February 22, 2026 • First Sunday of Lent

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

One of the most popular prayer traditions of our Catholic faith is praying the Stations of the Cross.  The 14 Stations of the Cross that we symbolically walk have been prayed since the very early days of Christianity. When pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land reached Jerusalem, they wanted to walk the Via Dolorosa or The Way of Sorrow, the path that Jesus walked as he carried his cross to Golgotha, the place of his crucifixion.

Saint Francis of Assisi, who himself received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, composed a version of the Stations of the Cross in the 13th Century that consisted of our familiar fourteen stations. By the 15th Century, Franciscan friars had begun to set up shrines that contained images of the stations along the Via Dolorosa, so that pilgrims who could not make it to the Holy Land could follow this path for prayer and meditation.  This eventually made its way into churches, and the stations were erected on the walls of the place of worship.   The traditional stations are:

The First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death

The Second Station: Jesus Accepts His Cross

The Third Station: Jesus Falls the First Time

The Fourth Station: Jesus Meets His Mother

The Fifth Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus Carry His Cross

The Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

The Seventh Station: Jesus Falls the Second Time

The Eighth Station: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

The Ninth Station: Jesus Falls the Third Time

The Tenth Station: Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

The Eleventh Station: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

The Twelfth Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross

The Thirteenth Station: Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

The Fourteenth Station: Jesus is Buried

We continue this tradition at Good Shepherd each Friday during Lent at 7:00 p.m.  Please join us.   Let us continue to pray for each other this Lent.

Grace and peace! 
Father Neil Sullivan