Sexagesima Sunday

Today is the second Sunday into our penitential season, Sexagesima, meaning 60 days approx. til Easter. St. Paul tells us that we should be ready, willing, and able to suffer for Christ and His Church, as he did. Jesus, in the Gospel from St. Luke, gives us the meaning of the seeds of faith spread onto different types of soil. We need to be firmly grounded in the Faith that comes to us from the Apostles and hold on for dear life for it.

I, once again, am going to copy from our beloved Abbot Gueranger. This is a hymn taken from the ancient breviaries of the Churches of France:

The days of ease are about to close; the days of holy observance are returning; the time of temperance is at hand; let us seek our Lord in purity of heart.

Our sovereign Judge will be appeased by our hymns and praise. He who would have us sue for grace, will not refuse us pardon.

The slavish yoke of Pharaoh, and the fetters of cruel Babylon, have been borne too long: let man now claim his freedom, and seek his heavenly country, Jerusalem.

Let us quit this place of exile: let us dwell with the Son of God. Is it not the servant's glory, to be made co-heir with his Lord?

O Jesus! be thou our guide through life. Remember that we are thy sheep, for whom thou, the Shepherd, didst lay down thine own life.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son; honour too be to the Holy Paraclete: as it was in the beginning, now is, and shall ever be. Amen.