Here is my reading of the Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, composed by Joseph Card. Ratzinger, once Pope, now His Holiness Benedict XVI, for the 2005 Good Friday observance at the Colosseum in Rome.
I love the St. Alphonsus Stations, but I think it would be a nice gesture in some parishes to use Papa Ratzinger’s Stations on Fridays this Lent.
The text is English, though I use Latin responses and prayers between the Stations.http://www.wdtprs.com/prayercazt/080318_stations_ratzinger.mp3
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ALSO: Way of the Cross by St. Alphonsus Liguori (voice and with chant)
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In my previous parish in the diocese of Arlington, the priests would pray St. Alphonsus Liguori’s or Pope Benedict’s meditations on alternate Fridays. Yes, Pope Benedict’s is longer but it has some very worthwhile points.
Where could a text of Pope Benedicts Way of the Cross be found?
Dear JacobWall, try:
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2005/documents/ns_lit_doc_20050325_via-crucis_en.html
Papa Ratzinger’s are my favorite, not just for their writing, but because Himself and I were in Rome at the time on our (somewhat belated) honeymoon. So we were at the Colosseum for the Via Crucis for them.
I just got back from my parish’s Stations, and the dear father used these stations! Deo Gratias!
@fvhale – thank you!
thank you, thank you — I get home from work too late to do this at church
At Stations tonight there were three of us plus Deacon. We have six or seven variations of The Way of the Cross, some copyrighted in the ’30s. Tonight we used JP II’s Scriptural Way of the Cross (from the ’90s?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptural_Way_of_the_Cross
It doesn’t match our station plaques but is still profound.
I might suggest Pope Benedict’s for next week.
Thanks for posting these, I’d planned on listening to them today, but forgot (you jogged my memory).
Whoah, from what I see from the link above (fvhale) it seems that the Ratzinger stations are a reversion to the non-scriptural line-up, quite contrary to the gift JPII gave the church of the scriptural stations. That’s rather a disappointment to me. We pretty much stress the JPII scriptural line-up here.
I remember that week so well. Easter week 2005 was my first ever trip to Rome. We left the day before JP2 died. Such a powerful time
The Way of the Cross With the Carmelite Saints, by Sister Joseph Marie (Author, Editor):
“We cannot reach the thicket of God’s riches for which we were created, Saint John of the Cross says, without peering into the thicket of his sufferings.”
This is great gift! I was glad to see the contemporary station number 15 was not added/included.
Thanks Father Z!
This recording gets better every time I pray with it–spans a whole lifetime of suffering with love.
The one I use when I do the Via Crucis by myself
Thanks for the useful feedback!
Perhaps remember me in your prayers as well.
My parish recently began using the new Lumen Christi missals (which replaced the older Worship II Hymnals). I was delighted to discover that the devotion section at the end of the missal not only contains the version of the Via Crucis composed by His Holiness in 2005, but that the parish has begun using the Ratzingerian prayers / meditations for the weekly Lenten Stations of the Cross.
Our pastor used the Cardinal Ratzinger Way of the Cross for the first Friday in Lent. A thoughtful way to begin the season!
On a completly unrelated note, I’ve just learned (literally within the last fifteen minutes), Father, that you are planning to visit us in Boston at the end of April. I’m already clearing my calendar so that I can attend the Mass at St. Paul’s that day!
It is clear that a certain disrespectful attitude towards Pope Benedict/J.Ratzinger has been prevailing in the media. Knowing him, he could care less.
Is it too much to ask to stay off the bandwagon? Even if one may not be in the same theological corner.
frjim4321 says:
1 March 2013 at 4:30 pm
“Whoah, from what I see from the link above (fvhale) it seems that the Ratzinger stations are a reversion to the non-scriptural line-up, quite contrary to the gift JPII gave the church of the scriptural stations. That’s rather a disappointment to me. We pretty much stress the JPII scriptural line-up here.”
Piero Marini says:
“With the biblical Way of the Cross the intention was not to change the traditional text, which remains fully valid, but quite simply to highlight a few «important stations» which in the textus receptus are either absent or in the background.”
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/documents/ns_lit_doc_via-crucis_en.html
So let’s not be more Catholic than the Pope.