THE LITURGICAL YEAR

Sermons, hymns, meditations and other musings to guide our annual pilgrim's progress through the liturgical year.

Sunday, February 28, 2021

IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES

 A SERMON FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN LENT


The way each of us thinks about the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is very indicative of the type of spirituality we practice.  Because Jesus was both God and Man, we nearly always place an emphasis on one or the other.  The mystery of this Hypostatic Union of the human and divine in this one Being, like all mysteries, can never be completely understood by us mere mortals, and so we try to compensate for our lack of insight sometimes, by focusing in on one or the other of these aspects of the Son of God, mortal or immortal.

We find this inordinate attention to the human element of Christ especially among some of the Protestant sects, and now in the post-Conciliar Church also, where they think of him as a friend, someone who is always there to give solace, advice, guidance.  Their images of Christ show him with little children, or holding a lamb, a gentle figure full of love.  They’re not wrong in any of this, of course, but we might detect in their approach a certain sentimentality, one that often leads to a self-indulgent exclusion of the divine, a subconscious attempt to make Christ in their own image and likeness, a good buddy who would never presume to judge them or send them to damnation for their sins. 

Such a version of Christ can have a debilitating effect on our spiritual life.  It obscures the divine aspect of Christ, the Son of God, King of kings and Lord of lords, who will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead.  It transforms God into mere man, and if that’s all he is, then he very quickly appears fallible and vulnerable, losing respect in our sight.  Our blessed Lord wanted to make sure his apostles did not fall into this overly human way of thinking.  He especially did not want their faith to fail them when they witnessed his coming Passion and Death, when he endured without a struggle all the tortures that went with it.  In retrospect, we know that his failure to defend himself was not a sign of weakness, but of submission to the will of his Father, and his desire to suffer for us, his creatures, redeeming them for a higher end.  But at the time, such a sight as the apostles were to witness on Good Friday could very easily have driven them to despair, to discarding completely the faith they had in their friend.

And so our Lord prepared them for this sight with another perspective of his nature.  “He bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the snow.” They were granted a vision of the divine aspect of Christ’s nature, insomuch as their own finite and mortal minds could grasp.  The evangelist St. Matthew seems to struggle for the right words to describe the vision, so vivid and impressive was the sight before them.  He compares it to things with which he is familiar, conscious, no doubt, of the inadequacy of the comparison.  Our Lord’s face, bright as the sun, his raiment, white as the snow.  But how can he sufficiently convey what was, in effect, a brief glimpse of the beatific vision that can be ours forever in Paradise.  We mentioned a couple of weeks ago how we see God in this world as through a glass, darkly, but then in heaven we will see him face to face.  On Mount Tabor, the apostles saw Christ face to face.

From that time on, they must have been convinced that this man was more than just their friend, more even than their Master.  And when a voice from the clouds proclaims that “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  Hear ye him!” they were confirmed in their faith that this was indeed the Son of God.

We call this momentous event “the Transfiguration.”  The dictionary defines Transfiguration as “a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state”.  It is not a mutation from being one thing to being another, and the dual nature of Christ in no way changes.  He doesn’t shift from a human state to a divine being, he merely changes his appearance.  He reveals to his apostles the aspect of his nature which had been thus far hidden from other men.  But this is the same Word of God that was in the beginning, that was with God, that was God and is God. 

In the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the last verse describes how “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me.”  That same God who created the entire universe out of nothing was born a little Child and placed in a manger.  The glory that was his divine nature was hidden “in his bosom”, and would not be revealed until this day of Transfiguration.  But the glory was there all along, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and manger of Bethlehem, and, later, even in the suffering and bloody figure hanging from the Cross.  And as Julia Ward Howe wrote in her famous poem, it was a glory that “transfigures you and me”…

What exactly does that mean?  As mentioned earlier, “transfigure” doesn’t mean to change the nature of something.  Christ’s life and death did not alter our essential nature, which still remains the sad remnant of what it was before the sin of Adam and Eve.  Our fallen human nature is still intact.  And yet it has been transfigured by Christ’s life and death.  Our Lord’s own transfiguration shows us exactly how it is with us.  For by his Redemption of mankind, we are now able to live in the state of grace.  Our bodies, if we remain free from mortal sin, can be temples of the Holy Ghost.  And through the institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, our bodies can receive within them Christ’s own Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.  In other words, we receive not just the Body of Christ when we go to Communion.  We receive his human Body, yes, but we receive also his Divinity!  Within us is that same transfigured Christ, Man and yet God, his face shining as the sun and raiment white as snow.  Listen to God as you return to your pew from the communion rail, and you will hear him proclaim that “Here is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  We are never closer to pleasing God than when his Son dwells within us.

Rejoice in this intimate moment you have with our Lord.  He is our friend, yes, but he is also our God who deigns to humble himself in this way so that we may come as close as we possibly can to dispelling the darkness and seeing him face to face.  And when the Mass is over, go forth into the world, and remember God’s words: “Hear ye him!”  Obey his commandments, follow his words of wisdom and truth, love both God and your neighbor, God and man.  Renew your commitment to your apostolic duty by drawing your neighbor closer to God, and by making this world a better and holier presence through your own presence in it.  Let yourself be transfigured by Christ, and “as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free!”


AUDI BENIGNE CONDITOR

 A HYMN FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN LENT

From the Vespers of Lent

O Maker of the world, give ear;
Accept the prayer and own the tear
To-wards thy seat of mercy sent
In this most holy fast of Lent.

Each heart is manifest to thee;
Thou knowest our infirmity;
Forgive thou then each soul that fain
Would seek to thee, and turn again.

Our sins are manifold and sore,
But pardon them that sin deplore:
And, for thy Name's sake, make each soul
That feels and owns its languor, whole.

So mortify we every sense
By grace of outward abstinence,
That from each stain and spot of sin
The soul may keep her fast within.

Grant, O thou blessed Trinity,
Grant, O essential Unity,
That this our fast of forty days
May work our profit and thy praise.  Amen.

YE KNOW WHAT COMMANDMENTS WE GAVE YOU

 A REFLECTION FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY IN LENT


One of the first things we learn as a child is the list of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  This was a long time ago, but they haven’t changed since, and when we prepare our children for First Communion, it’s with the same list that was written by God on those two tablets of stone.  The little Jewish children of the Old Testament learned the same list, the Christian boys and girls of the early Church knew them by heart also.

Thus it comes as no surprise when St. Paul doesn’t bother to remind the Corinthians in today’s Epistle what the Ten Commandments are.  He merely points out that they already know them.  “For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.”  Not that the Lord Jesus gave us any new commandments—his mission was not to change the law but to fulfill it.  “Think not,” he said, “that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”  And fulfil them he did, showing us how all the Ten Commandments can be summarized into two: to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Two commandments, two tablets of stone given to Moses.  Both of them admonishing us that we must love.

To love God first and foremost above all things is the First of these Commandments.  The second and third commandments tell us how we must love God, by keeping his Name holy and by keeping his Sabbath holy.  Of all the ways that we are expected to love God, we may be surprised at the emphasis placed on these two directives.  But these are the very key to a loving relationship with God—by respecting his holy Name and setting aside time to pray.  By remaining conscious of his holiness, we maintain a respectful distance from God—a social distance if you like—and yet, through our constant conversation with him in prayer, we remain close.

The other seven commandments deal with our love of neighbor.  They list the things we must do and not do, and are straightforward enough to understand, even if sometimes difficult to follow.  St. Paul admonishes his readers in Corinth about just two of these commandments, the sixth and the seventh.  Many people find these two the most difficult to keep, as they deal with the deadly sins of lust and avarice.  Our love of pleasure and money often vie for pre-eminence with our love of God, and it is only our faith that keeps us on the straight and narrow by reminding ourselves that the rewards of the life hereafter are so much greater than the transitory satisfaction of our lower appetites and the other comforts of life.

Our Lord plainly said, “If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.” With a few weeks of Lent to go, let’s fulfill our duty by persevering in his divine law.


Sunday, February 21, 2021

LED BY THE SPIRIT OF OUR GOD

 A HYMN FOR QUADRAGESIMA SUNDAY


By Bob Hurd, 1996

Led by the Spirit of our God,
We go to fast and pray
With Christ into the wilderness;
We join His paschal way.
"Rend not your garments, rend your hearts.
Turn back your lives to me."
Thus says our kind and gracious God,
Whose reign is liberty.

Led by the Spirit, we confront
Temptation face to face,
And know full well we must
Rely on God's redeeming grace.
On bread alone we cannot live,
But nourished by the Word.
We seek the will of God to do:
This is our drink and food.

Led by the Spirit, now draw near
The waters of rebirth
With hearts that long to worship God
In spirit and in truth.
"Whoever drinks the drink I give
Shall never thirst again."
Thus says the Lord who died for us,
our Saviour, kin and friend.

Led by the Spirit, now sing praise
To God the Trinity:
The Source of Life, the living Word
Made flesh to set us free,
The Spirit blowing where it will
To make us friends of God:
This mystery far beyond our reach,
yet near in healing love.


LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

 A SERMON FOR QUADRAGESIMA SUNDAY

After Mass today, we’ll be receiving our annual reminder of who we really are, or rather, what we really are.  We are dust.  Our first parent Adam was created out of the dust of the earth, and when we die, unto dust we will return.  Like a dog, our body will be buried in the earth.  There it will decay until nothing remains, save the earth itself, from which it came.  And for an atheist, that’s all there is to it.   We’re born, we live, and we die.  Nothing else.

God could have created us that way.  But fortunately for us, he made us in his own image and likeness so that we may partake of his own eternal happiness.  The last two articles of the Creed are that we believe “in the Resurrection of the Body, and Life of the World to Come.”  Atheists do not have a creed.  They do not believe there’s anything at all after death.  They should be so lucky.

The fact is, God has instilled within us an immortal soul.  This will never die.  It will never decay.  It was created by God out of nothing, but it will not return to nothing.  It will continue to live forever, in one of two possible locations.  One of these is heaven, and it is so that we may be accepted there, and to avoid the other place, that we continually fight the baser instincts of our bodies.

It’s a battle that we must wage on an unfortunately frequent basis.  It’s not absolutely constant, because after all, there are things that we want that we’re permitted to have because they are in accordance with God’s will.  But then there are those other things we want, things God knows we shouldn’t have.  And the desires we have for these things have a name.  They’re called “temptations.”

A temptation is that fragile moment of decision, as we consider an action and whether we may morally perform it.  The action may not amount to a physical action.  It may be just a thought, or a word, as well as an actual deed.  Or it can even be the omission of an action, such as not going to Mass on Sunday, or failing to act charitably when we should.  But we all understand, I think, that we either withstand the temptation and keep our honor, or we yield to the temptation and fall into sin.  And the operative word is “fall”.

We never rise into sin.  We fall into it.  It’s a downward motion.  There are several reasons why we use the term “falling” into sin.  Because of gravity, it’s much easier to go down than it is to go up.  I’ve noticed this when the UPS guy arrives with a heavy package—carrying it up to the bedrooms on the top floor is a lot harder than rolling it down the stairs into the basement.  And so it is with sin.  It’s easier to give in to the temptation than to fight against it.  Or take a look at the sun in the sky.  It rises in the morning and gives off heat and light, and then, when it goes down, the darkness and the cold of night return.  So too, when we fall into sin, the light of grace in our soul is extinguished, and the nightfall of shame and emptiness enters in its place.

Temptation is our battle of good versus evil.  Temptation is not a sin, it is not something we should ever feel ashamed of.  After all, our blessed Lord himself was tempted.  Three times the devil tempted him with earthly pleasures, riches and honors.  In the second of these temptations, he takes our Lord up to a high pinnacle and tries to persuade him to cast himself down.  Down into sin.  But our Lord resists the temptation to show his power to the devil by having his angels protect him from injury.  He does not fall down into sin.  In the third temptation, the devil takes him even higher, “up into an exceeding high mountain” where he shows him all the kingdoms of the world “and the glory of them”.  He promises them to the Son of God, if only Christ will do one thing.  If only “thou wilt fall down and worship me.”  This is a terrible thing for the devil to tempt someone with—anyone!  But to try and tempt the Son of God like this?  The reward he places before Christ is very great, and there must be many people who would be taken in by the promise of such glory.  But not our Lord.  He does not fall down and worship the devil, his creature.  He does not fall down into sin.

We are not God of course, and no matter how hard we try we’ll never be completely free of sins and imperfections.  But God wants us to at least seek perfection, he wants us to do our best to remain in the state of grace, and not fall into any sin that would kill the soul and prevent us from joining in his eternal glory.  He knows we will never be free from temptation, because not even his divine Son was exempt.  But when temptation comes, God wants us to follow the example of his Son.  So how do we do that?  What did our Lord do to prepare himself to fight temptation when it came?

Our Lord went into the wilderness, and there he fasted forty days and forty nights.  The whole notion of Lent is based on this, and has the same purpose.  That by fasting and acts of penance, we may accustom ourselves to the idea that we can’t always have what we want whenever we want it, that there are limits to the extent we may satisfy our whims and appetites, limits which are imposed by divine law and by the natural law God created.  By becoming conscious on a regular basis of the amount of food we consume, by the constant reminder that we’ve given up some innocent pleasure we usually enjoy, we become accustomed to focusing our lives and actions on God, and to the conformity our actions have with his will rather than our own.  Forty days and forty nights of such reminders should be enough to inculcate this habit within us, enough at least to see us through the rest of the year till Ash Wednesday rolls around again.

According to today’s Gospel, “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”  He was led somewhere for the purpose of being tempted.  He was “led into temptation.”  In the Our Father, we pray that God will not lead us into temptation.  Because we know we’ll never be as successful as our divine Saviour in resisting those temptations when they come.  And come they will.  It is the will of God that they come, because it is by resisting them that we earn our place in heaven.  Without exercising our free will to choose good over evil, there would be no merit in us by which we could be judged fit for heaven.  But it is a struggle, and never a pleasant one.  So by all means, ask God that temptations may be lifted from you.  But at the same time, understand their salutary nature, and thank God for them when they come, that you have the opportunity to show God you choose him above yourself.  Rise up to worship God, and fight always the urge to fall down before the temptations of the Evil One.


AS SORROWFUL, YET ALWAY REJOICING

 A REFLECTION FOR QUADRAGESIMA SUNDAY


Behold, says St. Paul, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.  Today is the first Sunday in Lent, and is designated by the Church, through the inclusion of St. Paul’s words in today’s Mass, as the “accepted time… the day of salvation.”  The time has come, in other words, when we must set aside all worldly cares and focus—intensely—on our salvation.

 

Each of us is at a different stage of his or her life.  But all of us are getting older, and the more years we accrue, the more we come to grips with the idea that this life doesn’t go on forever, that each day that passes brings us closer to our eternal judgment.  Time, for some of us, is running out, and the imposition of ashes on our forehead brings with it a far greater sense of foreboding that the dust of the tomb awaits us.   

 

As St. Paul says, we are “as dying, and, behold, we live.”  For one of the great consolations of our faith is precisely that the closer we get to our earthly demise, the faster we approach an eternal happiness far beyond our finite comprehension.  The sufferings of this life are as nothing compared to our reward hereafter.  In fact, the more crosses that are piled upon us, the greater that reward may be, providing we do as St. Paul counsels us, by accepting those crosses and carrying them with Christ, “in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in watchings, in fastings.”  Many are the opportunities for bearing our crosses “in patience”, and Lent is our annual reminder of how we should strive after this patience.

 

So let’s turn our entire attention to how we may use this “accepted time” to the profit of our soul.  The three pillars of Lent are Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, and every one of us can surely benefit from practicing all of these to a greater extent than the rest of the year.  By doing so, we will learn to understand the peace on earth that our Lord brings to men of good will, we will know how we may be “dying, and, behold, we live; chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”

 

Lent has just begun.  Pray for the perseverance to continue your penances faithfully, through the Passion and Death of our Lord and on to his glorious Resurrection.  The events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem so far away, but let’s be assured that they will come, just as surely as our own Passion and Death, and our own Resurrection.  Our fate at that point rests in our own hands today, as we commit to our salvation—or not.  Today’s the day, the accepted time, the day of salvation.


Sunday, February 14, 2021

THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY

 A SERMON FOR QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY


Among the feelings of anger, depression and frustration we’ve been experiencing these past few months, we must include also a certain sense of incredulous amazement.  As we watch the nation and the world seemingly going into self-destruct mode, we are forced to wonder how on earth the authors and perpetrators of this national suicide can possibly think that what they are doing is a good thing.  If you’re like me, you probably end up just shrugging your shoulders and dismissing them all as “bad people,” what Archbishop Vigano calls “children of darkness.”  While this may be true, to call Democrats and Progressives evil is a bit of an over-simplification.  Not because their lust for power and destruction in defiance of the spirit of the Constitution and the laws of God isn’t an evil thing in itself.  Rather because they appear so firmly oblivious to the evil of their agenda.

This is an odd thing.  Normally, when we go after something evil, it’s because there is some kind of perceived good to be achieved.  This perceived good is usually the satisfaction of some evil inclination, true, but at least there is that satisfaction, which to our corrupted human nature, provides us with some similarly corrupted sense of fulfillment.  But what good can be perceived by their hatred for a President whose policies resulted in benefits for all our fellow citizens, especially those whom they claim to hold in special esteem, the minorities, the poor and oppressed?  What good do they see in creating policies that jeopardize our safety by releasing hardened criminals from jail and letting in an unlimited number of unvetted illegal immigrants?  That create more poverty by enabling homelessness, by raising taxes and increasing regulations that put employers out of business?  That create an explosion of immorality by promoting every imaginable vice as the highest pinnacle of self-achievement?  Let’s not forget their unflinching promotion of abortion, particular in the minority communities they claim to protect.  Where do they see good in any of these things.  It’s national suicide where the only good they can claim to be going after is the destruction of their own nation and its identity.  They seem to take pleasure in slitting the wrists of the country and watching its lifeblood drain away into the dust.

There is a man in today’s Gospel who begs our blessed Lord, who is passing by, for mercy.  He is blind and desires to see.  So he cries out that Jesus, the Son of David, may have mercy on him.  For this he is rebuked, but not dissuaded from crying out all the more.  He perseveres in his cries for mercy, and our divine Lord rewards his persistence by restoring his sight.  Those enemies of God, children of darkness, or whatever you want to call them, are similarly blind.  The difference between them and the blind man of our Gospel is that they don’t seem to know it.  For if they did, then surely they too would want to see.  But as children of darkness, they know nothing but the darkness in which they live, a dark world in which they cannot see anything, because it is a world that has no light.  They see, as St. Paul describes, “through a glass, darkly.  This glass is the prism through which they see their darkened, evil view of the world.  They have only to ask God for mercy, and he would give them the grace to see otherwise.  But they do not ask.  And so God does not grant them to see.

How hardened are we to our own desires for self-indulgence that we do not ask God for the grace to change our ways?  What are the attachments in our own life that we’ve resigned ourselves to accepting?  What bad habits, vices, habitual mortal sins even, have we come to accept as inevitable?  What temptations persist in attacking us, for which we’ve stopped asking God for the graces to fight?  Before the start of this Lenten season of penance, we absolutely must examine our conscience in this matter.  For if we are to do penance, we must know what we are doing penance for.  It’s not enough to enter into Lent with some vague notion of “making reparation for sin” or “feeling sorry” for the bad stuff we’ve done.  We must approach Lent with the firm purpose of amendment.  We must seek to amend our lives and rid ourselves of any complacent attachment to the specific sins into which we keep on falling.  It’s no good to attribute them to our “personality”, to “the way we are.”  Our task this Lent is to improve that personality and become better than the way we are, to become the best we can be.  For this we need the grace of God.  So let’s not let Christ pass by this Lent without crying out to him with all the persistence of the blind man in today’s Gospel, “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me!”  “Ask, and ye shall receive.  Seek, and ye shall find.  Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”  But if we’re so hardened to our sins, so familiar with them that they are no longer repulsive to us, then it’s time to wake up.  Time to turn on the light in our darkness, time to stop seeing through a glass, darkly.

Sooner or later, we will see God, not through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.  We will know him no longer in part, but even as also we are known by him.  For the enemies of God, that will be a terrible moment.  A light will switch on in their dark minds, illuminating for them the horror of all they’ve done to hurt God and destroy souls.  And in particular their own souls.  This light will provide them forever with a deep loathing of themselves, an infinite and eternal self-hatred of what they are which will burn into their souls forever.  May God protect us from such a fate.  Let’s do what we must to avoid it.

And on this Quinquagesima Sunday, when St. Paul speaks to us of “faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity,” then let’s start on our quest to put away our thoughts of anger, depression and frustration at all the things that are happening to us and our country.  Let’s replace them with thoughts of compassion for our enemies.  Let’s keep in mind their ultimate and horrendous fate if they fail to seek the light of truth, if they neglect till too late to beg God for the mercy he would surely show them.  It’s a terrible, awful fate, and one that we can so easily avoid by simply realizing our own blindness.  May God have mercy upon us all.


JESU, LOVER OF MY SOUL

 A HYMN FOR QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY


By Charles Wesley, 1740

 

Jesu, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, oh, leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick and lead the blind.
Just and holy is Thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
Vile and full of sin I am,
Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity.


ST. VALENTINE, PATRON SAINT OF LOVERS

 A REFLECTION FOR ST. VALENTINE'S DAY


St. Valentine was a Roman priest who was imprisoned for secretly marrying Christian couples so husbands wouldn’t have to go to war, something that was considered a serious crime. Eventually, Valentine even attempted to convince the Emperor Claudius to become a Christian. This did not go down well with the Emperor, who became enraged and sentenced Valentine to death, commanding him to renounce his faith or be beaten with clubs and beheaded.  St. Valentine refused to renounce his faith and was executed on February 14, A.D. 269. Other variations of his biography say that he refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, was imprisoned and while imprisoned he healed the jailer's blind daughter. On the day of his execution, he left the girl a note signed, "Your Valentine."

 

Today happens to be St. Valentine’s Day, and is the feastday on which we ask the help of this saint to watch over the lives of lovers everywhere.  For those who need help in finding a life partner, or want to confirm God’s blessing on their marriage; for those seeking protection and guidance for a husband or wife, the conversion perhaps of a boyfriend or girlfriend, St. Valentine is always ready to intercede with his prayers and patronage.  We should send him our prayers today for whatever our own needs may be, as well as other members of our family, friends and neighbors, anyone we know who could use his special help in matters of love.

 

This year, St. Valentine’s feastday falls in carnival time, just a couple of days before Mardi Gras.  Like so many of the Church’s liturgical celebrations, both Carnival and St. Valentine’s Day have been turned into an excuse for indulging our sinful pleasures.  To do so is a mockery of the solemn occasion each represents.  Our blessed “farewell to feasting” which precedes the gravity of the penitential season of Lent, must not be seen as the pretext for drunkenness and gluttony.  Neither should we pervert St. Valentine’s Day, with its emphasis on the sacred love between a man and a woman, into a day of lustful debauchery.  For Catholics, these are obvious statements, but in this world of sin, our temptations to self-indulgence are sometimes hard to withstand.  Pray to St. Valentine for his help, as well as to the “Mother of Fair Love” our Blessed Lady.

 

St. Valentine’s spiritual responsibilities are extensive.  As well as taking care of lovers, engaged couples and happy marriages, St. Valentine is the patron saint of beekeepers and epileptics, and is also kept busy by those who invoke him for protection in their travels, and by those suffering from the plague (think Covid for example), and from fainting spells.  But let’s pray today especially to him to protect our families and keep them united in the faith in these difficult times.


Sunday, February 7, 2021

SEED FALLING BY THE WAY SIDE

 A SERMON FOR SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY


There’s a lot of seed being planted in today’s parable, and most of it is ending up where it doesn’t belong: on rocky ground, among the thorns, and by the way side.  This seed doesn’t produce any fruit.  The parable is interpreted for us by our Lord himself, and he tells us that the seed represents the word of God.  So it’s not a question that any of this seed is bad seed.  Like the word of God, it must all be good, very good, so the blame for why it fails to produce fruit rests not on the quality of the seed but on the ground on which it falls—and even more so, on the aim of the sower who sows the seed.  In other words, it’s up to us to make sure that this seed falls on good ground so that it isn’t wasted.

The word of God comes to us in many ways.  When we pray and meditate on the sacred mysteries, when we read holy Scripture and other spiritual books, as we get closer to God and understand better what he wants of us, we come to realize what a tremendous treasure is available to us in this word of God.  Indeed there are so many ways that we can avail ourselves of this infinite treasury that we can’t possibly ever hope to benefit from all of them.  But there are some that would be a great pity to waste, and I’d like to concentrate on just one of them today.

Like so many of these graces, this one was first thrown out on to the rocky ground by the Protestants, just one more example of how Martin Luther and the sheep he led astray reject the gifts God gave them through the Church.  Sacraments tossed by the wayside, the intercession of our Lady and the saints, the very presence of God in the Holy Eucharist, and so the list goes on.  But today I’d like to focus on just one of these beautiful gifts from God—Indulgences. 

We’ve been made to feel guilty about Indulgences.  The propaganda that is constantly being hurled against the Catholic Church, her practices and her history, has succeeded in putting Catholics on the defensive.  Some Catholics even start believing the propaganda themselves, and start feeling guilty about issues like Galileo, the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and yes, Indulgences.  But before we hang our heads in shame at the abuses which drove Martin Luther and his followers to quit the Catholic Church and reject the whole notion of Indulgences, we should examine their true history and nature.  A short Sunday sermon is never going to be adequate in doing this, so I would encourage you, especially those of you who have your doubts about Indulgences, to look up Indulgences online in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Very briefly, an Indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has already been forgiven.  We know that through the Sacrament of Penance our sins are forgiven.  We walk out of the confessional in the state of grace, with a clean soul free from the stain of sin.  It’s a good feeling, and obviously so much more.  But what about making satisfaction for those sins that were just absolved.  There still remains a debt to pay.  Our neighbor might forgive us for breaking the lawn mower he lent us, but we still owe him a new lawn mower.  We still owe God something for the manifold offences we’ve committed against him.  The penance given to us by the priest who absolves us is part of that satisfaction, and must have been fulfilled in order to gain an indulgence, and then it is these indulgences that help us complete that satisfaction in this life instead of in Purgatory.  That’s why it’s so important to go to confession frequently.  We can’t work on gaining any indulgences unless our sins have been forgiven and sacramental satisfaction has been made for them.  Confessing our sins opens up to us the Church’s treasury that flow from the infinite merits of Christ and the abundant merits of his saints.  Indulgences are a very important part of that treasury, seeds of grace that deserve to be sowed on the fertile ground of souls free from mortal sin.

The authority of the Church in this matter is clear.  She derives this authority to bestow indulgences, in other words, to commute the penalty still attached to a sin that has been forgiven, from Christ himself.  When our blessed Lord established the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, he gave to St. Peter and his successors what we call the “power of the keys.”  “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” he declared; “and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  In so declaring, Christ is bestowing power on the Church, which will be observed and ratified by God himself.  We know from Scripture that our Lord gave the apostles the power to forgive sin.  With the power of the keys, it follows that the Church has the power not only to forgive the guilt of sin but also to remit the penalties due to that sin.  I’ll leave it to you to think about that later, and to thank God for providing such a tremendous gift to us.  But now, it’s up to us to use this gift and use it wisely, making sure this good seed does not fall by the way side and get wasted.

As you know, an indulgence can be either plenary or partial.  The plenary indulgence remits all temporal punishment due to sin, so that no further expiation will be required in Purgatory.  A partial indulgence commutes only a certain portion of the penalty. For example, there’s a 500-day indulgence for kissing your scapular when you put it on or take it off.  Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean you get out of Purgatory 500 days earlier every time you kiss your scapular.  No, a certain effort is demanded of the faithful.  But indulgences make that effort a lot easier!  To say that an indulgence of so many days or years is granted means that it cancels an amount of punishment in Purgatory equivalent to that which would have been remitted, in the sight of God, by the performance of so many days or years of the ancient canonical penance. More simply put, when you kiss your scapular and fulfill the other conditions, it is as though you were doing 500 days of very strict penance.  Lent is only 40 days, so do the math.  500 days—that’s a lot of penance, and the type of penance which was done in the Middle Ages was much stricter than our little Lenten sacrifices, that’s for sure.  To perform 500 days of such penance would be extremely meritorious if done properly, but in her mercy the Church has allowed us to fulfill these obligations by a simple act like kissing our scapular.  How can we possibly waste such opportunities?

Indulgences may be applied to oneself or to the souls in Purgatory.  While we cannot apply Indulgences to the living, the poor souls in Purgatory have no way to make satisfaction for their sins except through their terrible sufferings—or with our help.  They cannot help themselves, but we have the great privilege of being able to help them.  Our prayers and penances, particularly our indulgenced prayers and penances, are the most efficient way we have, outside of having Masses said, of aiding our departed loved ones and the other forgotten souls in Purgatory.  This is charity, the love of neighbor commanded by Christ himself.  It follows that we have a duty to gain as many Indulgences as we can.  And yet, how much time do we spend on making sure that our actions are geared to have this effect?  How much effort do we put into gaining Indulgences for the Poor Souls?

So today, as we approach the penitential season of Lent (it begins one week from Wednesday), let’s prepare ourselves so that we’re able to receive as many Indulgences as we can.  There are certain conditions that must be observed.

The first of these conditions is to be in the state of grace.  So let’s start by making our Shrovetide Confession and Communion.  Only by being in the state of grace can we avail ourselves of an Indulgence.  We must, therefore, have been absolved from all mortal sin.  To receive a Plenary Indulgence, not only Confession but also Holy Communion is necessary, either in the day or two before performing the indulgenced act, or within the eight days following.  For a Partial Indulgence, we must at least have a contrite heart. 

Secondly, to receive any Indulgence we must have the intention to receive it—it’s not enough to perform the act or say the prayer, not knowing that there’s an indulgence attached, or not thinking about it.  Naturally, we must also follow any instructions specific to the action or prayer in question, for example, the times and places required for the November 2nd Toties Quoties Indulgence.

Thirdly, and don’t be put off by this one, we must include “prayers for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff.”  While you might wonder what happens if there is no Sovereign Pontiff, or worse yet, what “Pope Francis’s” avowed “Intention of the Month might be (an end of global warming, the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of the traditional Latin Mass, or who knows what), there’s no need to worry.  We can still pray for the four intentions of the Holy See that never change.  They are: 1) the progress of the Faith and triumph of the Church; 2) peace and union among Christian Princes and Rulers; 3) the conversion of sinners; and 4) the uprooting of heresy.  Nothing wrong with those intentions, so make sure you pray for them.  A simple Our Father and a Hail Mary will suffice.

Once we’ve prepared our souls by being in the state of grace, and our minds by familiarizing ourselves with the other conditions, our Lenten preparation should continue with a little research to find out which prayers and actions have Indulgences attached to them.  The best way is to have in your home a copy of The Raccolta, the official manual of indulgences authorized by the Holy See.  It contains all the prayers and devotions enriched by these indulgences.  The 1957 pre-Vatican II edition is still in print and available online.

We’re almost halfway through Shrovetide, so there isn’t much time left to prepare.  Pick up your Raccolta and make your resolutions.  It’s a thick book and there are plenty of ways to help our dear departed this Lent, so let’s make sure we don’t miss out on any of those seeds being sprinkled from the Church’s treasury.  Make it your hobby to gather up as many Indulgences as you can, so they don’t fall by the way side.  Be the good ground on which these seeds of grace may bear fruit, and come to the aid of our brethren, members of the Church Suffering.  Let’s try to apply for as many Indulgences as we can possibly devise, and fill this Lent with as many acts of charity as we possibly devise.


ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL

 A HYMN FOR SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY


From Mrs. Cecil Alexander’s Hymns for Little Children, 1848

 

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.

The purple headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky;−

The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,−
He made them every one:

The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day;−

He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.


CANON LAW ON ACQUIRING INDULGENCES

 A MESSAGE FOR SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY


Can. 925:  In order that a person may be capable of gaining indulgences for himself, he must be baptized, not excommunicated, in the state of grace at least at the end of the prescribed works, and the subject of the grantor.  Moreover, in order that one who is capable may actually gain the indulgences, he must have at least a general intention of acquiring them and must fulfil the prescribed works at the appointed time and in an appropriate manner according to the general sense of the grant.

Can. 926:  A plenary indulgence is understood to be so granted that if one should be unable to gain it fully, he will nevertheless gain it partially, in keeping with the disposition that he has.

Can. 926:  A plenary indulgence, unless it be otherwise expressly stated, can be gained only once a day, even though the prescribed work be performed several times.  A partial indulgence, unless the contrary be expressly stated, can be gained frequently throughout the day, whenever the prescribed work is repeated.

Can 930:  No one gaining an indulgence can apply it to others who are still living; but all indulgences granted by the Roman Pontiff, unless the contrary is evident, are applicable to the souls in purgatory.

Can 931:  The confession which may be required for gaining any particular indulgences can be made within the eight days which immediately precede the day to which the indulgences are appointed; and the Communion may take place on the previous day; or again both conditions may be satisfied within the following eight days.  The faithful who are accustomed, unless lawfully hindered, to approach the sacrament of penance at least twice a month, or to receive Holy Communion in the state of grace and with a right and devout intention daily, although they may abstain from it once or twice during the week, can gain all indulgences, even without the actual confession which would otherwise be necessary for gaining them.

Can 932:  An indulgence cannot be gained by a work to which one is already bound in law or precept, unless it is expressly stated otherwise in the grant of the same; one, however, who performs a work imposed upon him as a sacramental penance and enriched with indulgences, may at one and the same time fulfil his penance and gain the indulgences.

Can 934:  If, in order to gain certain indulgences, prayer in general according to the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff be prescribed, merely mental prayer does not suffice; the vocal prayer, however, may be selected at the choice of the faithful, unless a particular prayer is assigned.  If a particular prayer should be assigned, the indulgences can be gained in whatever language it may be recited.. but the indulgences cease entirely if there has been any addition, omission, or interpolation.  To gain the indulgences it is sufficient to recite the prayer alternately with a companion, or to follow it in one’s mind while it is being recited by another.