Stations of the Cross Stabat Mater, composed in the 13th century by Franciscan Jacopone da Todi. James Matthew Wilson's poetic sequence, "The Stations of the Cross", is written in the same meter as da Todi's poem. Dimitris Lyacos' third part of the Poena Damni trilogy, The First Death, is divided in fourteen sections in order to emphasise the "Via Dolorosa" of its marooned protagonist during his ascent on the mount of the island which constitutes the setting of the work. These fourteen sites along the Via Dolorosa are where the events of the Stations of the Cross happened, according to tradition. These 14 stops
Stations of the Cross seems to embellish the gospels' record, which states that Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus down from the cross and buried him. To provide a version of this devotion more closely aligned with the biblical accounts, Pope John Paul II introduced a new form of devotion, called the Scriptural Way of the Cross on Good Friday 1991. He celebrated that form many times but not exclusively at the Colosseum in Rome. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved an overlapping but distinct set of stations for meditation and public celebration; they follow this sequence: In the Roman Catholic Church, the devotion may