Arma Christi Rolls: Medieval Meditations on the Passion of Christ

As we prepare for Lent--the Byzantine Catholic Church (and the Orthodox Church) is marking its approach with Meat Fare and Cheese Fare Sundays and the Anglican Ordinariate and the 1962 Roman Missal with the season of Septuagesima, celebrating Mass on Sundays without the Gloria or the Alleluia, buried after the First Vespers of Septuagesima Sunday--our thoughts turn to what we will do or not do during Lent. One theme of Lent is meditations on Our Lord's Passion with Stations of the Cross, for example, prayed in parish churches each Friday.

A medieval English method of meditation on the instruments of Our Lord's Passion (the pillar at which He was scourged, the nails, the spear, the Cross, the Crown of Thorns, etc) was illustrated "Arma Christi" rolls, one of which was just discovered in the archives of the Bar Convent in York:

A rare medieval illuminated manuscript has been uncovered in a York convent's archive.
Dr Hannah Thomas discovered the 15th-Century Arma Christi at Bar Convent while cataloguing the religious order's collection, calling it "one of the best-preserved examples ever found".
The rolled document is one of only 11 copies known to have survived, the convent said, and featured the prayer poem "O Vernicle" with response texts written after each verse.
Dr Thomas said the responses, written in red, suggested it was used in communal worship as well as private prayer.
"With hand-drawn figures and beautiful calligraphy it's a medieval work of art in its own right," she said.
The manuscript, thought to date from about 1475, was found in a shoebox containing leaflets from the 1980s. 

Leaflets from the 1980s!!!!!!

Here's an image of an Arma Christi roll at the Morgan Library in NYC.

There's a scholarly ($$$$$$$$) book on the subject, inspired by one of the editors discovering an Arma Christi roll in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Andrea Denny-Brown writes about that discovery in 2002 here.

The BBC article cited above notes this reaction from the mother superior of the Bar Convent:

There are no records of when this Arma Christi was passed into the order's care, according to Bar Convent, with the item due to go on public display in April.
Sister Ann Stafford, mother superior, said the responses written on the scroll would now be used in a service at the convent's chapel.
"We're delighted that presiding at the service will be the Bishop of Middlesbrough and the Archbishop of York," she said.
"We plan to livestream the service so that the world can share in its discovery."

I'll try to watch for more information on the Bar Convent website.

I often pray Saint John Henry Newman's translation of the Anima Christi, another prayer that meditates on the Passion of Christ:

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;
Body of Christ, be my salvation;
Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;
Water of Christ’s side, wash out my stains;
Passion of Christ, my comfort be;
O good Jesu, listen to me;
In thy wounds I fain would hide,
Ne’er to be parted from Thy side;
Guard me, should the foe assail me;
Call me when my life shall fail me;
Bid me come to Thee above,
With Thy saints to sing Thy love,
World without end. Amen.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Christ as Man of Sorrows between Four Angels, engraving by Master E. S., c. 1460