That means there’s a page you’re not going to need this year.
Sundays in Lent are of a (slightly) higher liturgical rank than Solemnities. So tonight, pray Evening Prayer II for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Tomorrow, celebrate St. Joseph all day!
If you have a St. Joseph Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours, which is an excellent resource for putting you on the right page for each day’s prayers, you’ll be all set. Find this at your local Catholic bookseller or online at CatholicCompany.com.
If you’re praying through the Divine Office app, you may have noticed that they have the prayers for St. Joseph’s feast today (Sunday, March 19), which is not applicable to Catholics in the USA. So you’ll need a book today, not an app, to be praying the prayers for this liturgical day.
Are you interested in praying the Liturgy of the Hours, or learning to use the breviary for these prayers instead of relying on an app? Get my new booklet, The Handy Little Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours.
Copyright 2023 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Photos copyright 2023 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Amazon links are included; your purchase through these links supports the work of this website at no additional cost to you.
Have you ever tried praying the Liturgy of the Hours?
Have you ever given up praying the Liturgy of the Hours because it seems too complicated? Too many pages, too many ribbons, too many ways to go wrong?
What if I told you that you can pray one part of the Liturgy of the Hours without needing to flip around in the book—all you need to know is what day of the week it is?
For real.
This Lent, try praying Night Prayer.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a saint’s feast day or the season of Lent or anything like that: there’s only one week a year that Night Prayer is different, and the instructions for that are right there in the book.
In my new book The Handy Little Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours (available now on Kindle; the print version releases March 27), I emphasize that for Liturgy of the Hours beginners, Night Prayer is a simple introduction to the cadence of the prayers.
Is it worth the effort? Yes. Is it doable? Yes! Start small, both in building the habit of prayer and your skills in navigating the breviary. Night Prayer is a wonderful way to begin, because it’s shorter and less complex than Morning and Evening Prayer. Take all the time you need to build up your prayer muscles. (21-22)
If you’re using Christian Prayer, you’ll find Night Prayer beginning on p. 1034.
Copyright 2023 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Photos created in Stencil, all rights reserved.
This article contains Amazon links; your purchase through these links supports the work of this website at no cost to you. Thank you!
Today in the USA we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. With that, the Christmas season comes to an end.
(One) It’s time … to take down the Christmas tree.
This is me, with a big case of the “I don’t wannas.” I put the tree up, strung all the lights, and decorated it all by myself this year. (Normally I do the lights, because nobody else in the house is willing to bother with a Christmas-light total that has a comma in the number, and the kids decorate. Empty-nest problems.)
I’m back at work, but my husband is still using his banked “use or lose” vacation time and my college student has another week of winter break. I think this task needs to be delegated this year.
(Two) And put it in the body bag.
The bag for this Christmas tree is 5 feet tall, and so wide it barely fits through the exterior doors of the house. We keep our tree in the shed. This year I’m going to be smart about it. It’s easier to carry the 5 pieces of the tree down the stairs, out the back door, and through the porch to the backyard and THEN put them in the body bag than it is to bag everything up in the living room and wrestle it outside without damaging anything.
(Three) On the up side, I’ll get my living room back.
As a creature of habit, it does drive me crazy that I have to move my Reading Chair every year to make room for the Christmas tree. I look forward to putting that chair back by the window, with its lamp nearby, the way it belongs.
(Four) My reputation precedes me.
Overheard after Mass yesterday, when the usher came over to hand bulletins to the musicians:
Singer: Oh, Mass tomorrow is for my mom, but I can’t be there because I have an appointment.
Music director: Barb will be there! She’ll pray for your mom!
Join me in praying for the repose of the soul for Mrs. B, would you?
(Five) Regarding Mass intentions
Do you pay attention to the list of Mass intentions in your parish bulletin? It’s not just there for the people who go to daily Mass. You can pray for the repose of those souls whether you attend daily Mass or not. Consider adding that prayer after a meal, just like we used to do after lunch in the Catholic grade school I attended:
We give Thee thanks for all Thy benefits, Almighty God, who lives and reigns, world without end. Amen. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
(Six) Tonight, swap out the breviary!
Don’t forget to move the holy cards! If you pray the Liturgy of the Hours using the 4-volume breviary, tonight after Evening Prayer you’ll need to bring out the Ordinary Time I volume and put away Advent/Christmas.
My husband likes Ordinary Time I because it means summer is coming. I’m not ready to think that far ahead (after 7 weeks we’re switching again, into the Lent/Easter volume) but his particular liturgical year revolves around the opening of the pool, conveniently timed right around Holy Saturday if it doesn’t rain that day.
(Seven) Book News
There’s a great sale right now on The Handy Little Guide to Prayer: it’s more than 50% off on Amazon right now! There’s no better time to order a copy for yourself or your friends.
If you’ve read this Handy Little Guide, would you kindly do me a favor and leave an Amazon review? One sentence is plenty; those reviews help other Amazon customers who are thinking about what book to purchase AND they help get the book in front of other readers in Amazon’s recommendations section. Thanks!
In other book news, my next book comes out in less than three months! You can preorder The Handy Little Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours now (and if the price drops before the release date, you’ll get it at the lower price). Did take 6 leave you puzzled? This new book will explain it all.
Copyright 2023 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Photos copyright 2023 Barb Szyszkiewicz, all rights reserved.
Amazon links included; I make a small profit when you use these affiliate links, at no additional cost to you.
“Walk with me,” she beckons, one hand outstretched as if to take mine, and one hand over her heart. That heart, ringed with a garland of beautiful flowers, has been deeply and thoroughly pierced with a sword.
Her smile trembles as her eyes brim with tears about to spill over—but her eyes do not leave mine. She does not shy away from meeting my gaze, even in her own pain.
Young—so young—and newly postpartum, she reaches out to me, inviting me to hold her hand as I shoulder the cross of my troubles, that ever-heavier burden of cares and worries that knocks me down at times under its weight.
“I’ll help you up,” she assures me, reaching out her hand again to lift me off my knees, to catch me as I stumble forward, my vision blurred by my own tears.
“I’ll walk with you,” she promises. Sorrow and joy are no strangers to her. As I cast down my cares with each bead that slides between my fingers, she listens.
She knows all my pain—the pain I’ll talk about, and the pain I feel I have to keep inside. She knows. And she cares. And in my pain, I know I’m not walking alone. I know she is beside me, holding out her hand to guide me, to lift me up, to hold me up.
“I’m here,” she assures me, as every mother assures her little child in fear or pain. “I’m here.”
And as I stumble along, bolstered by contemplating the joy, the light, the sorrow, and the glory she has witnessed, I look into her eyes, answering her trembling smile with my own.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
Copyright 2022 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Photos: unattributed painting of Our Lady of Sorrows, found in Resurrection Parish Adoration Chapel, Delran, NJ; photographed by Barb Szyszkiewicz
In her new booklet, OSV Kids Stations of the Cross, Colleen Pressprich proves that the Stations of the Cross can be made accessible to kids without watering down the impact of the devotion.
One of the things I look forward to each Lent is the parish celebration of the Stations of the Cross each Friday. When my children were in grade school, they would go to the church on Friday afternoons to pray the Stations. Parents were invited to attend, and I often did when my schedule allowed, but the resource the school was using for the Stations was complicated, with flowery language.
That’s not a problem with this new resource from OSV Kids. Colleen Pressprich and illustrator Adalee Hude have created a prayer resource that’s long on reverence and simplicity and short on complicated vocabulary and graphic detail.
Each Station begins with the traditional call-and-response used at the Stations of the Cross. A brief meditation follows, accompanied by a few questions to help the children relate the challenges and suffering Jesus faced to experiences in their own lives. In the prayer for each Station, the children ask for Jesus’ help in meeting challenges such as loneliness, tiredness, frustration, discouragement, and forgiveness.
The meditation and prayer from the Second Station are good examples of how the suffering Jesus experienced is depicted in a child-appropriate way:
The soldiers make Jesus carry his own cross to the hill where he will die. The cross is very heavy. Jesus was in prison all night, and he hasn’t eaten any food since the Last Supper the night before. He also has been beaten. He is tired and weak, yet he still chooses to take up his own cross and walk toward his death because he loves us.
Have you ever had to do something very hard even though you were tired? How did it feel? What helped you keep going? What do you think Jesus was thinking when he lifted the heavy cross onto his back?
Dear Jesus, please remind us that you are with us when we are tired and don’t want to do what is asked of us. Please help us to remember that we can offer up what we don’t like as a prayer. Amen.
I would recommend OSV Kids Stations of the Cross for use with children in elementary school. It’s an excellent resource for families to use to pray the Stations together, and would also be great for use in Catholic schools or religious education programs.
Don’t skip the author’s note at the beginning of the book. Pressprich addresses this to parents, teachers, and priests; in it, she explains how adults can model faith-sharing by using some of the questions in the meditation for each Station.
OSV Kids Stations of the Cross has received an Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, which indicate that the book is free from doctrinal or moral error.
It’s important to note that while the Stations of the Cross is a popular devotion during Lent, the Stations can be prayed all year ’round. I remember that when I was a child, my great-aunts and great-uncle used to visit a church every single day to pray the Stations—even while on vacation! If you find that the Stations of the Cross becomes a special devotion for your family, think about ways you could pray it as a family once a month, perhaps on the First Friday.
Copyright 2022 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Photo copyright 2019 Barb Szyszkiewicz, all rights reserved.
This article contains Amazon affiliate links. Your purchase using these links supports my writing ministry at no additional cost to you.
Christy and Todd WIlkens took their son Oscar to Lourdes with the Order of Malta on a pilgrimage, hoping for healing.
The couple was desperate for a miracle. Their little boy was suffering from a seizure disorder that had begun during his infancy. After a year of chasing treatment after treatment, Christy could see that nothing was helping Oscar—at least, nothing that doctors or hospitals could offer him.
In Awakening at Lourdes: How an Unanswered Prayer Healed Our Family and Restored Our Faith, Christy Wilkens describes the details of her last-ditch spiritual effort to heal what modern medicine could not. She and her husband were exhausted, and the constant caregiving, monitoring, and medical visits for Oscar did not leave much left over for their five older children—or their marriage.
As they began their journey at the airport, Christy and Todd learned immediately about the loving care Oscar—and she and her husband—would receive from the team of Order of Malta volunteers, known as a “pod,” who were assigned to her family, and only to her family. Even as they learned what Oscar needed, these volunteers provided what Christy and Todd needed as well, including time to process the 24/7 caregiving their little boy had required for the past year.
A pilgrimage to Lourdes is much, much more than simply a trip to a shrine that boasts a spring of healing water, as the Wilkens family learned. It is a spiritual experience, bringing healing and wholeness in unexpected ways.
My latest article on prayer, Prayer as Petition, is available at SimplyCatholic.com.
A few highlights:
Prayer of petition, quite simply, is asking for God’s help. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus encourages us to place our needs before God in prayer.
In all humility, we reach out to God, knowing that he is the source of all good things, including forgiveness.
Prayers of petition are often very spontaneous: “God, help me!” Even if we feel far from God, we are able, in our supplication, to turn to him for help.
My latest article on prayer, Prayer as Intercession, is available at SimplyCatholic.com.
A few highlights:
Intercessory prayer is a powerful way to support others spiritually.
We are always encouraged to pray for others, ultimately entrusting their needs to God’s will.
Just as we might pray for someone in need, whether a loved one, friend, or stranger, we can also call upon the saints in heaven to pray for them as well — or for our own needs.
The saints and Mary cannot answer our prayers; only God can do that. But they can, and we believe they do, hear our prayers and pray for us, acting as intercessors on our behalf with God.
Our holy helpers, the saints, are the “cloud of witnesses” mentioned in the Letter to the Hebrews who surround us, helping us “persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith” (12:1-2).
By uniting our prayers with those of Mary and the saints and learning more about their lives and their example, we can draw closer to God.
My latest article on prayer, Devotional Prayer, is available at SimplyCatholic.com.
A few highlights:
Rosaries, chaplets, novenas, the Stations of the Cross, the Angelus, grace before meals, the veneration of relics, and sacramentals: all of these are related to devotional prayer.
Our physical human nature benefits from the use of objects and actions that increase our focus on prayer.
Through devotional prayer, Catholics sanctify time (time of day, days of the week, and months of the year) as well as observe holy days and liturgical seasons.
