The stations of the cross and the Christmas creche both took hold in Medieval Europe, when Christianity defined the culture of the West. Both have evolved over the centuries, but remained essentially the same.

More than anything else these two moments in Jesus’ life — His birth and His death — invite us into His humanity. This is human existence reduced to its essentials. We are all born and we all die. In those moments none of us is any more or less human than all of humanity.

We spend so much of our prayer lives inviting Jesus into our humanity. Confession, Communion, all the sacraments would be empty rituals without that Maranatha moment when we cry “Come, Lord Jesus.”

But our faith that Jesus will come, does come and has come to participate in our lives is entirely dependent on our participation in His life. Though God, He humbled himself to be born like us and die like us (Philippians 2:6-8). Like St. Paul and every other Christian, we do not live except in Christ, and the Christ who lives in us is Christ crucified (Galatians 2:20).

2. Jesus given His cross These Italian pilgrims to World Youth Day in 2002 made a cross of dead wood in Coronation Park then entered Jesus’ passion under a gentle rain.

There are 224 parishes in the archdiocese of Toronto, and in every one of them the stations of the cross are not decoration. Those 14 depictions of pain, courage, humiliation and death are there because they are part of our lives. When we pray for Jesus to be with us in our lives we pray for this.

I went out to photograph some of these stations over this Lent, to pray with a camera. The stations of the cross depicted here are an almost random sample of how Toronto prays with Jesus in His passion.

During this Lent we have seen a community weep for Trooper Marc Diab, then turn to Christ crucified as they prayed the stations of the cross. I have included an image from that evening because at the Diab family’s Maronite Catholic parish death was doubly real that day — for their fallen son and the Son of God.

I have also included images from two sets of stations enacted during World Youth Day in 2002. One from informal rehearsals for the spectacular stations of the cross which transformed downtown Toronto, and another by a group of Italian pilgrims who sought the intimacy of accompanying Jesus themselves with an improvised cross in Coronation Park.

From the very recent stations of the cross in St. Martin in the Fields Anglican Church to the very traditional bronze reliefs at the Scarboro Missions chapel, these stations show Christ in His humanity among us today in Toronto.

3. Jesus falls At Epiphany of Our Lord in Scarborough the chapel presents the stations of the cross in carvings that seem at first unfinished. It is as though the artist is inviting us to smooth the rough carving with our prayers.	4. Jesus Meets His Mother At St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin the stations of the cross hang against a grey, concrete wall. Against the cloudy background the gold in each image blazes out the message that this is Christ’s glory.
5. Simon of Cyrene carries cross In the chapel at the Basilian residence on the campus of the University of St. Michael’s College, the stations of the cross reflect both a 20th Century modernism and a Medieval sensibility, which fits perfectly with the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies across the street.	6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus The stations of the cross have always been a feature of the Western church, but in the sanctuary at Epiphany of Our Lord they are painted in the style of icons — a defining tradition of the Eastern church.  in ordinary clothes.
7. Jesus falls the second time At the Manresa Jesuit retreat house in Pickering the stations of the cross in the chapel display a broken-hearted sympathy for Jesus.	8. Jesus meets daughters of Jerusalem Young people who had known Trooper Marc Diab as their camp counsellor wept openly after the Our Lady of Lebanon congregation prayed the stations of the cross the Friday after his death.
9. The third fall The outdoor stations of the cross at the Manresa retreat house in Pickering are an invitation to walk and pray.	10. Stripped of His garments The Scarboro Missions’ chapel presents Jesus looking to us, seemingly unconcerned with His torturers.
11. Nailed to the cross At St. Andrew Kim the finely detailed carving of the stations never let us spiritualize His death.	12. Jesus dies At St. Martin in the Fields, an Anglican parish west of downtown Toronto, the new stations of the cross present Christ’s passion in stark images that neither glorify the violence nor minimize the sacrifice.
13. Jesus removed from Cross At Our Lady of Lebanon the congregation was united in prayer as they waited for the body of Trooper Diab and they remembered the body of Christ being lowered from the cross.	14. Laid in the tomb At St. Andrew Kim the tomb is not quite big enough.