Adding the Stations of the Cross to your Lent routine allows God to vividly display what Jesus endured for us. During Lent, I add this to my lunchtime routine on Fridays. The prayer “Look Down Upon Me, Good and Gentle Jesus” is another good addition.

The Stations of the Cross developed out of a desire for Christians to walk “The Via Dolorosa” in Jerusalem, the route from Pontius Pilate’s praetorium to the cross. It’s popular in Western Christian traditions, including Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist.

In churches, 14 pictures or plaques are on the walls or on an outdoor walk that allow Christ followers to go from station to station. We stop at each station to pray and reflect.

This free PDF from the Diocese of Manchester takes you through the stations so you can do them at your desk or your kitchen table. The Archdiocese of Portland offers this PDF of the stations, with some preliminary prayers.

Stations of the Cross are available on YouTube. I particularly like this one, which is less than 15 minutes long.

When you only have a few seconds to yourself on Friday at noon, you can pray this:

Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, while before Your face I humbly kneel and with burning soul, pray and beseech You to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope and charity, true contrition for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment, while I contemplate with great love and tender pity your five most precious wounds, pondering over them within me and calling to mind the words that David, your prophet, said of you , my Jesus, “They have pierced My hands and feet, They have numbered all my bones.”