page_title: Station days
section_title: Modern revival
hierarchical_section_title: Station days / Modern revival
caption_attribution_description: English: Santa Sabina
context_page_description: Station days were days of fasting in the early Christian Church, associated with a procession to certain prescribed churches in Rome, where the Mass and Vespers would be celebrated to mark important days of the liturgical year. Although other cities also had similar practices, and the fasting is no longer prescribed, the Roman churches associated with the various station days are still the object of pilgrimage and ritual, especially in the season of Lent.
context_section_description: The practice of keeping stations gradually waned in Rome, starting after the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh century began to place more emphasis on the pope as administrator, and papal liturgies began to be celebrated in private, rather than among the people of the city. The keeping of stations ceased entirely during the Avignon papacy, and left their trace only as notations in the Roman Missal.
  After the Lateran Treaty of 1929 solved the Roman Question, Pope Pius XI and Pius XII encouraged a return to the ancient tradition by attaching indulgences for visiting the station churches of Lent and Easter. Concrete gestures on the part of Pope John XXIII and Paul VI also began a revival, as John XXIII was the first pope in modern times to celebrate Ash Wednesday at Santa Sabina, and Paul VI visited Sant'Eusebio on its station day in 1967.
  The greatest impetus towards the recovery of the ancient tradition, however, has been the student-organized station church program put on by the Pontifical North American College. The North American College has coordinated a public station Mass in English at all the station churches of Lent, from Monday to Saturday, every year since 1975. In recent years, the Diocese of Rome too hosts Italian-language Lenten station Masses at the traditional evening hour.
caption: Popes since John XXIII have revived the practice of visiting the station for Ash Wednesday, Santa Sabina all'Aventino.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-410", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "OLYMPUS Master 2.20W", "Image DateTime": "2009:08:20 23:33:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3868", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9806", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:08:02 17:54:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:08:02 17:54:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "925/256", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "8", "EXIF FocalLength": "23", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3736", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}