Create a Pure Heart for me, O God

Friends the holy Season of Lent is upon us. May it be what it is, a season of spiritual renewal for all of us. As we all await the great feast of Easter, we prepare to celebrate it with the joy of minds made pure through prayer, almsgiving and penance. Yes, the ever ancient wisdom of our Church gives witness to it. It is the only way to purify ourselves and make all the room for God in our lives. And please notice, it does not say through prayer OR almsgiving OR penance. It says through all three: PRAYER, ALMSGIVING, PENANCE! America more than ever needs faithful Christians.

Here in Rome the experience of Lent is promised to be one of the spiritual highlights of the year. We are in daily contact to faithful Christians that have preceded us giving up their lives pouring out their blood for our faith. They are the holy martyrs. And during lent, this closeness is clearer with the celebration of the stational Masses around the city.

The stational masses in Rome have its roots as back as the Second Century. Originally it was the practice of the bishop of Rome to say masses in the different churches of the city. Often the churches were associated to the celebration of the day. For example, Good Friday came to be at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, Christmas at St. Mary Major. After the legalization of Christianity in A.D. 313, the celebration of these masses in other particular churches took an additional significance as the places that held the relics of the martyrs and the memory of the early history of the Church in the city of Rome.

I would like to clarify that stational Masses are just regular Masses celebrated in the Catholic Roman rite, i.e., the same Masses we celebrate anywhere. The use of the term station came to be applied to the place where the Mass was said after a short procession with the pope on fast days. The Christians in those early centuries made a comparison of their fasting and prayer during Lent wit he guard duty of soldiers, seeing their actions as something to be approached with a similar seriousness of purpose.

While other cities such as Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Milan once had similar stational liturgies, Rome is the only city in which these continue in some regular form. Therefore, just like the writings of the fathers and the art of the early Christian era, the stational cycle comes down to us as a monument of the early Church. It is a living connection to those days when the witness of the martyrs was still fresh.

Although today the pope does not go to the stational masses anymore, the tradition, as a Lenten devotion of Romans, still is a popular one to which we gracefully join. The North American College has leaded it for the English speaking community in the city for a long time now. I would like to invite you (and pass the word around to others), to follow me during this Lent in this space as we go from church to church praying, giving alms, and making acts of self-abnegation.

I will post every day a little story of the church, pictures and the collect prayer for Mass. May we enter into the spirit of the prayers that permeate these walls, and join with our predecessors in the praise of the common Lord.