Franciscan Friar? You? The NY Post as the story…read the article…the approach is trendy but it may be helpful. Listen to the NPR article…
Don’t know till you try….
What would Saint Francis say?
Visit the Holy Name Province of the Franciscans webpage or the vocation’s page.
Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli
Born on
Ordained priest Easter
Ordained bishop on
Created Cardinal
Reigned as the 260th pontiff of the Holy Roman Church
God, Who, in Thine ineffable providence, didst will that Thy servant Pius XII should be numbered among the high priests, grant, we beseech Thee, that he, who on earth held the place of Thine only-begotten Son, may be joined forevermore to the fellowship of Thy holy pontiffs. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
Today, I learned of the death of a former professor of mine, Sister Marygrace “Ginger” Peters, OP (on the left in the picture). Sister Marygrace died on Feb 21, 2009 after a long battle with lung cancer. Of late she was the Prioress General of the Houston Dominican Sisters.
When I was doing studies in St. Louis, MO, I had five classes at Aquinas Institute of Theology, for one of the classes Sister was my Church History professor. At all times Sister Marygrace was a terriffic presence: happy, faithful, positive and prayerful. All what you would expect and cherish in a Dominican sister. Plus, she was a New Englander which was a consolation many times!
May the soul of Sister Marygrace rest in the peace and love of our Lord!
Ring them bells, for the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
Ring them bells
For the lines they are long
And they’re breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong.
John Donne
Prayer is a “dialogue with God” and the “engine of the world,” Pope Benedict said on Ash Wednesday. He also reminded us that Lent is a journey of conversion that invites all believers to prayer, penitence, and fasting.
The general intention
That all nations of our world may grow in appreciation of the dignity and value of women and their roles in society.
The missionary intention
That all the bishops, priests, consecrated persons, and laity of the Catholic Church in
“None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when–like the artists of every age–captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colours and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you” (John Paul II, Letter to Artists, 1). With this in mind, I think of the various ways the arts of engaged my sense of beauty, how good art has expressed my relationship with God and how impoverished (even oppressive) life would be without the work of artists.
Honestly, I rarely think with any degree of seriousness on how religious posters have demonstrated the genius of human creativity much less how this medium has impacted the our sense of living in tension with the Divine. But I believe this is what we have here. The exhibit, “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film” gives us a strong indication of this impact and what has transpired since the 19th century.
The posters belong are a part of Dominican Father Michael Morris‘ (and look here) collection. Morris is a professor of art and religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California .
Besides posters there are other memorabilia such as Charlton Heston’s tunic and cape from the 1959 award-winning Ben-Hur and correspondence from directors.
The “Reel Religion” exhibit opened February 6th and will close on May 17th.
See a video clip on the subject.
“The Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) brings to the public an interpretation of art through the lens of biblical religions and an understanding of religion through its artistic manifestations.”
A version of this exhibit was seen at St. Louis University’s MOCRA last year.
‘Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there’s the windflower chilly
And there’s the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.
And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still,
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil,
Bring baskets now, and sally
Upon the spring’s array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
In the Saint Francis garden particularly, but around Belmont Abbey College campus generally, the daffodil, which blooms in Lent, is decorating the landscape. Signs of spring are here which makes one leap for joy. The Housman poem gives voice to the unfolding beauty at this time of year (at least in the south).
A while ago, a friend contacted me and said, “we ought to find out about Anne Line!” She had learned something of her story and wanted to know more. We set out together by car from my house in the southern suburbs and — after, I’m afraid, a couple of dreadful muddles — we eventually arrived at Dunmow in
She grew up at Dunmow, the daughter of William Heigham, who was a staunch supporter of Calvinist doctrines, and who disowned both her and her brother when they announced their conversion to Catholicism as young adults. Anne married a fellow convert, Roger Line, but their time together was short, as not long after the wedding he was arrested for attending Mass — at that time a serious offense — and exiled. He died abroad in 1594.
Anne devoted the rest of her life to harboring priests and making arrangements for them to say
Today, there are two churches in
Joanna Bogle
The Women Saints of
The season of Lent is: “to offer in the joy of the Holy Spirit, of our own accord a measure of service…Less food, drink, sleep, speech, merriment, and with the joy of spiritual desire await holy Easter.” (Rule of St Benedict, 49)
The Stations of the Cross, also called the Way of the Cross or the Via Dolorosa (Latin for “Way of Sorrow”), are the prevailing popular devotion during Lent but many Catholics made the Stations of the Cross on Fridays throughout the year and some even daily. (Pope John Paul II had the pious practice of making the Stations of the Cross daily and installed a set of stations in the apostolic apartments.) In using the word “stations” we understanding it to come from the Latin “station,” meaning “standing still.” The Stations are designed to have 14 stops (and some more recent publications include a 15th station) that portray events of the Passion and death of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. They begin with Jesus’ condemnation to death, and concluding with His being laid in the tomb.
The Stations of the Cross are rooted in the ancient tradition of the Church.
In 1342 the Franciscans became custodians of many of the sacred places in the
Stations are found in every church, reflecting Christ’s words: “If any one wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).
So what’s the Church’s teaching on the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross)?
Of all the pious exercises connected with the veneration of the Cross, none is more popular among the faithful than the Via Crucis. Through this pious exercise, the faithful movingly follow the final earthly journey of Christ: from the Mount of Olives, where the Lord, “in a small estate called Gethsemane” (Mk 14, 32), was taken by anguish (cf. Lk 22, 44), to Calvary where he was crucified between two thieves (cf. Lk 23, 33), to the garden where he was placed in freshly hewn tomb (Jn 19, 40-42).
The love of the Christian faithful for this devotion is amply attested by the numerous Via Crucis erected in so many churches, shrines, cloisters, in the countryside, and on mountain pathways where the various stations are very evocative.
The Via Crucis is a synthesis of various devotions that have arisen since the high middle ages: the pilgrimage to the Holy Land during which the faithful devoutly visit the places associated with the Lord’s Passion; devotion to the three falls of Christ under the weight of the Cross; devotion to “the dolorous journey of Christ” which consisted in processing from one church to another in memory of Christ’s Passion; devotion to the stations of Christ, those places where Christ stopped on his journey to Calvary because obliged to do so by his executioners or exhausted by fatigue, or because moved by compassion to dialogue with those who were present at his Passion.
In its present form, the Via Crucis, widely promoted by St. Leonardo da Porto Maurizio (+1751), was approved by the Apostolic See and indulgenced, consists of fourteen stations since the middle of seventeenth century.
The Via Crucis is a journey made in the Holy Spirit, that divine fire which burned in the heart of Jesus (cf. Lk 12, 49-50) and brought him to
In the Via Crucis, various strands of Christian piety coalesce: the idea of life being a journey or pilgrimage; as a passage from earthly exile to our true home in Heaven; the deep desire to be conformed to the Passion of Christ; the demands of following Christ, which imply that his disciples must follow behind the Master, daily carrying their own crosses (cf Lk 9, 23).
The following may prove useful suggestions for a fruitful celebration of the Via Crucis:
-the traditional form of the Via Crucis, with its fourteen stations, is to be retained as the typical form of this pious exercise; from time to time, however, as the occasion warrants, one or other of the traditional stations might possibly be substituted with a reflection on some other aspects of the Gospel account of the journey to Calvary which are traditionally included in the Stations of the Cross;
-alternative forms of the Via Crucis have been approved by Apostolic See or publicly used by the Roman Pontiff: these can be regarded as genuine forms of the devotion and may be used as occasion might warrant;
-the Via Crucis is a pious devotion connected with the Passion of Christ; it should conclude, however, in such fashion as to leave the faithful with a sense of expectation of the resurrection in faith and hope; following the example of the Via Crucis in Jerusalem which ends with a station at the Anastasis, the celebration could end with a commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection (131-134).
(Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 2001)
