How to Host the Stations of the Cross in your Home

One of my favorite things to do during Lent is to host a family’s Stations of the Cross.

Since most of my friends are also in the babies and toddler stage of life, going to our parish’s Stations of the Cross during dinner or bedtime is not particularly prayerful for us or the rest of the congregation!

This Lent, pick a Friday and invite friends into your home to pray the Stations of the Cross together.

I promise–it’s NOT intimidating!

Here is what we do it:

• Text a few friends and invite them over for a Friday evening to pray the Stations of the Cross and eat dinner together (dinner helps incentivize both kids and adults!).
  • our house isn’t big enough to host a large group of people so we have had other friends graciously offer to host and we bring the supplies! But–you can also just invite 1 or 2 families to keep the group small.
• Prepare a meatless meal (or ask everyone to bring something to share–just remind them it has to be meatless!)
• Get a resource to help you lead the Stations of the Cross (you don’t need to have prayers memorized or years of experience!)
  • I keep these Stations of the Cross booklets (bulk discounts kick in at just 10 copies) and we rotate through the adults so everyone gets a chance to lead a Station.
• Optional: Hang Stations of the Cross images around your home so you can walk as you pray! We just tape them up with blue painter’s tape around the downstairs. This helps keep kids engaged if you are moving from Station to Station as you pray.
  • If your home isn’t laid out in a way that is conducive for group movement, you can simply prop the 1st Station of the Cross on a central table or bookcase. Ask an older child to replace the image as each Station is announced (a great way to keep kids engaged and involved in the prayer!)
• Optional: Have simple resources to keep toddlers busy while you pray. We pull out our Road to Calvary coloring books and left them on our kitchen table with crayons so interested kids could color while the adults prayed.
• We start praying as soon as the families arrive and before the kids get too hungry. Sometimes kids are eager to be involved in the prayer. Other times, kids want to color or just play together while the parents pray. That’s okay! The comfort of this type of gathering is that no one will be disrupted by small children!
• After we finish, everyone enjoys dinner together!

Praying the Stations of the Cross with a group of families has been one of our favorite liturgical traditions. I hope more families start incorporating this practice into their Lenten traditions–consider starting this year!