Friday Links, February 28, 2020
Links for this first Friday after Ash Wednesday on a Lenten theme.
Lent (excerpt from The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger)
First are links to two articles on Lent previously posted at this blog.
In Singing Our Contrition, Karen Ullo, Dappled Things Managing Editor, wrote about how foregoing musical accompaniment to singing during Lenten liturgies unexpectedly led to more not less singing by the congregation at the church where she directs music. And she wrote, "no matter what your liturgies sound like, during this Lenten season, I challenge you all to sing."
In Lenten Reflections on the Theotokos, Michael Crotteau, a guest contributor, referred to Mary as Queen of the Arts, and included three images that caused him "to reflect on who Mary truly was and is, not only for Christ, but for all of us.”
Virgin of the Misericordia, detail, c.1422 (tempera on panel) by Miralhet, Jean (1394-1457) Musee d’Art et d’Histoire, Palais Massena, Nice, France
This article from America magazine titled, "A Jesuit’s Lenten pilgrimage through the station churches of Rome" is by a newly ordained priest, Father Anthony Lusvari, S.J., who published a story last year titled Luigi in Dappled Things. The linked article above is the first of eight articles that describe Father Lusvari's experiences during his first Lent as a priest in Rome, when he visited and concelebrated Mass at each of the station churches in 2018.
Some background: After the persecutions ended, the Church in Rome began to keep Lent with not only a fast, but also with a Mass at a different church that honored a different saint each day. The church where each Lenten day's Mass was celebrated came to be called the station church. Station is derived from statio, (which is variously interpreted by different sources as being applied to these churches in the sense of their being either a stopping point or a soldiers' post).
Because many of the links in the series' articles are incorrect and incomplete, following is a list of the other seven articles, which may intrigue you by their titles, as they did me. For one example of the inaccuracies, the articles state over and over that the series is seven articles long, but there are actually eight. And: don't be confused when you see that the first paragraphs of several of the articles incorrectly refer to the current article as, "This is the second article in the series. . . .," erroneously except, of course, when the current article actually is the second article.
II: "What Lenten pilgrims can learn from the martyrs of Rome"
III: "Why I had to climb Rome’s Holy Stairs (on my knees) to believe them"
IV: "What snowfall in Rome taught me about Lent"
V: "During Lent, we need both penance and beauty"
VI: "A church built on ruins"
VII: "What Rome’s station churches teach us about Easter"
VIII: "Pilgrimage—like the sacraments—is all about the details"
On Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis led a procession to this station church of Saint Sabina on the Aventine Hill, Rome.
