Friday has traditionally been a day devoted to meditation on the passion of Christ. This is quite appropriate for it was on a fateful Friday -‐-‐-‐ the most fateful of all history – that a Cross was erected on Calvary, a Cross on which hung the Savior of the world.
In the course of time, many devotions have sprung up in the Church for the purpose of helping us reflect more deeply on what the Lord Jesus underwent for our salvation: the Via Crucis, the First Friday, etc.
This little booklet brings in another devotion – a most unique one, and one that has a long history behind it.
We ow this devotion to St. Catherine Ricci, a 16th century (1522-1590) Italian Dominican Contemplative Nun.
Catherine was a great devotee of the Lord’s Passion. This Devotion implied not just reflecting on the Passion, but actually going through it herself. For 12 consecutive years, she suffered with Christ every week from the evening of Thursday to the evening of Friday.
Caught up in ecstasy, she would accompany Jesus step by step all the way from Gethsemane, through the scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, the Via Dolorosa, and to the Cross itself..all the while experiencing in her body Christ’s sufferings, so severe, she said, that had she not been sustained by a special grace from God, she would have died many times over; That it is simply impossible to imagine the terrible tortures that the Lord endured.
Catherine was also favored by the Lord with the Stigmata, that is, the sacred wounds on his side, hands, and feet.
This devotion is made up of Scripture passages or verses, from the Old and the New Testament, related to the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Originally in Latin, they are here rendered into English with the New American Bible.