Category: Catholicism

The Third Station

Jesus Falls the First Timeocvdthirdstation

All the Heavenly Host look on in wondering sorrow as You fall under the weight of the cross. It presses on Your stinging shoulders and dares you to rise.

It is my callous, spiteful, lustful, wrathful, envious, faithless heart, ingrained in the wood of that cross, that crushes Your bleeding body. Oh Lord, it crushes me too, but I haven’t the strength to lift myself.

And so, You struggle on, carrying it and me, to Calvary. For You know that it is only on that bloody hill, that I will finally be released from this heavy burden.

You are determined that I should live free, despite what it costs You.

And now, I can hear You call to me, “Pick up your cross and follow Me.”

Gracious Lord, I cannot carry it myself. Help me!

The Second Station

532652_Jesus-Carries-His-Cross-MartinFeuersteinJesus Takes Up His Cross

This is why you took on human flesh. This is the instrument of my salvation. How you welcomed it! How I run from mine.

My hard and darkened heart cannot understand a love that would surrender a Throne to live with me. Or one that willingly suffers a horrible death so that I can live.

You see my broken soul in the wood of that cross, and you embrace me.

“Where Shall We Go for Our Pope?”

Benedict XVI is a week away from his abdication, and the media is in its normal lather about all things Roman Catholic. When they’re not slamming the Church over sex-abuse, womens’ ordination, married priests or another of their favorite straw-men, they mostly prefer to pretend that Catholics don’t exist, or at best are a quaint bunch of superstitious people who pray to Mary and follow a man in a white hat. That is, until there’s a papal election to cover, and then they fall all over themselves dolanDan-Browning the secrecy, antiquity, and mysterious nature of a ritual that is more spiritual than temporal.

Of course, the most titillating storyline is, who will it be? Vegas bookies already have odds on the top candidates and will happily take your action. I’ve heard all kinds of names bandied about, including one that I’ve been talking about for the last four years, Timothy Cardinal Dolan. I met Cardinal Dolan when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee. He is a big, loud, genial, unpretentious, scholarly, and most of all a very holy man. I could see then that he was a man on whom God had laid His hand for greater service.

We’ll see.

The Italians, who are pretty used to this sort of thing, have a saying that the cardinal who goes into conclave a pope, comes out a cardinal. There is great wisdom in that on many levels. I was a little over one year old when Pope Paul VI was elected, but I do remember the elections of John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. What I have seen and what the media often misses, is that the conclave is a work of the Holy Spirit. The man who stands on that balcony will be the pastor of 1 billion souls. May God have mercy on him!

For those who are interested, here’s a neat little interactive graphic on how popes are elected.

 

The First Station

Antonio_Ciseri_Ecce_HomoJesus is Condemned to Death

Patiently, silently, you stand there, determined to do your Father’s will for love of me. Even though your human nature recoils at the pain and humiliation you have undergone, and have yet to face, you do not waver.

You hear the crowd’s jeers. A few, short days ago, they greeted you with, “Hosanna!” You see the desperation in Pilate’s cringing eyes, so full of fear and confusion. You know he doesn’t have the courage to pronounce you innocent and set you free. He takes the coward’s way and washes his hands of your fate. He wants nothing more to do with you.

Jesus, did you see me hidden in the crowd too? Cursing you, when only a short time ago you healed me of my blindness and sickness. And did you see me in Pilate’s chair, washing my hands of the responsibility for the horror you now face for my sake?

And yet, this is all done according to Your will. Oh have mercy on me Lord, a sinner and a coward!

 

Daily Prayer Project

FoB, Paulist Prison Ministries, is in the midst of a project to produce daily prayer books for distribution in our nation’s prisons and to parishes around the country. You can see a sample below the fold. As of today, they are able to print and deliver ~20,000 copies; however, PPM serves some 650 prison chaplains who will no doubt want these for the men and women they serve which means they’ll need to print a lot more!

It’s also available to the general public! This is a great way to cultivate the habit of praying the hours without the need to learn a lot of complicated rubrics often necessary for using a conventional breviary.

In addition to 31 days of morning, midday, evening, and night prayer, there is a section in the back with more prayers for daily use and special needs. This is a great tool for keeping prisoners connected to God, exercising their faith, and fighting off the temptation to despair. Whether their doing short time or hard time, prison is a miserable place. This little book could be a lifeline thrown to a drowning soul. Please, won’t you consider helping with a donation today?

I was in prison and you visited me.

~ Matt 25:36

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Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

And no, I don’t mean the cheesy version hi-jacked by Hallmark and Flowers.com…

Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renstvalentineounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards, to be beheaded, which was executed on February 14, about the year 270.

Pope Julius I is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate now called Porta del Popolo, formerly, Porta Valetini. The greatest part of his relics are now in the church of St. Praxedes.

His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious martyr in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman Missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of F. Fronto and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker and all other martyrologies on this day.

To abolish the heathens lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honor of their goddess Februata Juno, on the fifteenth of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day.

You can read more about St. Valentine here. Below is my Valentine to all of you…

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Ya Got a Little Shmuts There…

ashwednesdayToday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent in the Roman Catholic Church and others (for our Orthodox brethren, Great Lent begins at the end of February this year; the 27th I believe).

For those who aren’t Roman Catholic, it’s easy to tell what day it is because suddenly there are a bunch of people walking around with smudges on their foreheads. So what’s up with that?

Continue reading “Ya Got a Little Shmuts There…”