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Marie5890
Guest
May your Lenten devotion to the Stations be fruitful and strengthening, Baylee. This version is very beautiful indeed.
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ora_pro_nobis
Guest
In my church we have been following the Grain of Wheat Stations, formulated by the present Pope when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger. They are very beautiful and give a fresh perspective, as well as the traditional prayers.
a favourite of mine for personal prayer is the Stations written by the late Fr Cormac Rigby, a very holy and gifted priest I had the pleasure of meeting once.
a favourite of mine for personal prayer is the Stations written by the late Fr Cormac Rigby, a very holy and gifted priest I had the pleasure of meeting once.
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CB_Catholic
Guest
All of us have more to learn. There is much to learn also in participating and praying the different versions of the Stations, as there is food for meditation which we might have not thought of before.
A friend of mine has written a set of Stations which focus on the humility of Our Lord. She hasn’t published them yet, and they are copyrighted, so I can’t share any of them, but they are awesome meditations. It doesn’t hurt to enlarge one’s spiritual life by finding different aspects of the Way of the Cross to meditate upon. It can be quite enriching. Don’t be afraid to participate in different ones.
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JReducation
Guest
Nothing to worry about. . . There are many things that even Cradle Catholics don’t know or that Cradle Catholics only know one way. We are all products of our environment. Had I not been the son of a diplomat and now a Franciscan, I probably would have not known that there are so many variations in the spiritual life and the prayer life of the Church. Thanks to my father’s career and then my own missionary activity, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel outside of my environment and outside of the USA. This gave me a lot of exposure to many thiings that the guy next to me in Church does not know or has never seen.
I remember a very cute story about a parish that was left by the friars. As the reform of the Franciscan family continues, less and less friars are serving the middle class. Many of these parishes were once very poor, but today they are middle class. Obviously, the friars leave.
The friars have an ancient custom of a two day solemn celebration for the Solemnity of St. Francis. It mimics the Easter Triduum. It begins with the Transitus of St. Francis, which is a liturgical service very similar to the Good Friday service. This is celebrated on October 3 at sunset, right about the hour that Francis died. On October 4th all of the color, candles, incense, music, pomp and circumstance takes off like a rocket to celebrate Francis’ entrance into glory.
For the rest of the Catholic Church, October 4th is a minor holy day. In the old calendar it was a third class feast (I believe I got that right) and in the new calendar it’s a memorial or not present at all, depending on what country you live in.
When the friars left and the secular clergy took over, the Solemnity of St. Francis disappeared. A group of people in the parish wrote to the bishop to complain that the new priest were less than Catholic. What did they know? They had friars at that parish since the late 1800s. Suddenly in 2005, the friars pick up and leave. These folks did not know that for over 100 years they had been following a different liturgical calendar and tradition. They were very upset and confused. The poor priest who moved in was almost burnt at the stake for heresy or whatever they thought he was. We are what we are, human beings and creatures of habit. Things that are new to us make us squirm.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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