Via Dolorosa

Mark D. Roberts, a Presbyterian, posts about the use of the "Stations of the Cross" as a devotional guide during Lent:

As near as I can remember, I first became aware of The Stations of the Cross while on vacation in San Francisco, California. As I visited St. Mary's Cathedral, I noticed around the sanctuary of the church a series of visual reminders of Jesus's last hours. These seemed to encourage the Catholic faithful in their personal devotion. ....

In 2003, millions of people became familiar with the traditional Stations of the Cross without even knowing it. These stations provided the structure for Mel Gibson's blockbuster film, The Passion of the Christ. Little did many of us know that as Jesus fell three times while carrying His cross in the movie, or as He met His mother, that He was doing that which Roman Catholic tradition had popularized for centuries through The Stations of the Cross.

The origin of this tradition is not entirely clear, though it seems to be associated with Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the early Christian centuries. ... [S]ince the vast majority of Christians were not able to go to Jerusalem to pray in the actual location where Jesus was crucified, The Way of the Cross enabled them to engage in a mini-pilgrimmage of sorts....

When I first followed The Stations of the Cross, I related readily to about half of the scenes. But the other half seemed odd to me because the statues depicted unfamiliar events, including: three falls of Jesus, an encounter between Jesus and His Mother, and an encounter between Jesus and a woman named Veronica. These stations were not derived directly from Scripture, but rather from ancient church tradition. Though I wasn't offended by the traditional nature of the unfamiliar scenes, since they were in no way contrary to Scripture, I found myself more drawn to the seven stations that were clearly based on the biblical record. ....

Well, as it turns out, Pope John Paul II seems to have shared my concern about the lack of biblical foundation for the traditional Stations of the Cross.... [I]n 1991 the Pope himself instituted a new series of fourteen Stations of Cross, each of which was based on Scripture alone....

Last year some folks at my church decided to offer The Stations of the Cross as a devotional experience for Holy Week. For obvious reasons, we opted for the Pope's biblically-based version. .... For many members of my church and community it was a precious time of drawing near to the Lord in anticipation of Good Friday and Easter. We're going to do the same thing this year.

Source: Mark D. Roberts: The Stations of the Cross: Introduction