Praying Along the Via Lucis

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! There is a new and powerful way by which you can connect spiritually and emotionally with Jesus Christ. Though this devotion has primarily been put into practice by evangelical groups here in the United States and in missions around the world, it has the Vatican’s explicit blessing. It is a devotion variously called the Via Lucis, or “Stations of Light” or “Stations of the Resurrection.”

Weekly during Lent, we trudge in darkness along the Way of the Cross, commemorating the horrific events of Jesus’ Passion. When Lent finally gives way to the Triduum, we are emotionally plunged to the bottom, as we venerate the Holy Cross on Good Friday — only to be raised to the highest peak of Christian exaltation the very next evening at the Easter Vigil Mass. Now, we can prolong that Easter rejoicing, as the Via Lucis begins right where the Via Crucis leaves off — at the tomb of Jesus — and, in this new devotion, the Christ we honor is the risen one.

Let us make a brief comparison of the two “Ways.” The devotion of the Stations of the Cross was initiated by Mary, mother of Jesus, on the evening following Good Friday.¹ It has been carried on over the centuries in different ways, ultimately being standardized by Pope Clement XII in 1731. Together, these 14 stations portray a specific sequence of events on Good Friday, beginning with Jesus’ being judged by Pilate, and ending with His crucifixion. We can follow the Via Crucis in person at virtually any Catholic church using the descriptive plaques, windows, or statues on display there. In fact, the devotion can be practiced anywhere with the aid of one of the many booklets available for that purpose, some with meditations and prayers written by a saint of the Church, such as Josemaría Escrivá, Teresa of Calcutta, or Padre Pio.

The Via Lucis can similarly be followed in 14 “stations,” but, in contrast, these concern events in the afterlife of Jesus. This devotion is so new that it is still in the process of being standardized, and there are few actual physical “stations” for it anywhere and only a limited number of spiritual guides. The devotion appears to have originated in 1988 with Fr. Sabino Palumbieri, a Salesian priest and professor of anthropology at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome, with the first major public celebration occurring in 1990. It was approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW, now known as the Dicastery for Divine Worship) in its lengthy Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001). The CDW commends the Via Lucis as “potentially an excellent pedagogy of the faith, since ‘per crucem ad lucem.’ Using the metaphor of a journey, the Via Lucis moves from the experience of suffering…to the hope of arriving at man’s true end: liberation, joy and peace, which are essentially paschal values” (no. 153).