Growing up Catholic I have always know the Stations of the Cross to consist of 14 stations. Now in the parish I 'm going to there is 15 stations. When did it increase by one? Thank you and God Bless.
I have never seen it, but have been told that some have added a fifteenth station for the Empty Tomb.
In order to maintain balance some have also added a zeroth station for the Agony in the Garden.
Father Nisbet discusses this a bit in his book ** an illustrated Stations of the Cross: the devotion and its history**. It’s a very good book with a mini-homily on each station.
the 15th station is the Resurrection, and the first time I heard this mentioned was about 20 years ago when our current pope was giving his annual preaching on the stations.
On Good Friday, 1991, Pope John Paul II led a crowd of people through the passion with a new format. Keeping some of the traditional stations, adding a few to include a fifteenth, “Jesus rises from the dead “. It was later made into a devotional book which was published by Ligouri in 1994.
The 15th Station was the name of a little shop that sold religious goods at the end of the path that the Pope would walk, when he was able. I don’t know if it is still there. I saw a picture of it a while back.
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