Septuagesima with Gueranger

WHY DOM GUÉRANGER? WHO IS DOM GUÉRANGER? WHAT IS SOLESMES?

The Liturgical Year (French: L'Année Liturgique) is a written work in fifteen volumes describing the liturgical year of the Catholic Church. The series was written by Dom Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger, a French Benedictine priest and abbot of Solesmes. Dom Guéranger began writing the work in 1841, and died in 1875 after writing nine volumes. The remaining volumes were completed by another Benedictine under Dom Guéranger's name.

The series describes the liturgy of the Catholic Church throughout the liturgical year, including the Mass and the Divine Office. Also described is the historical development of the liturgy in both Western and Eastern traditions. Biographies of saints and their liturgies are given on their feast days.

The Liturgical Year has been likened to the "Summa Theologica" of St. Thomas Aquinas, which the Council of Trent placed alongside the Bible as a work of authority. Dom Guéranger's "The Liturgical Year" has thus been called the "Summa" of the liturgy of the Catholic Church. However, a word of warning to the reader, just like the :Summa Theologica", you will encounter some dry difficult parts (much like the Israelites in their forty years of penance in the desert), but there will also be found oases of deep spiritual refreshment. Persevere, read slowly, stop to think, and you will draw much fruit from this masterful work. Put away and put aside the modern-man's desire for fast-food, fast-service, being fast-tracked. There is no fast way of getting to Heaven (except for fasting perhaps!!). Besides, I don't think God appreciates being put quickly aside so that we can run off to do what we wrongly imagine to be "better" things. The season that we have entered should see us being more of a Mary than a Martha!

“Now it came to pass as they went, that Jesus entered into a certain town: and a certain woman named Martha, received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord’ s feet, heard his word. But Martha was busy about much serving. Who stood and said: ‘Lord, hast Thou no care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? speak to her therefore, that she help me!’ And the Lord answering, said to her: ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: but one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her!’” (Luke 10:38-42).

DOM GUÉRANGER & SOLESMES

Dom Guéranger pictured here when he still a young monk. He was ordained a priest at the younger than usual age of 22.

Destined to be a Scholar, Priest and Monk, Dom Guéranger would begin his work in the aftermath of the French revolution, when religious life was effectively abolished in all of Europe. Aiming to restore all aspects of monastic life, the preservation of Gregorian chant - the sung liturgy of the church - would be an essential part of Dom Guéranger's goal. He would re-found the Abbey of St. Peter in Solesmes.

Dom Geuranger himself writes: “My youth, the complete lack of temporal resources, and the limited reliability of those with whom I hoped to associate — none of these things stopped me. I would not have dreamed of it; I felt myself pushed to proceed. I prayed with all my heart for the help of God; but it never occurred to me to ask His will concerning the projected work.”

That last statement may surprise us, but Dom Guéranger explains: “The need of the Church seemed to me so urgent, the ideas about true Christianity so falsified and so compromised in the lay and ecclesiastical worlds, that I felt nothing but an urgency to found some kind of center wherein to recollect and revive pure traditions.”

Dom Guéranger was born within walking distance of the Abbey of Solesmes that he was destined to reform. Sablé-sur-Sarthe is a little south-west of Solesmes.

The house, as it looks today, in Sablé-sur-Sarthe in which Prosper Guéranger was born.

Born in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, on April 4, 1805, Prosper Guéranger frequently made Solesmes the destination of his childhood walks, drawn by the charm of the church building and its life-sized saints in stone. Though as a child he never imagined himself a monk, he loved the solitude of the place. Aspiring first to the priesthood, a precocious vocation led him, after his high school studies in Angers, to the seminary in Le Mans. There, he was drawn intensely to the study of Church history, and soon he discovered what the institution of monasticism had been. Contact with the great scholarly works of the Maurists soon awoke in him a real desire for the monastic life.

Ordained a priest in 1827 (Guéranger was only 22 years old at the time, so that his bishop had to obtain a canonical dispensation), he pursued his work as the bishop's secretary in Paris and in Le Mans. In 1831, learning that the priory at Solesmes was destined to destruction for lack of a buyer, the idea came to him to find the means to acquire it and to take up the Benedictine life again. With the help of a few friends and encouraged by his bishop, he gathered together — with considerable difficulty — enough money to rent the monastery property, and subsequently moved in with three companions on July 11, 1833.

The more humble years of the Benedictine life in Solesmes, before the ambitious building projects of later years under Dom Guéranger's successors.

The fledgling community encountered, of course, difficult times. But its young prior, borne up by his absolute confidence in Providence, by his humility and by his natural mirth and optimism, proved to possess a calm tenacity. Without copying the past in a servile way, he took inspiration from solid monastic traditions pursuing above all the true spirit of St Benedict while accepting several very necessary material adaptations to modern times. As a result, by his uncommon intuition of the benedictine charism, liturgy and spiritual life, he became a living example to his monks. As for temporal matters, Solesmes' first friends saw to the most urgent needs. They inaugurated a second and long list of the monastery's benefactors: the Cosnards, the Landeaus, the Gazeaus, Mme Swetchine, Montalembert, the Marquis of Juigné, and so many others who thought constantly of the monks.

After a four-year tryout Dom Guéranger went to Rome, in 1837, to ask the Vatican for official recognition of Solesmes as a benedictine community. Rome not only granted Dom Guéranger's request, but on its own initiative raised Solesmes from the status of priory to that of an abbey making it the head of a new Benedictine Congregation de France, successor to the Congregations of St. Maurus and St. Vanne as well as the more venerable and ancient family of monasteries belonging to Cluny. On July 26, Dom Guéranger made his solemn profession in the presence of the abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.

From then on began a new period in the history of Solesmes.

An aerial view of the St. Peter's Abbey of Solesmes as it stands today, after the expansive building projects of the 20th century.

The abbey view from the bridge crossing the river

THE LITURGICAL LIFE
Extracts from the Commentary on the Daily Liturgy
by Dom Prosper Guéranger

Article 1 : SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Practices During the Septuagesima Season"

The joys of Christmastide seem to have fled far from us. The forty days of gladness brought us by the birth of our Emmanuel are gone. The atmosphere of holy Church has grown overcast, and we are warned that the gloom is still to thicken. Have we, then, for ever lost Him whom we so anxiously and longingly sighed after during the four slow weeks of our Advent? Has our divine Sun of justice, that rose so brightly in Bethlehem, now stopped His course, and left our guilty earth?

Not so. The Son of God, the Child of Mary, has not left us. The Word was made Flesh in order that He might dwell among us. A glory far greater than that of His birth, when angels sang their hymns, awaits Him, and we are to share it with Him. Only, He must win this new and greater glory by strange, countless sufferings; He must purchase it by a most cruel and ignominious death: and we, if we would have our share in the triumph of His Resurrection, must follow Him in the way of the cross, all wet with the tears and the Blood He shed for us.

The grave, maternal voice of the Church will soon be heard, inviting us to the Lenten penance; but she wishes us to prepare for this laborious baptism, by employing these three weeks in considering the deep wounds caused in our souls by sin. True, the beauty and loveliness of the little Child born to us in Bethlehem, are great beyond measure; but our souls are so needy that they require other lessons than those He gave us of humility and simplicity. Our Jesus is the Victim of the divine justice, and He has now attained the fullness of His age; the altar, on which He has to be slain, is ready: and since it is for us that He is to be sacrificed, we should at once set ourselves to consider what are the debts we have contracted towards that infinite justice, which is about to punish the innocent One instead of us the guilty.

The mystery of a God becoming Incarnate for the love of His creature, has opened to us the path of the illuminative way [the 2nd stage of the spiritual life, following on after the way of beginners], but we have not yet seen the brightest of its light. Let not our hearts be troubled; the divine wonders we witnessed at Bethlehem are to be surpassed by those that are to grace the day of our Jesus' triumph: but, that our eye may contemplate these future mysteries, it must be purified by courageously looking into the deep abyss of our own personal miseries.

God will grant us His divine light for the discovery; and if we come to know ourselves, to understand the grievousness of original sin, to see the malice of our own sins, and to comprehend, at least in some degree, the infinite mercy of God towards us, we shall be prepared for the holy expiations of Lent, and for the ineffable joys of Easter.

Article 2 : MONDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"A Season of Serious Thought"

The season, then, of Septuagesima is one of most serious thought. Perhaps we could not better show the sentiments, wherewith the Church would have her children to be filled at this period of her year, than by quoting a few words from the eloquent exhortation, given to his people, at the beginning of Septuagesima, by the celebrated Ivo of Chartres. He spoke thus to the faithful of the eleventh century: ''We know," says the apostle, "that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in pain even till now: and not only it, but ourselves, also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body."

The creature here spoken of is the soul, that has been regenerated from the corruption of sin unto the likeness of God: she groaneth within herself, at seeing herself made subject to vanity; she, like one that travaileth, is filled with pain, and is devoured by an anxious longing to be in that country, which is still so far off. It was this travail and pain that the psalmist was suffering, when he exclaimed: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!" Nay, that apostle, who was one of the first members of the Church, and had received the holy Spirit, longed to have, in all its reality, that adoption of the sons of God, which he already had in hope; and he, too, thus exclaimed in his pain: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ."

During these days, therefore, we must do what we do at all seasons of the year, only we must do it more earnestly and fervently: we must sigh and weep after our country, from which we were exiled in consequence of having indulged in sinful pleasures; we must redouble our efforts in order to regain it by compunction and weeping of heart. Let us now shed tears in the way, that we may afterwards be glad in our country.

Let us now so run the race of this present life, that we may make sure of "the prize of the supernal vocation." Let us not be like imprudent wayfarers, forgetting our country, and preferring our banishment to our home. Let us not become like those senseless invalids, who feel not their ailments, and seek no remedy. We despair of a sick man who will not be persuaded that he is in danger. No: let us run to our Lord, the physician of eternal salvation. Let us show Him our wounds, and cry out to Him with all our earnestness: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak: heal me, for my bones are troubled." Then will He forgive us our iniquities, heal us of our infirmities, and satisfy our desire with good things.

From all this it is evident that. the Christian, who would spend Septuagesima according to the spirit of the Church, must make war upon that false security, that self-satisfaction, which are so common to effeminate, lukewarm and tepid souls, and produce spiritual barrenness. It is well for them, if these delusions do not insensibly lead them to the absolute loss of the true Christian spirit. He that thinks himself dispensed from that continual watchfulness, which is so strongly inculcated by our divine Master, is already in the enemy's power.

He that feels no need of combat and of struggle in order to persevere and make progress in virtue (unless he have been honored with a privilege, which is both rare and dangerous), should fear that he is not even on the road to that kingdom of God, which is only to be won by violence. He that forgets the sins which God's mercy has forgiven him, should fear lest he be the victim of a dangerous delusion. Let us, during these days which we are going to devote to the honest unflinching contemplation of our miseries, give glory to our God, and derive from the knowledge of ourselves fresh motives of confidence in Him, who, in spite of all our wretchedness and sin, humbled Himself so low as to become one of us, in order that He might exalt us even to union with Himself.

Article 3 : TUESDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima"

The Season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of the Liturgical Year, and is itself divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: the first is called Septuagesima; the second, Sexagesima; the third, Quinquagesima.

All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima―that is, Forty―because the great Feast of Easter is prepared for by the holy exercises of Forty Days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima, tell us of the same great Solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which the Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, and desires, and devotion.

Now, the Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days’ recollectedness and penance. Those forty-days are one of the principal Seasons of the Liturgical Year, and one of the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian vocation. It is of the utmost importance, that such a Season of penance should produce its work in our souls ― the renovation of the whole spiritual life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.

This prelude to the holy season of Lent was not known in the early ages of Christianity: its institution would seem to have originated in the Greek Church. The practice of this Church being never to fast on Saturdays, the number of fasting-days in Lent, besides the six Sundays of Lent (on which, by universal custom, the Faithful never fasted), there were also the six Saturdays, which the Greeks would never allow to be observed as days of fasting: so that their Lent was short, by twelve days, of the Forty spent by our Savior in the Desert. To make up the deficiency, they were obliged to begin their Lent so many days earlier.

The Church of Rome had no such motive for anticipating the season of those privations, which belong to Lent; for, from the earliest antiquity, she kept the Saturdays of Lent (and as often, during the rest of the year, as circumstances might require), as fasting days. At the close of the 6th century, St. Gregory tile Great, alludes, in one of his Homilies, to the fast of Lent being less than Forty Days, owing to the Sundays which come during that holy season. “There are,” he says, “from this Day (the first Sunday of Lent) to the joyous Feast of Easter, six Weeks, that is, forty-two days. As we do not fast on the six Sundays, there are but thirty-six fasting days; which we offer to Gel as the ‘tithe of our year’” (The sixteenth homily on the Gospels).

It was, therefore, after the pontificate of St. Gregory, that the last four days of Quinquagesima Week, were added to Lent, in order that the number of Fasting Days might be exactly Forty. As early, however, as the 9th century, the custom of beginning Lent on Ash Wednesday was of obligation in the whole Latin Church. All the manuscript copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, which bear that date, call this Wednesday the In capite jejunii, that is to say, the beginning of the fast; and Amalarius gives us every detail of the Liturgy of the 9th century, tells us, that it was, even then, the rule to begin the Fast four days before the first Sunday of Lent. We find the practice confirmed by two Councils, held in that century (Meaux, and Soissons). But, out of respect for the form of Divine Service drawn up by St. Gregory, the Church does not make any important change in the Office of these four days. Up to the Vespers of Saturday, when alone she begins the Lenten rite, she observes the rubrics prescribed for Quinquagesima Week.

Article 4 : WEDNESDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Lent Starts Early"

Peter of Blois, who lived in the 12th century, tells us what was the practice in his days. He says: “All Religious begin the Fast of Lent at Septuagesima; the Greeks, at Sexagesima; the Clergy, at Quinquagesima; and the rest of Christians, who form the Church militant on earth, begin their Lent on the Wednesday following Quinquagesima” (Sermon xiii). The secular Clergy, as we learn from these words, were bound to begin the Lenten Fast somewhat before the laity: though it was only by two days, that is, on Monday, as we gather from the Life of St. Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg, written in the 10th century. The Council of Clermont, in 1095, at which Pope Urban the Second presided, has a decree sanctioning the obligation of the Clergy beginning abstinence from meat at Quinquagesima. This Sunday was called, indeed, Dominica carnis privii, and Carnis privium Sacerdotum, (that is, Priests' Carnival Sunday) ― but the term is to be understood in the sense of the announcement being made, on that Sunday, of the abstinence having to begin on the following day. We shall find, further on, that a like usage was observed in the Greek Church, on the three Sundays preceding Lent. This law, which obliged the Clergy to these two additional days of abstinence, was in force in the 13th century, as we learn from a Council held at Angers, which threatens with suspension all Priests who neglect to begin Lent on the Monday of Quinquagesima Week. This usage, however, soon became obsolete; and in the 15th century, the secular Clergy, and even the Monks themselves, began the Lenten Fast, like the rest of the Faithful, on Ash Wednesday.

There can be no doubt, but that the original motive for this anticipation―which, after several modifications, was limited to the four days immediately preceding Lent―was to remove from the Greeks the pretext of taking scandal at the Latins, who did not fast a full Forty days. Ratramnus, in his Controversy with the Greeks, clearly implies it. But the Latin Church did not think it necessary to carry her condescension further, by imitating the Greek ante-Lenten usages, which originated, as we have already said, in the eastern custom of not fasting on Saturdays.

The Gallican Liturgy had retained several usages of the Oriental Churches, to which it owed, in part, its origin: hence, it was not without some difficulty, that the custom of abstaining and fasting on Saturdays was introduced into Gaul. Until such time as the Churches of that country had adopted the Roman custom, in that point of discipline, they were necessitated to anticipate the Fast of Lent. The first Council of Orleans, held in the early part of the 6th century, enjoins the Faithful to observe, before Easter, Quadragesima (as the Latins call Lent,) and not Quinquagesima, in order, says the Council, that unity of custom may be maintained. Towards the close of the same century, the fourth Council held in the same City, repeals the same prohibition, and explains the intentions of the making such an enactment, by ordering that the Saturdays during Lent should be observed as days of fasting.

Previously to this, that is, in the years 511 and 541, the first and second Councils of Orange had combated the same abuse, by also forbidding the imposing on the Faithful the obligation of commencing the Fast at Quinquagesima. The introduction of the Roman Liturgy into France; which was brought about by the zeal of Pepin and Charlemagne, finally established, in that country, the custom of keeping the Saturday as a day of penance; and, as we have just seen, the beginning Lent on Quinquagesima was not observed excepting by the Clergy. In the 13th century, the only Church in the Patriarchate of the West, which began Lent earlier than the Church of Rome, was that of Poland its Lent opened on the Monday of Septuagesima, which was owing to the rites of the Greek Church being much used in Poland. The custom was abolished, even in that country, by Pope Innocent the fourth, in the year 1248.

Thus it was, that the Roman Church, by this anticipation of Lent by Four days, gave the exact number of Forty Days to the holy Season, which she had instituted in imitation of the Forty Days spent by our Savior in the Desert. Whilst faithful to her ancient practice of looking on the Saturday as a day appropriate for penitential exercises, she gladly borrowed from the Greek Church the custom of preparing for Lent, by giving to the Liturgy of the three preceding weeks a tone of holy mournfulness. Even as early as the beginning of the 9th century, as we learn from Amalarius, the Alleluia and Gloria in excelsis were suspended in the Septuagesima Offices. The Monks conformed to the custom, although the Rule of St. Benedict prescribed otherwise. Finally, in the second half of the 11th century, Pope Alexander the Second enacted, that the total suspension of the Alleluia should be everywhere observed, beginning with the Vespers of the Saturday preceding Septuagesima Sunday. This Pope was but renewing a rule already sanctioned, in that same century, by Pope Leo the Ninth, and which was inserted in the body of Canon Law (Cap. Hi duo. De consec. Dist. 1).

Thus was the present important period of the Liturgical Year, after various changes, established the Cycle of the Church. It has been there upward of a thousand years. Its name, Septuagesima (Seventy), expresses, as we have already remarked, a numerical relation to Quadragesima (the Forty Days); although, in reality, there are not seventy but only sixty-three days from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter. We will speak of the mystery of the name in the following Chapter. The first Sunday of Lent being called Quadragesima (Forty), each of the three previous Sundays has a name expressive of an additional ten: the nearest to Lent being called Quinquagesima (Fifty); the middle one, Sexagesima (Sixty); the third, Septuagesima (Seventy).

As the season of Septuagesima depends upon time of the Easter celebration, it comes sooner or later, according to the changes of that great Feast. The 18th of January and the 22nd of February called the Septuagesima Keys, because the Sunday, which is called Septuagesima, cannot be earlier in the year, than the first, nor later than the second, of these two days.

Article 5 : THURSDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"The Number Seven and the Mystery of the Septuagesima Season"

The Season, upon which we are now entering, is expressive of several profound mysteries. But these mysteries belong not only to the three weeks, which are preparatory to Lent; they continue throughout the whole period of time, which separates us from the great Feast of Easter.

The number seven is the basis of all these mysteries. We have already seen how the Holy Church came to introduce the season of Septuagesima into her Calendar. Let us now meditate on the doctrine hid under the symbols of her Liturgy. And first, let us listen to St. Augustine, who thus gives us the clue to the whole of our Season’s mysteries. “There are two times,” says the Holy Doctor: “one which is now, and is spent in the temptations and tribulations of this life; the other which shall be then, and shall be spent in eternal security and joy. In figure of these, we celebrate two periods: the time ‘before Easter’ and the time ‘after Easter.’ That which is ‘before Easter,’ signifies the sorrow of this present life; that which is ‘after Easter,’ the blessedness of our future state. "Hence it is, that we spend the first in fasting and prayer; and in the second, we give up our fasting, and give ourselves to praise.” (Enarrations; Psalm clviii).

The Church, the interpreter of the Sacred Scriptures, often speaks to us of two places, which correspond with these two times of St. Augustine. These two places are Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is the image of this world of sin, in the midst whereof the Christian has to spend his years of probation; Jerusalem is the heavenly country, where he is to repose after all his trials. The people of Israel, whose whole history is but one great type of the human race, was banished from Jerusalem and kept in bondage in Babylon.

Now, this captivity, which kept the Israelites exiles from Sion, lasted seventy years; and it is to express this mystery, as Alcuin, Amalarius, Ivo of Chartres, and all the great Liturgists tell us, that the Church fixed the number of Seventy for the days of expiation. It is true, there are but sixty-three days between Septuagesima and Easter; but the Church, according to the style so continually used in the Sacred Scriptures, uses the round number instead of the literal and precise one.

The duration of the world itself, according to the ancient Christian tradition, is divided into seven ages. The human race must pass through seven Ages before the dawning of the Day of eternal life. The first Age included the time from the creation of Adam to Noah; the second begins with Noah and the renovation of the earth by the Deluge, and ends with the vocation of Abraham; the third opens with this first formation of God’s chosen people, and continues as far as Moses, through whom God gave the Law; the fourth consists of the period between Moses and David, in whom the house of Juda received the kingly power; the fifth is formed of the years, which passed between David’s reign and the captivity of Babylon, inclusively; the sixth dates from the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and takes us on as far as the Birth of our Savior. Then, finally, comes the seventh Age; it starts with the rising of this merciful Redeemer, the Sun of Justice, and is to continue till the dread coining of the Judge of the living and the dead. These are the Seven great divisions of Time; after which, Eternity.

In order to console us in the midst of the combats, which so thickly beset our path, the Church, - like a beacon shining amidst the darkness of this our earthly abode, - shows us another Seven, which is to succeed the one we are now preparing to pass through. After the Septuagesima of mourning, we shall have the bright Easter with its Seven weeks of gladness, foreshadowing the happiness and bliss of Heaven. After having fasted with our Jesus, and suffered with him, the day will come when we shall rise together with him, and our hearts shall follow him to the highest heavens, and then after a brief interval, we shall feel descending upon us the Holy Ghost, with his Seven Gifts. The celebration of all these wondrous joys will take us Seven weeks, as the great Liturgists observe in their interpretation of the Rites of the Church:- the seven joyous weeks from Easter to Pentecost will not be too long for the future glad Mysteries, which, after all, will be but figures of a still gladder future, the future of eternity.

Having heard these sweet whisperings of hope, let us now bravely face the realities brought before us by our dear Mother the Church. We are sojourners upon this earth; we are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. If we love our country, - if we long to return to it, - we must be proof against the lying allurements of this strange land, and refuse the cup she proffers us, and with which she maddens so many of our fellow captives. She invites us to join in her feasts and her songs; but we must unstring our harps, and hang them on the willows that grow on her river’s bank, till the signal be given for our return to Jerusalem [Ps. cxxv]. She will ask us to sing to her the melodies of our dear Sion: but, how shall we, who are so far from home, have heart to sing the Song of the Lord in a strange Land? (Psalm.136). No! There must be no sign that we are content to be in bondage, or we shall deserve to be slaves for ever.

These are the sentiments wherewith the Church would inspire us, during the penitential Season, which we are now beginning. She wishes us to reflect on the dangers that beset us, - dangers which arise from our own selves, and from creatures. During the rest of the year, she loves to hear us chant the song of heaven, the sweet Alleluia! - but now, she bids us close our lips to this word of joy, because we are in Babylon. We are pilgrims absent from Our Lord [II Cor. v. 6]; - let us keep our glad hymn for the day of his return. We are sinners, and have but too often held fellowship with the world of God’s enemies; let us become purified by repentance, for it is written, that Praise is unseemly in the mouth of a sinner (Ecclesiasticus 15:9).

The leading feature, then, of Septuagesima is the total suspension of the Alleluia, which is not to be again heard upon the earth, until the arrival of that happy day, when, having suffered death with our Jesus, and having been buried together with him, we shall rise again with him to a new life (Colossians 2:12).

The sweet Hymn of the Angels, Gloria in excelsis Deo, which we have sung every Sunday since the Birth of our Savior in Bethlehem, is also taken from us; it is only on the Feasts of the Saints, which may be kept during the week, that we shall be allowed to repeat it. The night Office of the Sunday is to lose, also, from now till Easter, its magnificent Ambrosian Hymn, the Te Deum; and at the end of the Holy Sacrifice, the Deacon will no longer dismiss the Faithful with his solemn Ite, Missa est, but will simply invite them to continue their prayers in silence, and bless the Lord, the God of mercy, who bears with us, notwithstanding all our sins.

After the Gradual of the Mass, instead of the thrice repeated Alleluia, which prepared our hearts to listen to the voice of God in the Holy Gospel, we shall hear but a mournful and protracted chant, called, on that account, the Tract.
That the eye, too, may teach us, that the Season we are entering on, is one of mourning, the Church will vest her Ministers, (both on Sundays and the days during the week, which are not Feasts of Saints,) in the somber Purple. Until Ash Wednesday, however, she permits the Deacon to wear his dalmatic, and the Subdeacon his tunic; but from that day forward, they must lay aside these vestments of joy, for Lent will then have begun, and our holy Mother will inspire us with the deep spirit of penance, by suppressing everything of that glad pomp, which she loves, at other seasons, to bring into the Sanctuary of her God.

Article 6: FRIDAY AFTER SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"The First Week of the Septuagesima Season"

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.

Formerly, the Church used to read in her Matins of to-day that passage of the Book of Genesis, where Moses relates to all future generations, but in words of most impressive arid sublime simplicity, how the first sin was brought into the world. In the present form of the Liturgy, the reading of this history of the Fall is deferred till Wednesday, and the preceding days give us the account of the six days of Creation. We will anticipate the great instruction, and begin it at once, inasmuch as it forms the basis of the whole week’s teaching.

From the Book of Genesis, chapter three:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the Earth, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: “Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?” And the woman answered him, saying: “Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat, and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.” And the serpent said to the woman: “No, you shall not die the death! For God doth know, that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil!” And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat: and gave to her husband, who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened.

And when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig-leaves, and made themselves aprons. And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise, at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: “Where art thou?” And he said: “I heard Thy voice in paradise, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” And He said to him: “And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?” And Adam said: “The woman, whom thou gavest me, to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat!” And the Lord God said to the woman: “Why hast thou done this?” And she answered: “The serpent deceived me, and I did eat!”

And the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the Earth! Upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life! I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel!” To the woman, also, He said: “I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions! In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee!” And to Adam He said: “Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work―with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life! Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth! In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken―for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.”

O terrible page of man’s history! It alone explains to us our present position on the Earth. It tells us what we are in the eyes of God, and how humbly we should comport ourselves before his divine Majesty. We will make it the subject of this week's meditation. And now, let us prepare to profit by the Liturgy of this Sunday, which we call Septuagesima.

In the Greek Church, it is called Prophöné, (Proclamation,) because on this day they announce to the people the coming Fast of Lent, and the precise day of Easter. It is also called the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, because that Parable is read in their Liturgy for this Sunday, as an invitation to sinners to draw nigh to the God of Mercy. But it is the last day of the week, Prophöné, which, by a strange custom, begins with the preceding Monday, as do also the two following weeks.

The Introit of the Mass for Septuagesima Sunday, describes the fears of death, wherewith Adam and his whole posterity are tormented, in consequence of sin: “The groans of death surrounded me, and the sorrows of Hell encompassed me; and in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice from His Holy Temple. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength! The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer. The groans of death surrounded me, and the sorrows of Hell encompassed me; and in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice from His Holy Temple.” But, in the midst of all this misery, there is heard a cry of hope, for man is still permitted to ask mercy from his God. God gave man a promise, on the very day of his condemnation―the sinner needs but to confess his miseries, and the very Lord, against whom he sinned, will become his Deliverer.

Lesson of the Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, chapter 9

“Brethren, know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things; and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air: but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest, perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all in Moses were baptized in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink―and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. But with the most of them God was not well pleased.”

These stirring words of the Apostle deepen the sentiments already produced in us by the sad recollections of which we are this day reminded. He tells us, that this world is a race, wherein all must run but that they alone win the prize, who run well. Let us, therefore, rid ourselves of everything that could impede us, and make us lose our crown. Let us not deceive ourselves: we are never sure, until we reach the goal. Is our conversion more solid than was St. Paul’s? Are our good works better done, or more meritorious, than were his? Yet, he assures us, that he was not without the fear that he might perhaps be lost; for which cause, he chastises his body, and keeps it in subjection to the spirit. Man, in his present state, has not the same will for all that is right and just, which Adam had before he sinned, and which, notwithstanding, he abused to his own ruin. We have a bias which inclines us to evil; so that our only means of keeping our ground is by sacrificing the flesh to the spirit. To many this is very harsh doctrine; hence, they are sure to fail, - they never can win the prize. Like the Israelites spoken of by our Apostle, they will be left behind to die in the desert, and so lose the Promised Land. Yet, they saw the same miracles that Josue and Caleb saw! So true is it that nothing can make a salutary impression on a heart, which is obstinately bent on fixing all its happiness in the things of this present life; and though it is forced, each day, to own that they are vain, yet each day it returns to them, vainly but determinedly loving them.

The heart, on the contrary, that puts its trust in God, and mans itself to energy by the thought of the divine assistance being abundantly given to him that asks it―will not flag or faint in the race, and will win the heavenly prize. God’s eye is unceasingly on all them that toil and suffer.

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 20

“At that time, Jesus spoke to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And having agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market-place idle. And he said to them: ‘Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just!’ And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: ‘Why stand you here all the day idle?’ They say to him: ‘Because no man hath hired us!’ He saith to them: ‘Go ye also into my vineyard!’ And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: ‘Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first!’ When, therefore, they were come that came about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more: and they also received every man a penny. And receiving it they murmured against the master of the house, saying: ‘These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us that have borne the burden of the day, and the heats!’ But he, answering, said to one of them: ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine, and go thy way! I will also give to this last even as to thee! Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen!’”

It is of importance, that we should well understand this Parable of the Gospel, and why the Church inserts it in today’s Liturgy. Firstly, then, let us recall to mind on what occasion our Savior 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 of God himself coming to dwell among men, and form 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 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 Savior. 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 Savior rebukes the Jewish pride. By the selfish murmurings 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 Spouse of the Son of God.

This is the interpretation of our Parable given by St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, and by the generality of the Holy Fathers. But it conveys a second instruction, as we are assured by the two Holy Doctors just named. It 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, according to time 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 off 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 are called at the Third Hour; they may be dead at the Sixth. God will call to the labors of the last hour such as shall be living when that hour comes; but, if we should die at mid-day, that last call will not avail us. Besides, God has not promised us a second call, if we excuse ourselves from the first.

Article 7: SATURDAY BEFORE SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"The Great Flood in the Time of Noe"

In her Divine Office, during the week of Sexagesima, Holy Mother Church offers, to our consideration, the history of Noe and the Great Flood. Man has not profited by the warnings already given him. God is obliged to punish him once more, and by a terrible chastisement. There is found, out of the whole human race, one just man God makes a covenant with him, and with us through him. But, before He draws up this new alliance, He would show that He is the Sovereign Master, and that man, and the Earth whereon he lives, subsist solely by God’s power and permission.

As the ground-work of this week’s instructions, we give a short passage from the Book of Genesis―it is read in the Office of this Sexagesima Sunday’s Matins.

From the Book of Genesis, chapter 6

And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the Earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times, it repented Him that He had made man on the Earth. And being touched inwardly with sorrow of heart, He said: “I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth―from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air! For it repenteth me that I have made them!” But Noe found grace before the Lord.

These are the generations of Noe: Noe was a just and perfect man in his generations: he walked with God. And he begot three sons: Shem, Cham, and Japheth. And the Earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. And when God had seen that the Earth was corrupted, (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the Earth), He said to Noe: “The end of all flesh is come before Me! The Earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the Earth!”

This awful chastisement of the human race by the Deluge was a fresh consequence of sin. This time, however, there was found one just man; and it was through him and his family that the world was restored. Having once more mercifully renewed His covenant with His creatures, God allows the Earth to be re-peopled, and makes the three sons of Noe become the Fathers of the three great families of the human race.

This is the Mystery of the Divine Office during the week of Sexagesima. The Mystery expressed in the Mass of Sexagesima Sunday is of still greater importance, and the first is but a figure of the second. The Earth is deluged by sin and heresy. But the Word of God, the Seed of life, is ever producing a new generation, a race of men, who, like Noe, fear God. It is the Word of God that produces those happy children, of whom the Beloved Disciple speaks, saying: they are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13).

Let us endeavor to be of this family; or, if we already be numbered among its members, let us zealously maintain our glorious position. What we have to do, during these days of Septuagesima, is to escape from the Deluge of worldliness, and take shelter in the Ark of salvation; we have to become that good soil, which yields a hundred-fold from the heavenly Seed. Let us flee from the wrath to come, lest we perish with the enemies of God: let us hunger after that Word of God, which converteth and giveth life to souls (Psalm 18).

Article 8: SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"The Sower and the Seed"

The Epistle is that admirable passage from one of St. Paul’s Epistles, in which the Great Apostle, for the honor and interest of his sacred ministry, is necessitated to write his defense against the calumnies of his enemies. We learn from this his apology, what labors the Apostles had to go through, in order to sow the Word of God in the barren soil of the Gentile world, and make it Christian.

Lesson of the Second Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, chapter 11

Brethren, you gladly suffer the foolish, whereas yourselves are wise. For you suffer if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take from you, if a man be lifted up, if a man strike you on the face. I speak according to dishonor, as if we had been weak in this part. Wherein if any man dare (I speak foolishly) I dare also. They are Hebrews: so am I. They are Israelites: so am I. They are the seed of Abraham; so am I. They are the ministers of Christ: (I speak as one less wise), I am more: in many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides these things which are without; my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?

“If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knoweth that I lie not. At Damascus the governor of the nation under Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, to apprehend me; and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and so escaped his hands. If I must glory, (it is not expedient indeed,) but I will come to the visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ about fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body. I know not, God knoweth,) such a one rapt even to the third heaven. And I know such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth,) how he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter. For such a one I will glory; but for myself I will glory nothing, but in my infirmities. For though I should have a mind to glory, I shall not be foolish: for I will say the truth. But I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in me, or anything he heareth from me. And lest the greatness of the revelations should lift me up, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me. For which thing I thrice besought the Lard that it might depart from me: and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Article 9: MONDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"The Sower and the Seed" (continued)

Sequel of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, chapter 8

At that time, when a very great multitude was gathered together, and hastened out of the cities to meet Jesus, he spoke by a similitude. A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell by the way-side, and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And other some fell upon a rock and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other some fell among thorns; and the thorns growing up with it, choked it. And other some fell upon good ground, and sprung up, and yielded fruit a hundred-fold. Saying these things he cried out: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And his disciples asked him what this parable might be. To whom he said: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to the rest in parables: that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. And, they by the wayside, are they that hear; then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their hearts, lest believing they should be saved. Now they upon the rock, are they who when they hear, receive the word with joy: and these have no roots; for they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns, are they who have heard, and going their way, are choked with the cares and the riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit. But that on the good ground, are they who, in a good and perfect heart hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience.

St. Gregory the Great justly remarks, that this Parable needs no explanation, since the Eternal Wisdom himself has told us its meaning. All that we have to do is to profit by this divine teaching, and become the good soil, wherein the heavenly Seed may yield a rich harvest. How often have we not, hitherto, allowed it to be trampled on by them that passed by, or to be torn up by the birds of the air? How often has it not found our heart like a stone, that could give no moisture, or like a thorn plot, that could but choke? We listened to the Word of God; we took pleasure in hearing it; and from this we argued well for ourselves. Nay, we have often received this Word with joy and eagerness. Sometimes, even, it took root within us. But, alas, something always came to stop its growth! Henceforth, it must both grow and yield fruit. The Seed given to us is of such quality, that the Divine Sower has a right to expect a hundred-fold. If the soil, that is, if our heart, be good―if we take the trouble to prepare it, by profiting of the means afforded us by the Church―we shall have an abundant harvest to show our Lord on that grand Day, when, rising triumphant from his Tomb, he shall come to share with his faithful people the glory of his Resurrection.

Inspirited by this hope, and full of confidence in Him, who has once more thrown his Seed in this long ungrateful soil, let us sing with the Church, in her Offertory, these beautiful words of the Royal Psalmist―they are a prayer for holy resolution and perseverance.

Article 10: TUESDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Learn From Noe or You Will Have No Chance!"
Part 1

Build Your Ark Before It’s Too Late
What we have to do, during these days of Septuagesima, is to escape from the deluge of worldliness, and take shelter in the Ark of salvation; we have to become that good soil, which yields a hundredfold from the Heavenly seed. Let us flee from the wrath to come, lest we perish with the enemies of God: let us hunger after that word of God, which converts and gives life to souls. With the Greeks [Catholic Orthodox Church], this is the seventh day of their week Apocreos, which begins on the Monday after our Septuagesima Sunday. They call this week Apocreos, because they then begin to abstain from flesh-meat, and this abstinence from meat is observed till Easter Sunday.

Ignoring the Warnings of God
All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth (Genesis 6: 12). The terrible lesson, then, which men had received, by being driven out of paradise in the person of our first parents, had been without effect. Neither the certainty of death, when they would have to stand before the divine Judge, nor the humiliations which attend man's first coming into this world, nor the pains and fatigues and trials which beset the whole path of life, had subdued men's hearts, or brought them into submission to that sovereign Master whose hand lay thus heavy upon them. They had the divine promise that a Savior should be given to them, and that this Redeemer (who was to be the Son of her that was to crush the serpent's head), would not only bring them salvation, but would moreover reinstate them in all the happiness and honors they had lost. But even this was not enough to make them rise above the base passions of corrupt nature.

Nine Hundred Years of Penance
The example of Adam's nine hundred years' penance, and the admonitions he could so feelingly give—he who had received such proofs of God's love and anger—began to lose their influence upon his children; and when Adam at last descended into the grave, his posterity grew more and more heedless of what they owed to their Creator. The long life, which had been granted to man in this the first age of the world (with many persons living to be almost a thousand years old), was made but a fresh means of offending Him who gave it. When, finally, the sons of Seth took to themselves wives of the family of Cain, the human race reached the height of wickedness, rebelled against the Lord, and made their own passions their god. Yet, all this while, God had granted to them the power of resisting the evil propensities of their hearts. God had offered them His grace, whereby they were enabled to conquer pride and concupiscence.

Article 11: WEDNESDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Learn From Noe or You Will Have No Chance!"
Part 2

Bent Upon Evil
The merits of the Redeemer to come were even then present to divine justice, and the Lamb, slain, as St. John tells us, from the beginning of the world (Apocalypse 13:8), applied the merits of His Blood to this as to every generation which existed before the great Sacrifice was really immolated. Each individual of the human family might have been just—as Noe was—and, like him, have found favor with the Most High; but the thought of their heart was bent upon evil, and not upon good, and the earth became peopled with enemies of God. Then it was that it repented God that He had made man (Genesis 6:6), as Holy Scripture forcibly expresses it. He decreed that man's life on earth should be shortened, in order that the thought of death might be ever before us. He, moreover, resolved to destroy, by a universal deluge, the whole of this perverse generation, saving only one family. The world would thus be renewed, and man would learn from this awful chastisement to serve and love his sovereign Lord and God.

The Fall of the World
When we reflect upon the terrible events which happened in the first age of the world, we are lost in astonishment at the wickedness of man, and at the effrontery wherewith he sins against his God. How was it that the dread words of God, which were spoken against our first parents in Eden, could be so soon forgotten? How could the children of Adam see their father suffering and doing such endless penance, without humbling themselves and imitating this model of repentance? How was it that the promise of a Mediator, who was to reopen the gate of Heaven for them, could be believed, and yet not awaken in their souls the desire of making themselves worthy to be His ancestors, and partakers of that grand regeneration, which He was to bring to mankind? And yet, the years which followed the death of Adam were years of crime and scandal; nay, he himself lived to see one of his own children become the murderer of a brother. But why be thus surprised at the wickedness of these our first brethren? The earth is now six thousand years old in the continued reception of divine blessings and chastisements; and are men less dull of heart, less ungrateful, less rebellious towards their Leader?

The Bold Indifference of Mankind
For the generality of men—we mean, of those who deign to believe in the fall and chastisement of our first parents, and in the destruction of the world by the deluge--what are these great truths? Mere historical facts, which have never once inspired them with a fear of God's justice. More favored than these early generations of the human race, they know that the Messias has been sent; that God has come down upon the earth; that He has been made Man; that He has broken Satan's rule; that the way to Heaven has been made easy by the graces embodied by the Redeemer in the Sacraments: and yet, sin reigns and triumphs in the midst of Christianity. Undoubtedly, the just are more numerous than they were in the days of Noe [writes Guéreanger in the 1800’s, but what would he say today?]; but then, what riches of grace has our Redeemer poured out on our degenerate race by the ministry of His bride the Church! Yes, there are faithful Christians to be found upon the earth, and the number of the elect is every day being added to; but the multitude are living at enmity with God, and their actions are in contradiction to their faith.

Learn from the Past and Convert
When, therefore, the holy Church reminds us of those times, wherein all flesh had corrupted its way, she is urging us to think about our own conversion. Her motive in relating to us the history of the sins committed at the beginning of the world, is to induce us to examine our own consciences. Why, too, does she read to us those pages of Holy Scripture, which so vividly describe the flood-gates of Heaven opening and deluging the guilty earth, if not that she would warn us against mocking that great God, who thus chastised the sins of His rebellious creatures? Last week we were called upon to consider the sad consequences of Adam's sin, a sin which we ourselves did not commit, but the effects of which lie so heavy upon us. This week we must reflect upon the sins we ourselves have committed.

Though God has loaded us with favors, guided us by His light, redeemed us with His Blood, and strengthened us against all our enemies by His grace, yet have we corrupted our way, and caused our God to repent of having created us. Let us confess our wickedness, and humbly acknowledge that we owe it to the mercies of the Lord, that we have not been consumed (Lamentations 3:22).

Article 12: THURSDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Abraham--Love--Blindness--And You!"
Part 1

As we draw near to Quinquagesima Sunday, the Church gives us another subject for our meditation: it is the Vocation of Abraham. When the waters of the Deluge had subsided, and mankind had once more peopled the earth, the immorality, which had previously excited God’s anger, again grew rife among men. Idolatry, too, into which the ante-diluvian (pre-Great Flood) race had not fallen, now showed itself, and human wickedness seemed thus to have reached the height of its malice. Foreseeing that the nations of the earth would fall into rebellion against him, God resolved to select one people that should be peculiarly his, and among whom should be preserved those sacred truths, which the Gentiles were to lose sight of. This new people was to originate from one man, who would be the father and model of all future believers. This was Abraham. His faith and devotedness merited for him that he should be chosen to be the Father of the children of God, and the head of that spiritual family, to which belong all the elect, both of the Old and New Testament.

It is necessary, therefore, that we should know Abraham, our father and our model. This is his grand characteristic―fidelity to God, submissiveness to his commands, abandonment and sacrifice of everything in order to obey his holy will. Such ought to be the prominent virtues of every Christian. Let us, then, study the life of our great Patriarch, and learn the lessons it teaches.

The following passage from the Book of Genesis, which the Church gives us in her Matins from Quinaquagesima Sunday, will serve as the text of our considerations.

From the Book of Genesis, chapter 12.
“And the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father’s house, and come into the land which I shall show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee and in thee shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed. So Abram went out as the Lord had commanded him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he went forth from Haran. And he took Saraï his wife, and Lot, his brother’s son, and all the substance which they had gathered, and the souls which they had gotten in Haran: and they went out to go into the land of Chanaan. And when they were come into it, Abram passed through the country into the place of Sichem, as far as the noble vale: now the Chanaanite was at that time in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him: To thy seed will I give this land. And he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And passing on from thence to a mountain, that was on the east side of Bethel, he there pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Haï on the east. He built there also, an altar to the Lord, and called upon his Name.”

Article 13: FRIDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Abraham--Love--Blindness--And You!"
Part 2

Could the Christian have a finer model than this holy Patriarch, whose docility and devotedness in following the call of his God are so perfect? We are forced to exclaim, with the Holy Fathers: “O true Christian, even before Christ had come on the earth! He had the spirit of the Gospel, before the Gospel was preached! He was an Apostolic man, before the Apostles existed!” God calls him: he leaves all things―his country, his kindred, his father’s house―and he goes into an unknown land. God leads him―he is satisfied; he fears no difficulties; he never once looks back. Did the Apostles themselves more? But, see how grand is his reward. God says to him: “In thee shall all the kindred of the Earth be blessed.” This Chaldean is to give to the world Him that shall bless and save it. Death will, it is true, close his eyes ages before the dawning of that day, when one of his race, who is to be born of a Virgin and be united personally with the Divine Word, shall redeem all generations, past, present, and to come. But, meanwhile, till Heaven shall be thrown open to receive this Redeemer and the countless just, who have won the crown, Abraham shall be honored, in the Limbo of expectation, in a manner becoming his great virtue and merit. It is in his Bosom (Luke 16:22), that is, around him, that our First Parents, (having atoned for their sin by penance), Noe, Moses, David, and all the just, including poor Lazarus, received that rest and happiness, which were a foretaste and a preparation for eternal bliss in Heaven. Thus is Abraham honored; thus does God requite the love and fidelity of them that serve him.

When the fullness of time came, the Son of God, who was also Son of Abraham, declared his Eternal Father’s power, by saying, that he was about to raise up a new progeny of Abraham’s children from the very stones, that is, from the Gentiles (Matthew 3:9). We Christians are this new generation. But, are we worthy children of our Father? Let us listen to the Apostle of the Gentiles: By faith, Abraham, when called (by God), obeyed to go out into a place, which he was to receive for an inheritance: and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith, he abode in the land, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same promise; for he looked for a City that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:8-10).

If, therefore, we be children of Abraham, we must, as the Church tells us, during Septuagesima, look upon ourselves as exiles on the earth, and dwell, by hope and desire, in that true country of ours, from which we are now banished, but towards which we are each day drawing closer, if, like Abraham, we are faithful in those various stations allotted us by our Lord. We are commanded to use this world as though we used it not (1 Corinthians 7:31); to have an abiding conviction of our not having here a lasting City (Hebrews 13:14), and of the misery and danger we incur, when we forget that Death is one day to separate us from everything we possess in this life.

How far from being true children of Abraham are those Christians who spend this and the two following days in intemperance and dissipation, because Lent is so soon to be upon us. We can easily understand how the simple manners of our Catholic forefathers could keep a leave-taking of the ordinary way of living, which Lent was to put a stop to, and reconcile their innocent Carnival with Christian gravity; just as we can understand how their rigorous observance of the laws of the Church for Lent would inspire certain festive customs at Easter. Even in our own times, a joyous Shrovetide is not to be altogether reprobated, provided the Christian sentiment of the approaching holy Season of Lent be strong enough to check the evil tendency of corrupt nature: otherwise the original intention of an innocent custom would be perverted, and the forethought of Penance could in no sense be considered as the prompter of our joyous farewell to ease and comforts.

While admitting all this, we would ask, what right or title have they to share in these Shrovetide rejoicings, whose Lent will pass and find them out of the Church, because they will not have complied with the precept of Easter Communion? And they, too, who claim dispensations from abstinence and fasting during Lent, and, from one reason or another, evade every penitential exercise during the solemn Forty Days of Penance, and will find themselves at Easter as weighed down by the guilt and debt of their sins as they were on Ash Wednesday, - what meaning, we would ask, can there possibly be in their feast-making at Shrovetide?

Oh that Christians would stand on their guard against such delusions as these, and gain that holy liberty of children of God (Romans 8:21), which consists in not being slaves to flesh and blood, and preserves man from moral degradation. Let them remember, that we are now in that holy Season, when the Church denies herself her songs of holy joy, in order the more forcibly to remind us that we are living in a Babylon of spiritual danger, and to excite us to regain that genuine Christian spirit, which everything in the world around us is quietly undermining. If the disciples of Christ are necessitated, by the position they hold in society, to take part in the profane amusements of these few days before Lent, let it be with a heart deeply imbued with the maxims of the Gospel.

If, for example, they are obliged to listen to the music of theatres and concerts, let them imitate Saint Cecilia, who thus sang, in her heart, in the midst of the excitement of worldly harmonies: “May my heart, O God, be pure, and let me not be confounded!” Above all, let them not countenance certain dances, which the world is so eloquent in defending, because so evidently according to its own spirit; and therefore they who encourage them, will be severely judged by Him, who has already pronounced wo upon the world. Lastly, let those who must go, on these days, and mingle in the company of worldlings, be guided by St. Francis of Sales, who advises them 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 that are wasting their time in its vanities; that there are thousands in the agonies of death, whilst 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” (St. Francis of Sales, Introduction to a Devout Life, Part III, Chapter 33).

Article 14: SATURDAY BEFORE QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Abraham--Love--Blindness--And You!"
Part 3

We grant, that, on these three days immediately preceding the penitential Season of Lent, some provision was necessary to be made for those countless souls, who seem scarce able to live without some excitement. The Church supplies this want. She gives a substitute for frivolous amusements and dangerous pleasures; and those of her children upon whom Faith has not lost its influence, will find, in what she offers them, a feast surpassing all earthly enjoyments, and a means whereby to make amends to God, for the insults offered to his Divine Majesty during these days of Carnival. The Lamb, that taketh away the sins of the world, is exposed upon our Altars. Here, on this his throne of mercy, he receives the homage of them who come to adore him, and acknowledge him for their King; he accepts the repentance of those who come to tell him how grieved they are at having ever followed any other Master than Him; he offers himself to his Eternal Father for poor sinners, who not only treat his favors with indifference, but seem to have made a resolution to offend him during these days more than at any other period of the year.

It was the pious Cardinal Gabriel Paleotti, Archbishop of Bologna, who first originated the admirable devotion of the Forty Hours. He was a contemporary of St. Charles Borromeo, and, like him, was eminent for his pastoral zeal. His object in this solemn Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament, was to offer to the Divine Majesty some compensation for the sins of men, and, at the very time when the world was busiest in deserving his anger, to appease it by the sight of his own Son, the Mediator between heaven and earth. St. Charles immediately introduced the Devotion into his own diocese and province.

This was in the 15th Century. Later on, that is, in the 18th Century, Prosper Lambertini was Archbishop of Bologna; he zealously continued the pious design of his ancient predecessor, Paleotti, by encouraging his flock to devotion towards the Blessed Sacrament during the three days of Carnival; and when he was made Pope, under the name of Benedict the Fourteenth, he granted many Indulgences to all who, during these days, should visit our Lord in this Mystery of his Love, and should pray for the pardon of sinners. This favor was, at first, restricted to the Faithful of the Papal States; but in the year 1763 it was extended, by Pope Clement XIII, to the universal Church. Thus, the Forty Hours’ Devotion has spread throughout the whole world, and become one of the most solemn expressions of Catholic piety. Let us, then, who have the opportunity, profit by it during these three last days of our preparation for Lent. Let us, like Abraham, retire from the distracting dangers of the world, and seek the Lord our God. Let us go apart, for at least one short hour, from the dissipation of earthly enjoyments; and, kneeling in the Presence of our Jesus, merit the grace to keep our hearts innocent and detached, whilst sharing in those we cannot avoid.

Article 15: QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"The Absolute Need for Charity"

We will now resume our considerations upon the Liturgy of Quinquagesima Sunday. The passage of the Gospel selected by the Church, is that wherein our Savior foretells to his Apostles the Sufferings he was to undergo in Jerusalem. This solemn announcement prepares us for Passiontide. We ought to receive it with feeling and grateful hearts, and make it an additional motive for imitating the devoted Abraham, and giving our whole selves to our God. The ancient Liturgists tell us, that the blind man of Jericho (spoken of, in this same Gospel), is a figure of those poor sinners, who, during these days, are blind to their Christian character, and rush into excesses, which even Paganism would have coveted. The blind man recovered his sight, because he was aware of his wretched state, and desired to be cured and to see. The Church wishes us to have a like desire, and she promises us that it shall be granted.

In the Greek Church, this Sunday is called Tyrophagos, because it is the last day on which is allowed the use of white meats, or, as we call them, milk-meals. Beginning with tomorrow, it is forbidden to eat them, for Lent then begins, and with all the severity wherewith the Oriental Churches observe it.

Thoughts on the Epistle of Quinquagesima Sunday
Lesson of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians, chapter 13)

“Brethren, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity. I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind, charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; it is not puffed up, it is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never fadeth away; whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away the things of a child. We now see through a glass in a dark manner; but then, face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know, even as I am known. And now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three but the greatest of these is charity.”

How appropriate for this Sunday is the magnificent eulogy of Charity, here given by our Apostle! This virtue, which comprises the love both of God and our Neighbor, is the light of our souls. Without Charity, we are in darkness, and all our works are profitless. The very power of working miracles cannot give hope of salvation, unless he who does them have Charity. Unless we are in Charity, the most heroic acts of other virtues are but one snare more for our souls. Let us beseech Our Lord to give us this light.

But, let us not forget, that however richly He may bless us with it here below―the fullness of its brightness is reserved for when we are in Heaven; and that the sunniest day we can have in this world, is but darkness when compared with the splendor of our eternal charity. Faith will then give place, for we shall be face-to-face with all Truth; Hope will have no object, for we shall possess all Good; Charity alone will continue, and, for this reason, is greater than Faith and Hope, which must needs accompany her in this present life.

This being the glorious destiny reserved for man, when redeemed and enlightened by Jesus, is it to be wondered at, that we should leave all things, in order to follow such a Master? What should surprise us, and what proves how degraded is our nature by sin, is to see Christians, who have been baptized in this Faith and this Hope, and have received the first-fruits of this Love, indulging, during these days, in every sort of worldliness, which is only the more dangerous because it is fashionable. It would seem as though they were making it their occupation to extinguish within their souls the last ray of heavenly light, like men that had made a covenant with darkness. If there be Charity within our souls, it will make us feel these offences that are committed against our God, and inspire us to pray to him to have mercy on these poor blind sinners, for they are our brethren.

Article 16: MONDAY AFTER QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY

"Our Spiritual Blindness"

Thoughts on the Gospel of Quinquagesima Sunday
Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke, chapter 18.

“At that time, Jesus took unto Him the Twelve, and said to them: ‘Behold we go up to Jerusalem and all things shall be accomplished, which were written by the prophets, concerning the Son of Man. For He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and scourged, and spat upon and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death, and the third day He shall rise again!’ And they understood none of these things. And this word was hid from them, and they understood not the things that were said. Now it came to pass, that when He drew nigh to Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way-side, begging. And when he heard the multitude passing by, he asked what this meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out: ‘Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me!’ And they that went before, rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried out much more: ‘Son of David! Have mercy on me!’ And Jesus, standing, commanded him to be brought unto Him. And when he was come near, He asked him, saying: ‘What wilt thou that I do to thee?’ But he said: ‘Lord! That I may see!’ And Jesus said to him: ‘Receive thy sight; thy faith hath made thee whole!’ And immediately he saw, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it, gave praise to God.”

Jesus tells His Apostles, that His bitter Passion is at hand; it is a mark of His confidence in them but, they understand not what He says. They are as yet too carnal-minded to appreciate Our Savior’s mission; still, they do not abandon Him; they love Him too much to think of separating from Him. Greater by far than this, is the blindness of those false Christians, who, during these three days, not only do not think of the God, who shed His Blood and died for them, but are striving to efface from their souls every trace of the divine image! Let us adore that sweet Mercy, which has drawn us, as it did Abraham, from the midst of a sinful people; and let us, like the blind man of our Gospel, cry out to Our Lord, beseeching Him to grant us an increase of His holy light. This was his prayer: “Lord that I may see!” God has given us His light; but He gave it us, in order to excite within us the desire of seeing more and more clearly. He promised Abraham, that He would show him the place He had destined for him; may He grant us, also, to see the land of the living! But our first prayer must be, that He show us Himself―as St. Augustine has so beautifully expressed it―that we may love Him, and show us our own selves, that we may cease to love ourselves.

Article 17: TUESDAY AFTER QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY

The Last Days Before Lent

‘Blind’ Faith—Going into the Unknown
When the fullness of time came, the Son of God, who was also Son of Abraham, declared His eternal Father's power, by saying that He was about to raise up a new progeny of Abraham's children from the very stones, that is, from the Gentiles (Matthew 3:9). We Christians are this new generation. But are we worthy children of our father? Let us listen to the apostle of the Gentiles: “By faith, Abraham, when called (by God), obeyed to go out into a place, which he was to receive for an inheritance: and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith, he abode in the land, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same promise; for he looked for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:8-10).

Exiles on Earth
If, therefore, we be children of Abraham, we must, as the Church tells us during Septuagesima, look upon ourselves as exiles on the earth, and dwell by hope and desire in that true country of ours, from which we are now banished, but towards which we are each day drawing nearer, if, like Abraham, we are faithful in the various stations allotted us by our Lord. We are commanded to use this world as though we used it not (1 Corinthians 7:31) to have an abiding conviction of· our not having here a lasting city (Hebrews 13:14), and of the misery and danger we incur when we forget that death is one day to separate us from everything we possess in this life .

Last-Minute Gluttony
How far from being true children of Abraham are those Christians who spend this and the two following days in intemperance and dissipation, because Lent is soon to be upon us! We can easily understand how the simple manners of our Catholic forefathers could keep a leave-taking of the ordinary way of living, which Lent was to interrupt, and reconcile their innocent carnival with Christian gravity; just as we can understand how their rigorous observance of the laws of the Church for Lent would inspire certain festive customs at Easter.

Even in our own times, a joyous Shrovetide is not to be altogether reprobated, provided the Christian sentiment of the approaching holy season of Lent be strong enough to check the evil tendency of corrupt nature; otherwise the original intention of an innocent custom would be perverted, and the forethought of penance could in no sense be considered as the prompter of our joyous farewell to ease and comforts.

False Christians
While admitting all this, we would ask, what right or title have they to share in these Shrovetide rejoicings, whose Lent will pass and find them out of the Church, because they will not have complied with the precept of Easter Communion?

And they, too, who claim dispensations from abstinence and fasting during Lent, and, for one reason or another, evade every penitential exercise during the solemn forty days of penance, and will find themselves at Easter as weighed down by the guilt and debt of their sins as they were on Ash Wednesday—what meaning, we would ask, can there possibly be in their feast-making at Shrovetide?

Live Lent—Not “Let Live”
Oh, that Christians would stand on their guard against such delusions as these, and gain that holy liberty of children of God (Romans 8:21), which consists in not being slaves to flesh and blood, and preserves man from moral degradation! Let them remember that we are now in that holy season, when the Church denies herself her songs of holy joy, in order the more forcibly to remind us that we are living in a Babylon of spiritual danger, and to excite us to regain that genuine Christian spirit, which everything in the world around us is quietly undermining. If the disciples of Christ are necessitated, by the position they hold in society, to take part in the profane amusements of these few days before Lent, let it be with a heart deeply imbued with the maxims of the Gospel.