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).

There is general agreement, but no uniformity, among different versions of the Via Lucis in citing New Testament verses as the basis for the stations. The following is the typical listing:

I. Jesus rises from the dead
II. The disciples find the empty tomb
III. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene
IV. Jesus walks with the disciples to Emmaus
V. Jesus reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread
VI. Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem
VII. Jesus gives His disciples the power to forgive sins
VIII. Jesus confirms the Apostle Thomas in his faith
IX. Jesus appears to His disciples at Galilee
X. Jesus confers primacy on Peter
XI. Jesus entrusts His disciples with a universal mission
XII. Jesus ascends to Heaven
XIII. Mary and the disciples await the Holy Spirit
XIV. The Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost

Texts for observing the devotion are available for free online. Generally, for each station there is a scriptural reference of a verse or two as an anchor, a meditation, and a prayer or “application.”² One fine text with meditations, “Via Lucis: The Paschal Way of the Light,” written by Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P., appeared in print in Magnificat (April 2013) and is currently available at the website of St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Calgary (st-bernadette.net/prayers.php). There are at least three free online versions of the Via Lucis that are accompanied by illustrations.³

For those who want a traditional Way-of-the-Cross type of booklet to use while praying, here are three excellent ones:

•  Via Lucis: Stations of the Resurrection (Catholic Truth Society, 2002) by the aforementioned Fr. Palumbieri.

This booklet features illustrations of modern bas-relief plaques from a sanctuary in Pompei, Italy. Each station begins with a responsorial verse:

V. “We adore you and bless you, O Risen Lord.”
R. “Because by your death and resurrection you have given life to the world.”

For each station there is the relevant biblical passage, a meditation on the verses, an excellent further meditation relating it to the present day, and some brief, well-chosen words by the priest/leader. An excerpt from the meditation on the journey to Emmaus reads: “The disciples were sad because he was dead; we remain sad despite knowing that he lives. Faced with the events of our own lives, we remain paralyzed. We have missed the central point. God accompanies us on our way, he guides us, chides us, and surprises us, empathizes with us, and yet we fail to trust in him.” (Unfortunately, the booklet was published in London, with distribution in the United States nominally by Ignatius. There are no new copies available from either.)

•  Stations of the Resurrection: Meditations on the Fourteen Resurrection Appearances (Morehouse Publishing, 1999) by Raymond Chapman, an Anglican priest.

Using the 14 stations, each with a woodblock illustration and an opening Scripture verse, followed by a thanksgiving, the late Rev. Chapman presents exceptionally fine meditations. That for the first station ends: “I need my own little personal earthquake to remind me that all this is true. I am not just remembering an episode in history…. I am praising the falling of a dark wall that marked the end of life, the opening of a barred gate between living once and living eternally. Dear Risen Lord, please roll away the stone from my heart.”

•  Stations of the Resurrection: The Way to Life (Liguori Publications, 2007) by Terry Tastard, a priest of the Westminster Diocese in England.

The stations are magnificently illustrated in the style of Russian Orthodox icons by the celebrated English painter Caroline Lees. Apart from Fr. Tastard’s well-thought-out commentaries and the gorgeous art, this version is unusual in that a number of the 14 stations are not the commonly named ones, though they are all relevant and well founded in Scripture or doctrine. For example, the first one is the perfect bridge between the entombment of Jesus and His Resurrection: it depicts the Descent of Jesus into Hell.⁴ Fr. Tastard offers a fine meditation on that icon, focusing on the rescue of Adam and Eve, which ends by referring to the almost unseen figures at the bottom of the pit, still huddled in the darkness: “These shadowy figures remind us that there are others still locked in a world of sadness and oppression, waiting for Christ to break through and set them free.”

The text for the first station ends in a prayer that begins: “Lord, do not let the tomb enclose me. The tomb of self-doubt and anguish. The tomb of cynicism or indifference. The tomb of selfishness. The tomb of hurt and despair. Always, dear Christ, reach down and draw me out.”

These 14 “Stations of the Resurrection” end (after a Pentecost station) with stations about St. James as a pilgrim and the conversion of St. Paul. The booklet concludes with a meditation on the Way to Life, praying that the Lord Jesus Himself will meet the pilgrim. I wish I had had this book with me when I was on pilgrimage in Jerusalem and Spain.

Another option is The Way of Light: The Story Behind the Stations of the Resurrection (Full Quiver Publishing, 2023), a paperback by Denise Mercado, a laywoman. For each of the 14 stations, she provides a commentary on multiple verses of relevant Scripture passages from each Testament, especially the Psalms. There are no illustrations, but there are excellent meditational materials quoting a variety of sources, ranging from Bishop Robert Barron to surveys of websites to the personal observations of the author. Her reflections sometimes invite the reader to place himself in the position of a participant, and there are questions at the end of each station, asking about the reader’s spiritual life, and several blank but lined pages, offering readers the chance to write their answers and add their personal thoughts.

Those interested in finding a text on the Via Lucis should not be misled by Via Lucis: The Life of Jesus in the Light of Easter (Liturgical Press, 2018), a superb book in its own right by Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, archbishop of Manila in the Philippines, consisting of meditations casting light on the actual life of Jesus, which the cardinal gave while leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2011.

There are three paperback books written by non-Catholics that focus on the Via Lucis against which I would strongly recommend. The first is Stations of the Light: Renewing the Ancient Christian Practice of the Via Lucis as a Spiritual Tool for Today (Image Publishing, 2007) by Mary Ford-Grabowski. The author holds a doctorate of spirituality from the Princeton Theological Seminary and was on the board of directors of the University of Creation Spirituality, which Matthew Fox established in Oakland, California, after his expulsion from the Dominican Order in 1992. This 200-plus-page book takes the reader through each of the 14 stations in a New-Agey way, suggesting ten “practices” for each, including relaxation and centering, imagining yourself in the story, and reading insights and illuminations (with quotes from a variety of sources, from Scripture to “Eastern wisdom”). The unorthodoxy of Ford-Grabowski’s storytelling is apparent in, for example, her positing that the Blessed Virgin Mary bore a number of sons and daughters after Jesus, and that Mary Magdalene was not a repentant sinner.

The second, also 200-plus pages, is Via Crucis, Via Lucis: The Way of the Cross, The Way of the Light, written and self-published in 2023 by a married Australian layman who calls himself “Brother Brad Smith.” He describes himself as a “creative artist” who holds a “Diploma in Ministry & Theology” from Harvest Bible College in Australia. Each station is a fictionalized description of the event by an actual or assumed observer/participant in the Passion or the Resurrection, ranging from an angel to the wife of Cleopas.

The third is Stations of the Resurrection: Encounters with the Risen Christ (Church House Publishing in the U.K., 2024), with reflections on 19 stations of Scripture by Guli Francis-Dehqani, a female Anglican bishop; sonnets by the poet Malcom Guite; and gloomy, colored illustrations of ugly people.

Though two of the three best books on the Via Lucis mentioned above are currently out of print, perhaps inquiries by NOR readers will motivate the publishers to produce them once again, if only in a limited press run. Until such a time, you might be able to find new or used copies on eBay or from your favorite online (or brick-and-mortar) bookseller. Rev. Tastard’s booklet is, as of this writing, still available from the publisher: liguori.org/stations-of-the-resurrection.

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1. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a stigmatic German nun, had visions of Mary making a “Way of the Cross” during the night of Holy Saturday, retracing Christ’s final steps in His Passion (see my book Light on Light: Illuminations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the Mystical Visions of the Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich [2nd ed., 2023], available at Amazon). Sr. Emmerich’s visions led directly to the discovery, in 1891, of the final earthly home of the Blessed Virgin, which St. John the Apostle had made for her, in a wilderness far above Ephesus, in present-day Turkey. In 1961 Pope St. John XXIII granted a plenary indulgence to pilgrims to this site, where archeologists found Mary’s Way of the Cross. These were the clearly marked memorial stones along a path Sr. Emmerich had seen Mary lay out and retrace frequently (see The Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Vol. 2 by Msgr. Carl E. Schmöger [TAN Books, 1976]). A complete account of the finding of Mary’s house can be found in Donald Carroll’s engagingly written and lavishly illustrated Mary’s House: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Discovery of the House Where the Virgin Mary Lived and Died (Veritas Books, 2000). A shorter account, focusing on Sr. Emmerich’s visions, can be found in my book St. Thomas the Apostle: In Scripture, Visions and Apocrypha (2024), available at Amazon.

2. For example, for Station XII marking the Ascension, one version cites Acts 1:8-11, while another cites Mark 16:19-20. And sometimes an event like Emmaus is split into two stations — Jesus talking with the disciples along the road to Emmaus, and their recognition of Him in the breaking of the bread.

3. See, for example, catholicyyc.ca/blog/stations-of-the-light (with readings, reflections, prayers, superb classic illustrations, and the words to the hymn “O Sons and Daughters”); stgregoryspreston.org.uk/prayer (see “Praying with Scripture,” with readings, reflections, prayers, excellent modern icons, and the words to the same hymn); and aleteia.org/2020/04/14/stations-of-the-resurrection-meditations-on-jesus-appearances (with Gospel readings and superb classic illustrations).

4. Although the citation to St. Matthew’s description of events immediately after Jesus breathed His last (cf. 27:50-54) only tangentially supports the station, it is an article of faith, supported by the Apostles’ Creed (“He descended into Hell”), Ephesians 4:9 (Jesus’ descent to the “lower regions of the earth”), 1 Peter 3:18-20 (Jesus’ preaching to the “spirits in prison”), 1 Peter 4:6 (Jesus’ preaching “even to the dead”), and the Church’s venerable tradition of the “Harrowing of Hell” (Jesus’ bringing out Adam and Eve and other righteous prisoners from the place of the dead).

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