S
St_Annes
Guest
Posted yesterday on ourfranciscanfiat.wordpress.com
This morning, I peeked ahead in our Office Book and noticed that already this evening we begin celebrating the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary.
This was good news to me, for a practical reason:
Often, on Friday evenings, we have a whole family come and pray with us. It is difficult with visitors if there is “a lot of flipping around,” that is to say, a turning from one page to another to find the appropriate antiphons, psalms, and other components of the Liturgy of the Hours.
I was afraid that it might be a little challenging for all these people (including some small children) to make their way through Evening Prayer for St. Cyril of Jerusalem, whose commemoration we observed this morning; there is a special antiphon and prayer for his feast, while the psalms were for the weekday, and the reading and what follows were for the fifth Friday and Lent.
To my relief, I saw on the page next to that for St. Cyril: “Evening Prayer I“. Happily, I realized, “This will be much easier!” I happily marked the pages in seven books, with “Look Down to Us, St. Joseph” as the hymn.
We are grateful to St. Joseph for more than just simplifying our efforts to pray with visitors. He played a wonderful part in the story of salvation, and continues to do so as the patron of the Universal Church.
Here at St. Anne’s, we have a special prayer that we say to him every night after our Office. All the Sisters in our Province (in North Dakota) prepare for his feast with a novena, as requested by our provincial directives. His is a feast we celebrate in a special way. Some flowers were donated here, and we might just bring them into chapel for the occasion!
This morning, I peeked ahead in our Office Book and noticed that already this evening we begin celebrating the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary.
This was good news to me, for a practical reason:
Often, on Friday evenings, we have a whole family come and pray with us. It is difficult with visitors if there is “a lot of flipping around,” that is to say, a turning from one page to another to find the appropriate antiphons, psalms, and other components of the Liturgy of the Hours.
I was afraid that it might be a little challenging for all these people (including some small children) to make their way through Evening Prayer for St. Cyril of Jerusalem, whose commemoration we observed this morning; there is a special antiphon and prayer for his feast, while the psalms were for the weekday, and the reading and what follows were for the fifth Friday and Lent.
To my relief, I saw on the page next to that for St. Cyril: “Evening Prayer I“. Happily, I realized, “This will be much easier!” I happily marked the pages in seven books, with “Look Down to Us, St. Joseph” as the hymn.
We are grateful to St. Joseph for more than just simplifying our efforts to pray with visitors. He played a wonderful part in the story of salvation, and continues to do so as the patron of the Universal Church.
Here at St. Anne’s, we have a special prayer that we say to him every night after our Office. All the Sisters in our Province (in North Dakota) prepare for his feast with a novena, as requested by our provincial directives. His is a feast we celebrate in a special way. Some flowers were donated here, and we might just bring them into chapel for the occasion!