My Stations of the Cross

My Stations of the Cross is a simple app for praying the Stations, all fourteen of them, from Christ's condemnation to his burial.

Each station comes with its meditation, and the app keeps everything on the phone so you can pray anywhere, no signal needed. You can share an individual station with someone if one strikes you, and there's a dark theme for praying in low light — the toggle is in the top left. The app also includes Pope Francis's eight reasons for praying the Stations, which make good reading on their own.

The Stations put you inside the story, and that's their power. You don't observe the Passion from a distance; you walk it. Praying them on a phone is different from walking them in church, but the words and the movement of heart are the same, and having them in your pocket means Friday afternoon in a parking lot can still be Friday afternoon with Christ.

This fits Lent first, obviously, and Good Friday especially. But it also serves the homebound who can't make parish Stations, travelers, and parents teaching children the devotion one station at a time. Fridays year-round are a fine time for it too; the Passion doesn't only matter six weeks a year.

It's a plain app, from the same developer as Daily Reflections, and it has the same bare-bones style. No audio, no artwork to speak of, and only a handful of App Store ratings, which run mixed. It won't replace the communal devotion in your parish, and it doesn't pretend to.

My Stations of the Cross is free, from developer Maria Chua. You can get it here: My Stations of the Cross on the App Store. Nothing fancy, but the devotion never needed fancy.