ASH WEDNESDAY

Don't forget!

Let's make this Lent a fruitful one. And be cheerful about it!

NEW POPE?

Yesterday, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he will be resigning his post as Pope, effective at the end of this month. What will we do now? I suggest that we all start a Novena to the Holy Spirit for the Cardinals to get the choice right. St. Malachy, hundreds of years, predicted the names and the symbols of each Pope, supposedly til the end of this age. According to him, we would have one more. I think that his would be Peter II. Could be wrong, I don't know.

On another note, 11 hours after His Holiness's announcement, this happened:

Could it be the Holy Spirit telling His Church that they better get it right this time? Is He telling them that He is still in charge? It will keep getting curiouser and curiouser.

Lord, have mercy. Please?

Quinquagesima Sunday

Tomorrow is Quinquagesima Sunday, or approx. 50 days til Easter. St. Paul tells us about Charity, and how nothing will be good unless we have it and use it. In the new church, we hear this as love. I personally think they are connected, but are NOT the same at all. In the Gospel, we hear about the blind man who hears Jesus coming, and begs earnestly to healed from his blindness. We are all desirous to be healed from our blindness, and pray for those who are still blind to the Eternal Truth. This is our job.

In regards to this, St. Francis of Sales tells us how "we must go on these days, and mingle in the company of worldlings, to think, from time to time, on such considerations as these:--that while all these frivolous, and often dangerous, amusements are going on, there are countless souls being tormented in the fire of hell, on account of the sins they committed on similar occasions; that, at that very hour of the night, there are many holy religious depriving themselves of sleep in order to sing the divine praises and implore God's mercy upon the world, and upon them ahat are wasting their time in its vanities; that there are thousands in the agonies of death, while all that gaiety is going on; that God and His angels are attentively looking upon this thoughtless group; and finally, that life is passing away, and death so much nearer each moment."

As we enter into the Lenten season on Ash Wednesday this coming week, I would like to end with a hymn from the Greek Church, which proclaims the annual fast of Lent:


The week, the harbinger of spring, is come; the week that cleanses away sin by the sacred and ever venerable fast, which enlightens the body and soul of every man.

Lo! the gate of penance is thrown open, O ye tht love God! Come, then, let us joyously go in, before Christ shut it against us as being unworthy to enter.

Brethren, let us prepare, and bring with us purity, abstinence, and modesty, and fortitude, and prudence, and prayers, and tears; for it is by these we enter on the path of justice.

Be not solicitous, O mortals! about the body, how you may pamper it, not seek delicacies in what you give it to eat; give it, rather, fullness of vigour by abstinence; tht so it may aid the soul to conquer in the battle with the enemy.

This day, O ye that love God! begins the fast, which is to prepare our souls and bodies by expiation, and infuse into our hearts the generous light of the sacred and venerable Passion of Christ.

Let us, O ye people! enter on our fast with a glad heart; for lo! the spiritual combat begins. Let us throw off the effeminacy of the flesh, redouble the gifts of the spirit, and suffer with Christ, as it behooves them that are his servants; that thus, we may rejoice together with him, and our souls be enlightened by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost within us.

Let us, O faithful! cheerfully receive the divinity inspired messenger of our fast,as did the Ninivites; and as the harlots and the publicans did, of old, receive John, when he preached penance unto them. Let us prepare, by abstinence, for a participation in the Sacrifice of our Lord on Sion. Let his divine laver be preceded by that of our tears. Let us beseech Him to show unto us, when the time is come, the consummation of both Paschs, the figurative, and the True. Let us put ourselves in readiness to adore the cross and Resurrection of Christ; saying unto Him: Let me not be confounded in my expectation, O thou Lover of mankind.


Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, that I may see

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.

The Purification of Mary, Our Blessed Mother

Although she didn't need purification of her soul (since she is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit), she goes to the temple for it anyway, so as to not cause scandal. She is carrying the Redeemer of the world in her arms through the crowds, and no one but Simeon and Anna are aware of it. They are the last of the Old Testament to recognize Him as The One.

The Law of this testament commanded that a woman who had given birth to a son should not approach the Tabernacle for the term of forty days; after which time she was to offer up a lamb as a holocaust, and a turtle dove or a partridge as a sin-offering. But if she were poor, and could not provide a lamb, she was to offer in its stead a second turtle dove or another partridge. The poor offer these meager gifts. Mary is the richest person in the world! She has the Faith of God within her, and she wishes to share it with us.

She is the Tabernacle, the Ark, the Vessel, etc., of God Himself, and she is offering the Lamb of God Himself to the Father as a testament to the world. As our beloved Abbot says: '...these laws had been made were espoused to men; Mary was the chaste Spouse of the Holy Ghost, a Virgin in conceiving and a Virgin in giving birth to her Son; her purity had ever been spotless as that of the Angels; but it received an incalculable increase by her carrying the God of all sanctity in her womb, and bringing Him into this world. Moreover, when she reflected upon her Child being the Creator and Sovereign Lord of all things, how could she suppose that he was to be submitted to the humiliation of being ransomed as a slave, whose life and person are not his own? And yet, the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary that she must comply with both these laws...'

I guess we are told by this to obey the laws, but know that we belong to God, and that our offerings are to Him, since being with Him is our ultimate goal. I'd like to end with something from the past, which we don't hear anymore. It is a sequence written by Adam of Saint-Victor in the Middle Ages.


Let us adorn the temple of our souls, and with new hearts bring back again that old man's joy, whose long-cherished wish is granted, as his arms press Jesus to his breast.

This Child is the Standard of the people, filling the Temple with light, our choirs with praise, and our hearts with jubilee. This day is He presented in the Temple, and will another day, when grown to manhood, be offered on the Cross, the offering for sin.

On one side Jesus, on the other Mary; here the sweet Infant, and there the sweet Mother; oh! what a glad sight! But let us devoutly carry within us the work of Light which our lighted tapers symbolize.

The Father's Word is the light; His virginal flesh is the wax; our lighted taper is Christ Himself, who enlightens our hearts with that wisdom which rescues the sinner from the error of his way, and sets him on virtue's path.

He that holds Jesus by love, carries, as our Feast would have him do, the Candle blest with light. So did Simeon love the Father's Word, and fondly carry in his arms the Mother's Babe.

Be glad, O Mother of thy God! simple, pure, unwrinkled, spotless Mother! O Maiden! chosen by the God of thy love, and loved by the God of thy choice.

All beauty is clouded, deformed, and displeasing to him that has seen thine. All sweetness seems bitter, sour or insipid, to the soul that has tasted of thine.

All fragrance, put near thine, grows faint or foul; all other love must cease, or be put but an afterthought, in hearts that feed on thine.

Beautiful Star of the sea! Thou beautiful honour of all mothers! O true Mother of Truth! O path of holy living! O remedy of the world's ills! Source of the fount of that Wine of Life, for which all men should thirst, and whose strength-giving chalice is sweet to the healthy and the sick, and restores the drooping heart!

O Fount sealed up in holiness! pour out on us thy streams! O Fount of inner gardens! water with rivulet's wave our parched and stony hearts!

Overflowing Fount! flow out on us, and wash our hearts' defilements. O Fount sublime, limpid above our thoughts, cleanse thy servants' hearts from an unclean world. Amen.

Septuagesima Sunday

Tomorrow we hear a multiple of things to keep in mind as we begin the Lenten season of 2012. First, we hear about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; their fall; then their expulsion from the garden to work the earth forever. Also, we hear about what God Himself will do about it. He will eventually send His only-begotten Son to earth in the form of a baby, Who will grow up as we all do, then offer His divine Body to His Eternal Father as the 'sacrificial Lamb' on the Cross at Calvary. All this because of our first parents, Adam and Eve. We have ALL inherited this sin onto our souls, which needs to be cleansed by Baptism and self sacrifices which we can offer to the Eternal Father for our sins.

Then, in the Gospel of Matthew, we hear about the vineyard, where many are chosen to work at various times of the day, with the same pay at the end. According to St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, they offer the following, which I am taking from our beloved Abbot Gueranger:

'...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 hourbegins with Noah and ends with Abraham; thesixth hourincludes the period which elapsed between Abraham and Moses; and lastly, the ninth houropens 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 labourers, 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 laboured 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.'

These two holy doctors of the Church offer a second meaning of these passages:

The Gospel reading from Matthew 'signifies the calling given by God to each of us individually, pressing us to labor, during this life, for the kingdom prepared for us. The morning is our childhood. the third hour, accord to the division used by the ancients in counting their day, is sunrise; it is our youth. The sixth hour, by which name they called our midday, is manhood. The eleventh hour, which immediately preceded sunset, is old age. The Master of the house calls His laborers at all these various hours. They must go that very hour. They that are called in the morning may not put their starting for the vineyard, under pretext of going afterwards, when the Master shall call them later on. Who has told them that they shall live to the eleventh hour? They that are called at the third hour may be dead at the sixth. God will call to the laborers of the last hour such as shall be living when that hour comes; but, if we should die at midday, that last call will not avail us. Besides, God has not promised us a second call, if we excuse ourselves from the first.'

Good bye, Alleluia!

Today is the last day when we hear the Alleluia. Tomorrow we begin the Lenten season with Septuagesima Sunday. We won't hear 'Alleluia' until Easter, March 31st. In reading about today, and how throughout the ages the 'Alleluia' was bid adieu. In the Capitulum of today, I found this nugget to share:

Alleluia is in heaven and on earth: it is eternal in heaven, and is even sung on earth. There, unceasingly; here, faithfully. There, everlastingly; here sweetly. There, happily; here, concordantly. There, ineffably; here, heartily. There, it needs no syllables; here, it needs our melodies. There, it has angels for its chanters; here, it has men. When Christ our Lord was born, the heavenly host gave Him exceeding praise and honour, singing Alleluia both in heaven and on earth, and proclaiming glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good-will. Therefore do we beseech thee O Lord, that as we strive to imitate the angels in their ministry of praise, we may live in such a manner as to deserve to be their companions in eternal life.



Goodbye Alleluia, until we meet again!