, with songs, words, pictures books, movement and things for little hands to do to keep busy. When we pray The Stations of the Cross at home, we follow this book: A Child’s Guide to the Stations of the Cross by Sue Stanton. You can find it on Amazon, but there are many other good books you can buy.

When we pray the Stations at home, we use those awesome dollar store candles and light a candle as we pray each station! Usually we let one of the older kids light the candles – they love this part. We also try and get the kids to participate with their bodies by kneeling during the opening prayer and then standing or sitting during the reading.

Our older girls are just coming into proficient reading and are very eager to read the stations! I love this – we do have to mix it up with mom and dad reading in between a few times to keep the little ones attention, but the girls gain a lot of confidence as they read and lead the prayers for the family. We also add music, by singing a song at the beginning and at the end of Stations. I am just learning the guitar so many times I’ll play songs that the kids like and are familiar with, but you can just as easily play worship music from any online music site.

Another way we love to pray the Stations of the Cross is with the Holy Heroes Stations of the Cross CD: https://www.holyheroes.com/Lent-Package-p/hh5-set.htm. My kids LOVE this! It is a dramatized audio CD of the Stations of the Cross – you can simply put the CD on and the whole family can pray along with it. You can also get coloring books and prayer books that follow the CD. Sometimes in the afternoon we will play the Stations CD, have a snack and color as we listen – everyone is quiet!

Our family also loves to do art! Generally, once during the season of Lent, we paint the Stations of the Cross! I LOVE doing this! I love to read the titles of the stations to the kids and encourage them to use colors and shapes to depict what they think is important from the station. It’s beautiful to see what they come up with! None of us are super great artists, so I try to keep it simple and abstract – this attempts to limit frustration from the “perfection” art kid (I have one of those 😊). We hang these stations in our hallway and have even prayed the stations by kneeling at the images we painted and reading the book!

A few other ways we have done the Stations of the Cross are below:

· CRS Rice Bowl Video based Stations of the Cross: https://youtu.be/KHq8MSuq2Jc

· A Children’s Video based Stations of the Cross: https://youtu.be/j0qv7c4PsrA

· Stations of the Cross Eggs by Catholic Icing: https://www.catholicicing.com/stations-of-cross-eggs-for-catholic/