Way of the Cross Opening Prayer

I have always loved the Stations of the Cross, a devotion wherin we meditate upon the 14 scenes from the Condemnation of Jesus to His burial. This year, I got the Way of the Cross devotional by Fulton Sheen. And I LOVE it. I may share some of the prayers or meditations from it from time to time. This is the opening prayer.


O Lord Jesus,

the curtain is now about to go up

on the awful and abiding drama

of your redemptive love.

And as I hear your words,

"Take up your cross daily and follow me,"

I stand affrightened, lest its burden

be too great and its shame too bitter.

If I could but see that your command

to follow you to Calvary

was not just an iron law of cruel fate,

but a condition of everlasting happiness,

perhaps I could better make the jouney.

But I fear, dear Jesus, that in having You

I must have nothing else besides.

Let my fear be dispelled

in seeing death as the condition of life.

for through your apostle Paul,

you have told us that it is the joy at the end

of the journey that makes us endure my cross.

I shall, then, take up my cross.

O Jesus, why must we love you so!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Lady of Guadalupe - The Woman of Revelation 12

Image
Today (December 12) is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For an abbreviated version of the story, go here . Most of us are familiar with the image. Some of us - myself included until recently - tend to avoid this aspect of Mary because she's so.... popular. And for those of us who are not Mexican, we often get weird looks from people when we start talking about Our Lady of Guadalupe because, well, she's Mexico's Lady, right? Wrong! I could spend forever talking about all the amazing aspects of this apparition. I could talk about the fact that the tilma has survived for over 400 years when it shouldn't last beyond 20 (And the first 100 or so were unprotected). I could talk about the images present in her 3 mm eyes; I could talk about the lack of brush strokes on the tilma, the fact that scientists just scratch their heads in confusion as they try to explain it, about how the stars on her mantle align with the constellations on the day she first appeared, or about h
Read more

My Saintly Stalker: The Little Flower

Image
As I have matured in my faith, several saints have become more and more real and have walked with me along my journey. Besides the Blessed Mother, none has been as influential in my life as the beautiful St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. Several of you have heard me talk about this spectacular woman, but many more have only heard "I'll tell you more! I promise!" So, I am going to write out a bit about my beautiful Saintly Stalker. First, let me say that I did not go seeking her out as I did with a couple of the other saints that have become meaningful. I did not choose her. She chose me. God knew I needed her, and so, when I went to my Awakening retreat, He put me in a group where both of the group leaders had encountered her and her intercession, and they beautifully shared that devotion with us retreaters. At the end of the weekend, they gave us a prayer card, a card with a picture of St. Therese on one side, a short prayer on the other, with rose petals (I
Read more

The Scourging

Image
Before Jesus walked that painful road to Calvary, Jesus' body was subjected to scourging. This was not what was required by the Jews, yet he suffered it. He allowed his precious body not just to suffer a painful, humiliating death, but he allowed that perfect flesh to be shredded by a cruel whip. That blood which erased our sins, of which one drop was enough to save the whole world, was spilled from gashes torn into his body. Oh, Jesus , how can I ever praise you enough for the sacrifice you made for me. You allowed your precious body to be mutilated. Men who did not believe in you were allowed to take a harsh whip to your back and rip it open. This was not something the Jews called for, but you knew that this was necessary. Your back was already tender from the agony you experienced in the garden. Your ordeal left your whole body as though it was bruised, so each bite of the whip was even more painful. But you never cried out for the Father to take away this pain. You never b
Read more