De sacrarum stationum veteri instituto a Xisto Quinto pont. max. revocato oratio habita in templo S. Sabinae in die Cinerum

And indeed, most blessed Father, antiquity is a venerable thing and most highly to be respected by the human race. I believe nothing is more becoming to a Christian man than that he should preserve the monuments of religious antiquity as diligently as possible, that he should both observe himself and hand down to posterity to be observed the rites, institutions, and sacred customs of the holy Church received from the Fathers, and that he should announce to his sons, from generation to generation, what God commanded our Fathers to be known. Among these, while many clear and excellent things offer themselves everywhere, the most ancient custom of the sacred stations stands out. For who is so ignorant of religious antiquity? Who is so much a stranger and a guest in the histories of ecclesiastical matters? Who is so meagerly and lightly versed in the sacred volumes of the holy Fathers that they have not read through the excellent monuments of this institution, and indeed the entire and most eloquent sermons delivered by the supreme and greatest Pontiffs on that occasion? O happy times, O customs worthy of imitation! Behold, listeners, what the most ancient Tertullian signaled when, in almost countless places, he mentioned the same institution with explicit words, by the very name of stations. Namely, from the very Apostolic times, it was the custom that those ancient men of solid Christian religion would gather on appointed days, especially Sundays, now in this, now in that Basilica, and at the martiria shrines or places of martyrdom, that is, the graves of the martyrs, to pray to God while standing and attentive, often extending the stations from the rising sun until the setting sun. Indeed, even that the Roman Pontiffs themselves, in the early times of Lent, would frequent the various churches of the City with the people and the clergy, perform sacred rites in the same, and celebrate the assemblies of the sacred stations. For their use, Pope Hilary designed ministerial offices in the City,