by Return to Me: 2020 Lenten Reflections by Holy Cross University
Gospel Ex 32:7-14; Ps 106; John 5:31-47
Growing up my family had a regular Lenten practice of attending the Stations of the Cross. They were crowded events in our parish whether one attended the service on Friday afternoon (often for school students) or on Friday evening (for adults). For fourteen times a priest would lead us in the prayers with a steady rhythm of genuflection and standing. When the priest prayed, “We adore thee Lord and we bless thee” we would respond, “Because by thy Holy Cross thou has redeemed the world.” Regardless of age it was quite a workout. And at each station we would sing a verse of the traditional hymn Stabat Mater. The Stations of the Cross, while often practiced, do not bring in the same crowds as they used to. Still I find that there is something profound when one engages in this rhythmic Lenten prayer. Indeed, the Stations invite us to imagine the incarnation, not in the birth of Jesus, but in His tortuous death. And through it all there stands his Mother, Mary. Many years the refrain of Stabat Mater has stayed with me as I find myself drawn to a Lenten journey with Jesus and his sorrowful mother. What intimate and incarnate words they are: “At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful Mother weeping, Close to Jesus to the last.”
Let us pray that our Lenten journeys may bring us closer into the intimate mystery of Jesus and His loving Mother