Preparation Day 4 - A Journey of Conversion

The Stational Masses of the traditional Lenten pilgrimage provide us, the faithful, with a transcendent way of living the call of Lent to penance and to holiness, as we journey together to Calvary with Our Lord — to embrace His will rather than our own, and to leave sin and darkness behind!  Thus immersed as we are, in the history of the Church through the lives of the saints, and through the historical references in the liturgy and music, to churches and places and events, we begin to see ourselves as moving within the “great cloud of witnesses.” And what is it that all of us, both past and present, are witnesses to?  Nothing less than the work of the Incarnate Word of God in this world, to create a Bride, worthy of marriage to the Lord of All.

In his book, George Weigel makes a profound point: "The Lenten pilgrimage through the station churches of Rome, encrusted as they are with layers of legend about the saints and martyrs of old, is an opportunity to live what philosopher Paul Ricoeur called a "second naïveté": not the naïveté of the child, but the wonder of the adult who, on the far side of skepticism or cynicism, is grasped by the truths of legends, stories, even myths that go beyond the historically knowable facts and precisely for that reason are the bearers of deep truths — truths about light and darkness, truths about what is life-giving and what is death-dealing, truths about God and us."

The Stational Pilgrimage of Lent calls us to recognize each saint of the day as being alive and present in the midst of the assembled congregation of the faithful.  The saint has been selected as an icon of Christian virtue for our imitation, and so the stational pilgrimage observance offers us the ultimate way of venerating the saints.  I remember Msr. Jeffrey Steenson, the first Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, saying shortly after his conversion as an Episcopal Bishop, from Anglicanism to Catholicism, that "the air is somehow 'thicker' around a Catholic altar."  I believe he was referring to the presence of all those centuries worth of saints and angels,  martyrs and confessors who join us in the Mass, not visible to our physical eyes perhaps, but very visible to the "eyes of our souls", as the Mass incorporates us today in the ongoing Mass of the Ages in Heaven, making the One Sacrifice, once offered, present before us.

The propers and readings for daily Mass during Lent, generally refer to the stational saint or to an event in the history of the Church associated with the location or identity of the particular church. Here are three examples of this:

As Lent draws near, we look forward once again to its penitential aspects - ashes and palms, sacrifice and abstinence, and Stations of the Cross.  But even as we fast and abstain from worldly pleasures, we are also richly fed with the spiritual food our Church has so lovingly stored up for us through the centuries.  The character of Lent is a true feast of the richness of our Catholic faith, and an “itinerary of conversion,” as George Weigel so aptly called it in his book, Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches of Rome. 

Lent was once the period of completion of the 2-3 year catechumenate of converts in the ancient Church, as they made their final preparations for the Easter Vigil, during which they would, at long last, be baptized, confirmed, and receive their first Eucharist.  Some never made it to that day, having become martyrs, and by their deaths, eucharistic sacrifices of the broken Mystical Body of Christ.  Their powerful conversion to Christ made them joyful even in the presence of suffering and death.  I once heard a dear pilgrim, making her first pilgrimage through the Lenten stational churches, marvel repeatedly at the faces of the martyrs, in the artistic depictions in the churches, who all seem to be almost oblivious to any suffering, focused as they are on the glorious face of the Lord, surrounded by his angels and his saints, as they receive their crown of martyrdom.

May this season of Lent, which we will enter tomorrow, be a journey of conversion for us all, as we begin our pilgrimage to Calvary with Our Lord.  Remember, that the journey is one of dying to self, that we may be buried with Him in baptism, and arise with him to “newness of life (Romans 6:4).”  May our love of our Lord come alive as we have never before experienced, as we follow the centuries of Popes and of the faithful, up the Aventine Hill to Santa Sabina tomorrow, on through all the great ancient stations, and finally into St Mary Major on Easter morning, where we will rejoice with Our Lady in her relief of the wound from the sword that pierced her heart.  There we will sing, if our tears of joy will allow us, the great Triple Alleluia, with all the angels and saints, as they cast their crowns before the Lord in all His Paschal Glory! 

See you tomorrow on the Aventine Hill, as we ascend to the collect church of St Anselmo,  from which we will process to Santa Sabina, our first station of the pilgrimage, in the company of the Pope and all his entourage.

Food for Thought - a painting to ponder - recommended by Catholic author, George Wiegel, in his book, The Station Churches of Rome :  The Lenten Procession to Calvary with Our Lord