Stations of the Cross

 "We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You because by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world."

We say this prayer at each station of the Stations of the Cross.  We genuflect when we pray it, also.  It 

comes from St. Francis of Assisi.  He prayed a longer version of the prayer every time he came to a

church.  The Franciscans started the devotion to the Stations of the Cross.

Who Am I?

I'm working on creating a game for my "cloistered brothers."  The R.C.I.A. catechumen are looking at patron saints. So they will play a game with the rest of the  Bethany Community.  We're calling it, "Who Am I?"

The community will be given two facts.  For example: I am a male, born in 1182.

The catechumen will answer whatever questions the community asks--up to ten questions.
Are you a martyr?   No.
Are you a priest?     No.
Are you married?   No.
Are you a soldier?   At one time.                                                      
Are you a founder of a religious order?  Yes.
Are you known for helping the poor?  Yes.
Are you St. Vincent de Paul?  No.
Are you Spanish?  No.
Are you Italian?  No.
Are you St. Ignatius Loyola?  No.   

The answer is St. Francis of Assisi

Franicans

Legend has it that St. Dominic and St. Francis both had similar dreams that they met each other on the street.  The very next day, their dreams became real.  They met and immediate embraced each other.  That is why we Lay Dominicans refer to St. Francis as our Father, too.  We pray for our Father Francis, today.

But whenever I think of St. Dominic and St. Francis, I don't think our our saintly fathers.  No, not at all.  There's only one image that comes to mind, and that's Sister Ruth and Sister Kathleen.  O.P. and O.S. F.

Our Holy Fathers

Our Lady of Mercy Chapter's Dominican and Franciscan
Ms. Ruth Raichele, op and Sr. Kathleen Deneven, osf  

October 5 is the Feast Day of St. Francis.  It is a venerable tradition in the Franciscan and Dominican Orders to call both founders, Our Holy Father Dominic and Our Holy Father Francis.  Both Orders do this in their Litany of Saints.  We also invite a preacher from the other Order to preach on our respective feast days.  For example, Our Lady of Mercy Chapter invited Fr. Martin Curtin, OFM Cap., and he gave an inspired Talk.  (Albeit impromptu, but it was excellent, nonetheless.)

Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira describes the complementary mission of these two Religious Orders:

"St. Francis and St. Dominic both received visions that allowed them to recognize one another. So when St. Dominic saw St. Francis in one of the churches of Rome, he went to him and embraced him. They both expressed their enthusiasm for the mission each had received and for the fact that they would support one another. This was the embrace of two souls, each one with every reason to hold the other in the highest esteem: on one hand, because their missions were very similar; on the other hand, because they were very different.

According to Catholic criteria, a great similarity leads to friendship, but so also does a great dissimilarity when it is not the dissimilarity of opposition, but rather one that is complementary. One had something that the other was lacking. Together they constituted a harmonic ensemble. For this reason, they admired one another.

Both saints had a profound Marian devotion. St. Francis was a great palatine of the Immaculate Conception centuries before it was defined as dogma. The Franciscans would spread that truth throughout the world. St. Dominic was the great apostle of the Rosary. Through the devotion of the Rosary the Dominicans would effect immediate and spectacular conversions. The Dominican is the Order of the Rosary par excellence. So, from the Marian perspective, there is a great similarity in the Orders.

However, even with this similarity of mission, there are also differences. The two Marian devotions represent in the minds of the faithful two different floods of light. Still, they are convergent lights, because it is not unusual for the person who believes in the Immaculate Conception to pray the Rosary, and vice-versa.

This balance between similarity and dissimilarity can also be noted in another point. The Dominican Order was called to convert persons by speaking to their will through their intelligence. It is clear that part of the Dominican mission is an intellectual work--the study and teaching of philosophy, theology, and apologetics. On the contrary, the dominant note of the Franciscan Order is to move the will through a manifestation of zeal. The great conversions of the Franciscans came about through the consideration of the Wounds of Our Lord, His Passion, His poverty and spirit of sacrifice. Once again, they are harmonic differences that merge in the spirit of the faithful. A Catholic instructed in the arguments of apologetics by the Dominicans should also be touched by the fervor of the Franciscans.

That embrace in a church of Rome, therefore, was not just the embrace of two saints, but something more. It was the missions of the two Orders that embraced in that moment. The two Founders were like the two hands of God uniting their efforts to work on this earth, to bring holiness and happiness to men and glory to the Catholic Church."

 h/t Friar Blog belonging to the Province of St. Joseph

More Thinking than Praying Doesn't Work

Using Carlo Carretto today for Lectio Divina.

Carlo assumes the voice of St. Francis of Assisi giving women advice, by referring to Saint Catherine of Siena: "Transform your home into a convent--an ideal, spiritual one, as Saint Catherine did.  Let prayer reign there, good counsel, and peace.  Let your toil, wherever it is, be illumined by the power of your calling--for you were made to love, to comfort, to serve."

Mmmmmm.......knowing St. Catherine like I do, I think she'd tell Carlo where to go.

You know, like she told the Pope to leave Avignon.  Carlo is giving advice in the 1980's to women who want to be priests.  He thinks women should be priests.  He's (St. Francis) telling priests, "Are you still the slaves of ancient cultures, in which a woman was of no account, in which she was subjugated by male arrogance and destined only to live behind a curtain like the women of the Muslims?"

Oh Carlo!  You are besmirching the names of St. Catherine and St. Francis.  I'm sure both are spinning in their graves.  Good Grief!  When I think of the many times Catherine defended priests, no matter how undeserving they were!   In one of her dialogues St Catherine of Sienna was told by Christ what He thinks of priests. "They are My anointed ones”, the Savior said, “and I call them My Christs because I have given them the office of administering Me to you. The angel himself, has no such dignity, for I have given it to those men whom I have appointed as earthly angels in this life."


Catherine, and I'm sure Francis, too, would have unquestionably obeyed the Church laws.  Where does Carretto come off?


Mmmmmm....does prayer sometimes lead you to sin?