Septuagesima Sunday

"Alleluia!" is gone. Gone for 9 weeks. This word that comes from angels we are not to use during the pentecostal season. As our beloved Abbot Gueranger tells us:

'During this season of Septuagesima, we have to gain a clear knowledge of the miseries of our banishment, under pain of being left for ever in this tyrant Babylon. It was, therefore, necessary that we should be put on our guard against the allurements of our place of exile. It is with this view that the Church, taking pity on our blindness and our dangers, gives us this solemn warning. By taking from us our Alleluia, she virtually tells us that our lips must first be cleansed, before they again be permitted to utter this word of angels and saints; and that our hearts, defiled as they are by sin and attachment to earthly things, must be purified by repentance. She is going to put before our eyes the sad spectacle of the fall of our first parents, that dire event whence came all our woes, and our need of Redemption. This tender mother weeps over us, and would have us weep with her.'

We must be cleansed in order to be able to say in the right way: "Alleluia!"
The following verses are from the Churches in France in the 14th century, signifying the end of the use of the Alleluia:

The sweet Alleluia-song, the word of endless joy, is the melody of heaven's choir, chanted by them that dwell for ever in the house of God.

O joyful mother, O Jerusalem our city, Alleluia is the language of thy happy citizens. The rivers of Babylon, where we poor exiles live, force us to weep.

We are unworthy to sing a ceaseless Alleluia. Our sins bid us interrupt our Alleluia. The time is at hand when it behooves us to bewail our crimes.

We, therefore, beseech thee whilst we praise thee, O blessed Trinity! that thou grant us to come to that Easter of heaven, where we shall sing to thee our joyful everlasting Alleluia. Amen.

'The holy Church calls us together today in order that we may hear from her lips the sad history of the fall of our first parents. This awful event implies the Passion and cruel Death of the Son of God made Man, who has mercifully taken upon Himself to expiate this and every subsequent sin committed by Adam and us his children. It is of the utmost importance that we should understand the greatness of the remedy; we must, therefore, consider the grievousness of the wound inflicted. For this purpose, we will spend the present week in meditating on the nature and consequences of the sin of our first parents.' Abbot Gueranger.

St. Paul will tell us today that we are a race to the end; but only those who run well will win the prize.

In the Gospel from Matthew, we hear about the workers in the vineyard, from the first ones in the morning til the later ones who are hired to work. Abbot Gueranger explains these passages in a way I had never heard till I received 'The Liturgical Year' by the Abbot:

'...Firstly, then, let us recall to mind on what occasion our Saviour spoke this parable, and what instruction He intended to convey by it to the Jews. He wishes to warn them of the fast approach of the day when their Law is to give way to the Christian Law; and He would prepare their minds against the jealousy and prejudice which might arise in them, at the thought that God was about to form a Covenant with the Gentiles. The vineyard is the Church in its several periods, from the beginning of the world to the time when God Himself dwelt among men, and formed all true believers into one visible and permanent society. The morning is the time from Adam to Noah; the Third hour begins with Noah and ends up with Abraham; the sixth hour includes the period which elapsed between Abraham and Moses; and lastly, the ninth hour opens with the age of the prophets, and closes with the birth of the Saviour. The Messias came at the eleventh hour, when the world seemed to be at the
decline of its day. Mercies unprecedented were reserved for this last period, during which salvation was to be given to the Gentiles by the preaching of the apostles. It is by this mystery of mercy that our Saviour rebukes the Jewish pride. By the selfish murmuring made against the 'master of the house' by the early laborers, our Lord signifies the indignation which the scribes and pharisees would show at the Gentiles being adopted as God's children. Then He shows them how their jealousy would be chastised: Israel, that had labored before us, shall be rejected for their obduracy of heart, and we Gentiles, the 'last' comers, shall be made 'first', for we shall be made members of that Catholic Church, which is the bride of the Son of God.'