Do you long to draw closer to Jesus? Maybe go on a pilgrimage visiting the places he did. Walk where he walked. Perhaps walk the Via Dolorosa (The Sorrowful Way). You’re not alone, our Blessed Mother longed for the same thing.
According to tradition, towards the end of her life the Blessed Virgin moved [680 miles] from Jerusalem to Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey). No longer able to retrace the steps of her Son’s Passion where they actually occurred, she set up an identical Stations of the Cross on her property using stones and markings. This became the first devotional Stations of the Cross. This is described in detail by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich according to her visions, below:
THE VIRGIN MARY ERECTS THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS
AT HER HOME IN EPHESUS
“Behind the house, at a little distance up the hill, the Blessed Virgin had made a kind of Way of the Cross. When she was living in Jerusalem, she had never failed, ever since Our Lord’s death, to follow His path to Calvary with tears of compassion. She had paced out and measured all the distances between the Stations of that Via Crucis, and her love for her Son made her unable to live without this constant contemplation of His sufferings.
Soon after her arrival at her new home [in Ephesus] I saw her every day climbing part of the way up the hill behind her house to carry out this devotion. At first she went by herself, measuring the number of steps, so often counted by her, which separated the places of Our Lord’s different sufferings.
At each of these places she put up a stone, or, if there was already a tree there, she made a mark upon it. The way led into a wood, and upon a hill in this wood she had marked the place of Calvary, and the grave of Christ in a little cave in another hill. After she had marked this Way of the Cross with twelve Stations, she went there with her maidservant in quiet meditation: at each Station they sat down and renewed the mystery of its significance in their hearts, praising the Lord for His love with tears of compassion.
Afterwards she arranged the Stations better, and I saw her inscribing on the stones the meaning of each Station, the number of paces and so forth. I saw, too, that she cleaned out the cave of the Holy Sepulcher and made it a place for prayer. At that time I saw no picture and no fixed cross to designate the Stations, nothing but plain memorial stones with inscriptions, but afterwards, as the result of constant visits and attention, I saw the place becoming increasingly beautiful and easy of approach. After the Blessed Virgin’s death I saw this Way of the Cross being visited by Christians, who threw themselves down and kissed the ground.”
When Mary’s house in Ephesus was found using Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich’s visions as a guide, they also reportedly found her Way of the Cross behind the house. The same Stations of the Cross that are erected in every Catholic Church, and which is traditionally prayed by Christians on Fridays—especially during Lent—is our spiritual heritage given to us directly from our Blessed Mother. This is why it is also called the Via Dolorosa, or the Sorrowful Way, and is commonly prayed with the Stabat Mater Dolorosa hymn to Our Lady of Sorrows. It is her contemplation which gave us this treasure to bring us closer to the heart of her Son.
St. Isidore’s Stations of the Cross are located in the Holy Spirit Wing of the church. Please feel free to visit them, walk with Jesus, pray and contemplate them as our Blessed Mother did. For your use, Stations of the Cross booklets are now available at the first station.
