Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Walking the Way of the Cross with Pope Benedict

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Father John Zuhlsdorf posted a suggestion on his blog: perhaps this Lent, as he steps down from the Chair of Peter, we might use the Stations he composed for use in 2005, by his predecessor, Blessed John Paul.

As I prepared to lead stations tonight at Saint Rose, I decided to do it. 

Unfortunately, I had no booklets; but I was able to copy the material from a website online, and then set it up in makeshift pamphlets for the people to use. If I had more time, I could have prepared nicer booklets, alas. In order to keep the pages manageable while keeping the text readable, the pamphlets I passed out tonight only had the parts the people would recite--the meditations the Holy Father prepared, I only included in my copy.

Now, fair warning--they are a bit long. We would normally be finished around 8:40 (we also had Benediction afterward, to conclude a day of Exposition); tonight it was just shy of 9 pm. In fact, I shortened them a bit as it is; the Holy Father also included a reading of Scripture for each station. And, I omitted the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be that are usually included.

That said, the Holy Father's meditations are--as you might expect--beautiful.

If you want to see them, you can find them here. (I also changed the Latin texts to English.)

If you want to use them in your parish, and you want me to email the materials I prepared, mention in the comments.

4 comments:

Wayne said...

Father,

Our Lady of Victory parish has been using modified versions of these reflections found in a pamphlet sold by Our Sunday Visitor (I believe). They are very well done and keep the timing about where everyone expects. I highly recommend them.

Wayne said...

Here is a link to that pamphlet if you are interested: https://catalog.osv.com/catalog.aspx?search=way+of+the+cross&x=0&y=0. There is a link to a preview of the entire pamphlet on that page as well.

Wayne said...

Sorry, I just tested the link in my previous post and it doesn't work. Here is the link, just copy and paste: https://catalog.osv.com/Catalog.aspx?SimpleDisplay=true&ProductCode=P288

Fr Martin Fox said...

Wayne:

Oh good! Thanks for that!