With Jesus in Jerusalem
The First Way of the Cross
Étienne Méténier
Helena Scott (Translator)
ISBN 9781639663811
eISBN 9781639663828
ASIN B0G15DYTLB
Over the years I have developed the habit of trying to pray a Stations of the Cross each Friday throughout the year and each day through let. I am not certain if I have ever completed it for a whole year. But I try. Recently I went through the collection of Stations I had and found I had about 10 I have never read or reviewed and have made the commitment to try and make it through them this Lent. While working through them I found another half dozen I wanted to read including this one.
The description of the new edition states:
“What if we could walk in the footsteps of Jesus during his passion, in the very place where he gave his life for us?
Through photos and archaeological discoveries, nourished by the works of inspired artists from all eras and cultures, With Jesus in Jerusalem helps you experience the Stations of the Cross and the seven last words of the crucified Jesus in a new, profound way.
Biblical scholar, pilgrim guide, and author Étienne Méténier guides you step-by-step in following Christ in the Holy City. Immerse yourself in Jerusalem through a timeline of events, historical information, a map, and many photographs. With this book, through prayer, Sacred Scripture, and meditations for each Station of the Cross, our relationship with Jesus the Savior can be renewed, deepened, and illuminated.”
The chapters in the volume are:
Introduction
Hour-by-Hour Chronology of Jesus’ Passion
1st Station: Jesus Is Condemned to Death
2nd Station: Jesus Takes Up His Cross
3rd Station: Jesus Falls the First Time
4th Station: Jesus Meets His Mother
5th Station: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry His Cross
6th Station: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
7th Station: Jesus Falls the Second Time
8th Station: Jesus Consoles the Women of Jerusalem
9th Station: Jesus Falls the Third Time
10th Station: Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments
11th Station: Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross
12th Station: Jesus Dies on the Cross
13th Station: The Body of Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross
14th Station: The Body of Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb
Meditation on the seven last words of Christ on the Cross
1. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do.”
2. “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
3. “Woman, behold, your son!” … “Behold, your Mother!”
4. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
5. “I thirst.”
6. “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!”
7. “It is finished.”
Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last
Salve Regina — Hail, Holy Queen
A sample station is:
“3rd Station
Jesus Falls the First Time
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
for by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Let us Listen to God’s Word
From the Book of Psalms:
“But I am a worm, and no man;
scorned by men, and despised by the people.
All who see me mock at me,
they make mouths at me, they wag their heads” (22:6–7).
From the Book of Isaiah:
“Then deep from the earth you shall speak, from low in the dust your words shall come; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust” (29:4). “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted” (53:3–4). “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (53:6).
Also from the Book of Psalms:
“For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust” (103:14).
“They die and return to their dust” (104:29).
“When thou sendest forth your Spirit, they are created;
and thou renewest the face of the ground” (104:30).
From the Letter of Paul to the Colossians:
“In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (1:24).
From the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians:
“If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation” (1:6).
From the Gospel According to Matthew:
“He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (10:38).
Optional Meditations
• Jesus is only at the start of his Via Dolorosa, and already his body gives way and he falls down in our place, he who “upholds all who are falling, / and raises up all who are bowed down” (Ps 145:14). He invites us to follow him, not by choosing but by accepting our crosses (cf. Mk 8:34).
• Let us contemplate Jesus’ self-abasement, in this fall and in the whole of his life. Those who have too much pride in themselves to recognize God’s humility stop themselves from truly recognizing God’s love, which is proved above all by this humility.
• “[Often, souls] do not embrace the cross, but drag it; [in that way], the cross wounds them, tires them out, and breaks them. But if the cross is loved, it becomes easy to carry” (St. Teresa of Ávila).1 All the saints have developed Jesus’ invitation — Paul (cf. Phil 3:18), John of Ávila (who wrote repeatedly, “You were loved on the cross, so love on the cross”), the Curé of Ars (for whom “worse” than the cross is the fear of the cross). The cross consists mainly of accepting (see Matthew 10:38 in Latin) your own littleness and that of your neighbor.
• “Not behind us with the Savior’s cross, but behind the Savior with our own cross” (Cyprian Norwid).2
Let us Pray
Since the Master fell before us, let us no longer refuse to confess each of our falls humbly.
Let us ask Jesus to forgive us for having thrown our own crosses back upon him, and for having thrown him down to the ground by our acts of pride, hardness, contempt, and indifference.
Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be to the Father…
Dating and historical reliability of these events
If the date of Jesus’ passion is calculated in terms of today’s calendar, the most probable dating according to most biblical scholars and historians is to place Good Friday on April 7, in the year 30.
The Crucifixion took place the day before a Sabbath (cf. Jn 19:31), which was also the first day of the Jewish Passover, the 15th of the biblical month of Nisan. Over those years, this occurred either on April 7 in the year 30, or on April 3 in the year 33. However, the latter date seems too late for the sequence of subsequent events, according to Galatians, the Acts of the Apostles, and other external sources,3 unless Jesus only began his ministry in the year 30.4
Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher (Photo of the church)
Nevertheless, the truth of the events of the Passion and the Resurrection does not depend on the accuracy of this dating.
The Gospels belong to the genre of historical biography (while being highly distinctive, they recount the life, actions, teachings, and even emotions of Jesus Christ, which is far more than simply giving the words of prophets with a few added details). The Gospels were not written according to the principles of modern historiography, which would really be anachronistic, but there are very solid indicators of their reliability, including:
• The great diversity of the sources: Twenty-seven different books of the New Testament, plus the testimonies of subsequent generations and historians, including nonbelievers, on the existence of Jesus and contemporary events. Not even the most powerful and famous men in secular antiquity are recorded in such a wealth of sources, and very little indeed has been preserved about the lives of rabbis contemporary with Christ.
• The vast number of manuscript attestations: There are over 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament according to critical editions (including 5,800 in Greek, 10,000 in Latin, and 360 in Syriac), while we have a mere handful of copies, for example, of biographies of Cicero.
• The chronological proximity between the events and their written accounts, which were written down in the decades immediately following, in direct or firsthand testimonies.
• Minor contradictions among the various accounts within an overall convergence: These differences were not erased or harmonized to make them sound more convincing, but reflect the fidelity of what different witnesses perceived, as with any real event.
• The uniqueness of these events in all world history, and the wisdom they reveal, which seems utterly impossible for human authors to have imagined.
• The exponential growth of the community of believers that sprang from the events of Christ’s life, despite the weaknesses and divisions of its members and despite severe persecution by its adversaries.
• The absence of disagreement among ancient believers regarding these particular events.
• The highly convincing relics of the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo.
• The lives of the 10,000 saints and blesseds who recognized Christ’s love, and the inner experience of Christ possessed by every believer worthy of the name.
• The rational need for God’s love to show itself to humanity through these events, hoping for their free response and that they would let themselves be saved.”
I highlighted a few passages my first time through this volume, they are:
“For example, Jesus recommended to St. Faustina to do the Stations of the Cross at 3: 00 p.m. every day, 4 so that the world could receive his Mercy. 5 St John Paul II, from his childhood on (well before Faustina’s Little Journal was first published in 1981), used to do the Stations of the Cross personally or in public every day in Lent, and at least every Friday during the year, and he had the fourteen stations set up in the papal apartments.”
“Every Mass makes present Christ’s preaching (the Liturgy of the Word) and his passion and resurrection (Liturgy of the Eucharist). There we can relive the Way of the Cross; we are recommended to use our memory and imagination to re-present it to ourselves—that is, to make the whole thing present. 8 We can console the Beloved, and be his faithful friend in suffering.”
“In this book each Station of the Cross will be introduced by several verses from the Bible, either relating directly to the event we are meditating on or announcing it, or echoing it according to tradition (especially verses from the Old Testament). Similarly, several aids to meditation will be offered.”
““Not behind us with the Savior’s cross, but behind the Savior with our own cross” (Cyprian Norwid).”
“Let us ask Jesus to grant us: hatred for our sins which, out of indifference or hard-heartedness, cruelly threw him to the ground, the grace to get up again (cf. Prv 24: 16), as he did for us, and humility, so as not to fall into those same sins again (1 Cor 10: 12).”
I hope that sample station and quotes give you a feel for this volume. With all the ‘Optional Meditations’ it takes a bit to pray through this whole volume. Or you can pray through it numerous times and just pick them in order for each station. This book is an excellent version of this devotion, and one I see myself returning to frequently. Over the years I have read a number of books written and translated by Helena Scott and they have all been worth the read. I do not know how I missed this one when it released a year ago. But I am thankful I stumbled upon it this year. I know this is one that will end up in the rotation of Stations I pray frequently. I greatly appreciated the extra reflections at the end of the volume of the seven last words of Jesus from the cross. Reading them after completing the stations was a moving experience. I encourage you to pick it up and give it a try!
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan! For all Stations of the Cross review click here.
Books by Étienne Méténier:
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In French:
Dans les pas de Jésus à Jérusalem
La Bible en 100 semaines
Les noms de Jésus: Mieux le connaître pour mieux l'aimer
Les quatre évangiles: Traduction inédite de la Vetus Syra
Vetus Syra
Vetus Syra: les quatre évangiles Syriaques anciens : traduction interlinéaire comparée et annotée
…
