This Sunday is the second Sunday into our penitential season, Sexagesima, meaning approx. 60 days til Easter. St. Paul tells us that we should be ready, willing, and able to suffer for Christ and His Church, as he did. After his conversion, he was taken up into heaven just as John was. He saw things we can only read about. 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. As Jesus Himself will tell us tomorrow, "Let him who has ears hear."
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; honor too be to the Holy Paraclete: as it was in the beginning, now is, and shall ever be. Amen.
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Because of the importance and necessity of the doctrine which was contained in the parable. For to hear the word of God is absolutely necessary for salvation, as the Apostle indicates: How shall they believe him (Jesus) of whom they have not heard? (Rom. X. 14.) Jesus calls those happy who hear the word of God and keep it. (Luke XI. 28.) And on this subject St. Augustine says: "Be assured, my brethren, that as the body becomes weakened by want and hunger, and wastes to a mere shadow, so the soul that is not nourished by the word of God, becomes shrunken, worthless and unfit for any good work."
We should endeavor to purify our conscience, for, as St. John Chrysostom demands; "Who would pour precious juice into a vessel that is not clean, without first washing it?" We should, therefore, at least cleanse the vessels of our hearts by an ardent sorrow for our sins, because the spirit of truth enters not into the sinful soul (Wisdom I. 4.). We should ask the Holy Ghost for the necessary enlightenment, for little or no fruit can be obtained from a sermon if it is not united with prayer; we should listen to the sermon with a good motive; that is, with a view of hearing something edifying and instructive; if we attend only through curiosity, the desire to hear something new, to criticize the preacher, or to see and to be seen, we are like the Pharisees who for such and similar motives went to hear Christ and derived no benefit therefrom. “As a straight sword goes not into a crooked sheath, so the word of God enters not into a heart that is filled with improper motives." We should strive to direct, our minds rightly, that is, to dispel all temporal thoughts, all needless distraction, otherwise the wholesome words would fall but upon the ears, would not penetrate the heart, and the words of Christ be fulfilled: "They have ears, and hear not."
Grant me, O God, thy grace that in these evil days of false doctrines I may remain steadfast to Thy holy Gospel which in the Holy Catholic Church remains pure and unchanged; never let me be deterred from obeying its precepts, neither by the charms of the world nor by the mockery and reproaches of the wicked.
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; honor too be to the Holy Paraclete: as it was in the beginning, now is, and shall ever be. Amen.
---------------------------------------------------------
Because of the importance and necessity of the doctrine which was contained in the parable. For to hear the word of God is absolutely necessary for salvation, as the Apostle indicates: How shall they believe him (Jesus) of whom they have not heard? (Rom. X. 14.) Jesus calls those happy who hear the word of God and keep it. (Luke XI. 28.) And on this subject St. Augustine says: "Be assured, my brethren, that as the body becomes weakened by want and hunger, and wastes to a mere shadow, so the soul that is not nourished by the word of God, becomes shrunken, worthless and unfit for any good work."
We should endeavor to purify our conscience, for, as St. John Chrysostom demands; "Who would pour precious juice into a vessel that is not clean, without first washing it?" We should, therefore, at least cleanse the vessels of our hearts by an ardent sorrow for our sins, because the spirit of truth enters not into the sinful soul (Wisdom I. 4.). We should ask the Holy Ghost for the necessary enlightenment, for little or no fruit can be obtained from a sermon if it is not united with prayer; we should listen to the sermon with a good motive; that is, with a view of hearing something edifying and instructive; if we attend only through curiosity, the desire to hear something new, to criticize the preacher, or to see and to be seen, we are like the Pharisees who for such and similar motives went to hear Christ and derived no benefit therefrom. “As a straight sword goes not into a crooked sheath, so the word of God enters not into a heart that is filled with improper motives." We should strive to direct, our minds rightly, that is, to dispel all temporal thoughts, all needless distraction, otherwise the wholesome words would fall but upon the ears, would not penetrate the heart, and the words of Christ be fulfilled: "They have ears, and hear not."
Grant me, O God, thy grace that in these evil days of false doctrines I may remain steadfast to Thy holy Gospel which in the Holy Catholic Church remains pure and unchanged; never let me be deterred from obeying its precepts, neither by the charms of the world nor by the mockery and reproaches of the wicked.
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