THE TRADITION OF HOLY GRAVES

There is the laudable tradition in many places in Europe above all in German-speaking lands and in Eastern Europe of representations of Christ's holy grave erected lovingly in parish churches where the faithful "keep watch" and pray on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. 

My Jesus, hide my soul in Your heart as You lie in the Sepulcher alone. Let my heart be as a fire to keep you warm. Let my desire to know and love You be like a torch to light up the darkness. Let my soul sing softly a hymn of repentant love as the hours pass and Your Resurrection is at hand. Let me rejoice, dear Jesus, with all the Angels in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving for so great a love- so great a God- so great a day!

Amen

Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/stations/stat14.htm#ixzz2OyCxhZfx

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GOOD FRIDAY PROCESSION IN LOHR AM MAIN GERMANY

Meditation

Jesus Christ Shown by Pilate to the People
Source: THE SCHOOL OF JESUS CRUCIFIED, Fr. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus,
TAN BOOKS, with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, 189

PILATE, on beholding the Redeemer of the world in the lamentable condition to which His executioners have reduced Him, imagines that His appearance alone must move the people to compassion, and therefore takes Him to the balcony in front of his palace, from whence He may be seen by the assembled multitude, saying "Ecce Homo."---"Behold the Man!"

Consider:
1. The state in which Jesus is shown to the people.

   He is so deformed and disfigured as scarcely to preserve the semblance of a man. His face is pale and bruised with the blows He has received, and defiled with the spittle---His adorable head is bending beneath the painful weight of the sharp thorns, which pierce His brow and form a crown of sorrow and ignominy---His torn, mangled, and bleeding frame is clothed with a garment of scorn and derision. He suffers in every part of His sacred Body, and His position is one of the deep est degradation. In this state of indescribable shame and confusion, the adorable Son of God is presented by Pilate to the people with these few words: "Behold the Man!" As though he had said: "Behold to what a condition the Man whom you accuse of aspiring to royalty is reduced! See whether He is not rather worthy of tears and compassion than of hatred!" And thou, my soul, attentively contemplate this Man-God, the King of Glory, overwhelmed with ignominy, in the presence of so great a multitude, His adorable Body streaming with blood and loaded with shame. He Who was the most beautiful of the sons of men, is now the abomination of His people. He has assumed so painful and humiliating an appearance to induce His Father to take pity upon us, and deliver us from the eternal punishments which we have deserved. Love for our souls, and desire for their salvation, have reduced Him to so pitiable a condition. But, on your part, what efforts do you make for the salvation of your soul which has been purchased by Jesus at so dear a rate? Are you anxious to guard its purity and save it from eternal misery? Or are you, on the contrary, willing for a mere trifle to sacrifice your right to that Paradise which Jesus has purchased for you at the price of so many humiliations and sufferings?

2. The feelings aroused in the hearts of the people by the appearance of Jesus.

The sight of the lamentable condition to which the most innocent Redeemer of the world is reduced, would have touched hearts of stone, and ought to inspire the Jews with feelings of compassion and mercy toward our suffering Jesus. But no sooner do they behold Him than they seem to lose every feeling of humanity, and, with the fury of wild beasts, clamorously demand His death, and seek with unexampled fury to deprive Him of that life which is all but extinct in His martyred Body. The diabolical hatred and implacable rage animating them against our blessed Lord urge them on to demand with loud cries that He should be crucified! Behold the consequences of allowing a passion once to take possession of the heart! There is no excess into which a man blinded by anyone passion may not fall. All passions delight but ruin the soul, and must therefore be combated with untiring energy. Pilate is well aware of the innocence of Jesus, and is by no means willing to yield to the iniquitous wishes of the Jews, but they fiercely and clamorously reply that according to their law He ought to die, because He has made Himself the Son of God. The laws of the world condemn Jesus to die. All worldlings who seek solely to gratify their passions exclaim by the voice of the Jews that Jesus must be put to death, that Jesus must be crucified! And do you regulate your conduct by such laws as these? Do you follow the maxims of worldlings? If such is the case, you will very speedily desert Jesus, and seek to crucify Him anew. Jesus beholds the rage of His enemies, He hears their furious outcries, and bitterly deplores their insensibility to His sufferings, but rejoices at the prospect of that Cross on which He is to die for love of me, while I tremble at the very name of crosses and sufferings. Why are my sentiments so contrary to those of Jesus?

3. The feelings which the sight of Jesus Christ should awaken in our hearts.

   While the people display no compassion whatever on beholding Jesus, let us imagine that the Eternal Father shows Him to us to excite at least in our hearts feelings of love, veneration, and of desire to imitate Him. Let us imagine that we hear the Eternal Father addressing us in the words of Pilate to the Jews, "Ecce Homo"---"Behold the Man!" He is your King, the King of wisdom, of love, and of holiness, but also the King of sorrow and ignominy. He has acquired possession of His kingdom by humiliation and suffering; He has purchased it for you at the price of His Blood and of His Wounds: for your sake He has sacrificed His dignity, and permitted Himself to be thus outraged and tormented. Adore this King, be subject to Him, and if you wish to enter His blessed Kingdom, follow Him in the way of the Cross and of suffering. He is desirous of reigning in your hearts, and He has purchased possession of them at the price of a most painful death. Consecrate then to Him all your thoughts and all your affections. Behold the Man! He is your Father; the most sweet, tender and loving of fathers---a Father who, for the love of His children, and in order to restore them to the life of grace which they had lost by sin, has sacrificed His own most precious life on the Cross, and is yet the most despised and abhorred of fathers. Love so good a Father, obey His commands, and never grieve His tender Heart. Behold the Man! He is your Master and your Model. Observe the virtues which He practices on this occasion. Extreme mildness amid so many provocations, perfect silence under so many outrages, great humility amid so many insults, and wonderful patience under so many sufferings. Contemplate, and endeavor to imitate Him. Never will you resemble Him in the honors of Paradise, never will you be His companions in glory, if you resemble Him not in His virtues. Resolve to do so by the help of His grace.

The Fruit

    Remain for some time with your eyes fixed on a Crucifix, and say to yourself, "Behold the condition to which a God has been reduced for love of me, and to satisfy for my sins." Offer Him all the powers of your soul, and all the senses of your body, in testimony of your love, and determine to use them solely for His glory. Ask Him, through the merits of His humiliations, to bestow upon you the spirit of humility and penance.

Example

   The venerable servant of God, Ursula Benincasa, took such great delight in having constantly before her eyes a picture representing Jesus crowned with thorns, and in the state in which He was shown by Pilate to the people, that she had it fastened on her working frame. When working she would frequently breathe forth fervent sighs of love to her suffering Lord, and beseech Him to allow her to partake in His sorrows, and to share His crown of thorns. She caused Crucifixes to be placed in every part of her house, and kept many in her room, so that, whichever way she turned, she might always behold her suffering Redeemer. Having become a Religious, and Superior of a Convent, she ordered each of her nuns to keep in her cell an image of Christ Crucified, and to say at least thirty-three times every day, "My Crucified Jesus! I repent of all my sins. Have mercy on me, and help me at the hour of my death."

From the Canonlaw.info blog:

"Present liturgical law is clear that only adult males (viri) may have their feet washed at the Mass of the Last Supper: “Lotio pedum …11. Viri selecti deducuntur a ministris ad sedilia loco apto parata. Tunc sacerdos … accedit ad singulos, eisque fundit aquam super pedes et abstergit …” (Mass of the Lord's Supper, Roman Missal 2002). Therefore, if someone is washing the feet of any females (or, it seems, even of males under 18, per 1983 CIC 97), he is in violation of the Holy Thursday rubrics."

http://www.canonlaw.info/a_footfight.htm

GOD BLESS THE PEOPLE OF NORTH DAKOTA AND OUR LADY QUEEN OF THE PRAIRIES KEEP THEM!

PALM SUNDAY BIRMINGHAM ORATORY

Litany for the Church in Our Time

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, Divine Founder of the Church,
hear us.
Christ, Who didst warn of false prophets,
graciously hear us.

God, the Father of Heaven,
have mercy on us.
 God, the Son, Redeemer of the World,
have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost,
have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.
St. Michael, Defender in Battle, pray for us.
St. Peter, the Rock upon which Christ built His Church, pray for us.
St. Paul, Protector of the Faithful Remnant, pray for us.
St. Francis of Assist, Re-builder of the Church, pray for us.
St. Anthony, Hammer of Heretics, pray for us.
St. Pius V, Restorer of the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy, pray for us.
St. Pius X, Foe of Modernism, pray for us.
All ye Holy Angels and Archangels, pray that we may resist the snares of the Devil.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray that Christ's Vicar may oppose the spirit of the world.
St. John Fisher, pray that bishops may have the courage to combat heresy and irreverence.
St, Francis Xavier, pray that zeal for souls may be re-enkindled in the clergy.
St. Charles Borromeo, pray that seminaries may be protected from false teachings.
St. Vincent de Paul, pray that seminarians may return to a life of prayer and meditation.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray that religious may rediscover their vocation of love and sacrifice.
St. Thomas More, pray that the laity may not succumb to the Great Apostasy.
St. Francis de Sales, pray that the Catholic press may again become a vehicle of Truth.
St. John Bosco, pray that our children may be protected from immoral and heretical instruction.
St. Pascal, pray that profound everence for the  Most Blessed Sacrament may be restored.
St. Dominic, pray that we may ever treasure the Holy Rosary.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God,
That we may be made worthy of the  promises of Christ.

Let Us Pray.
Jesus, our God, in these dark hours when Thy Mystical Body is undergoing its own Crucifixion, and when it would almost seem to be abandoned by God the Father, have mercy, we beg of Thee, on Thy suffering Church. Send down upon us the Divine Consoler, to enlighten our minds and strengthen our wills.

Thou, O Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived, have promised to be with Thy Church until the end of time. Give us a mighty Faith that we may not falter; help us to do Thy Holy Will always, especially during these hours of grief and uncertainty. May Thy Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Thy Holy Mother be our sure refuge in time and in eternity. Amen.