Last day for 24-hour-a-day prayer at La Crosse convent

A tradition in La Crosse which has lasted almost a century-and-a-half ended Wednesday night.

For the first time since 1878, members of the Franciscan Sisters of La Crosse will not spend all night praying at the St. Rose Convent. 

The FSPA nuns will end the prayers for the night at 10 p.m., and resume at 6 a.m. Thursday. 

The new reduced daily schedule of prayer has been adopted mainly because of thinning numbers among the Franciscan order. 

The order says it will still practice “perpetual adoration,” but that will not be confined to praying within the walls of the convent chapel.      

This 16-hour-a-day prayer schedule was timed to begin on Ash Wednesday, for the start of the Easter season.