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Quinquagesima Sunday

by Filed Under: Lent, Pre-Lent, Quinquagesima Sunday

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QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY

(kwngkw-js-m)

DOUBLE, SECOND CLASS / PURPLE

 

March 6 – SAINTS PERPETUA AND FELICITAS
Martyrs

 

Excitement and tension are in the prayers and lessons of today’s Mass. There is an appreciation of what Christ our Leader must endure for mankind’s redemption, and a joy at the sure outcome of His warfare with Satan. We are confident that love will triumph.

Baptism commits everyone to carry a cross, especially the cross of consistent, unobtrusive charity. As Jesus commanded the blind man of Jericho to be brought to Him, so He commands His members to bring to Him those who need Him as their light and their love. We fulfill our own baptismal promises by helping others to renounce Satan and to put on Christ.

~~~

Prediction of the Passion

From Divine Intimacy by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

PRESENCE OF GOD
O Jesus, give me light to understand the mystery and value of Christian suffering.

MEDITATION
Lent is approaching and our thoughts turn spontaneously to the sorrows of Jesus. Today’s Gospel (Lk 18: 31-43) brings us an announcement of the Passion. The prediction is clear: “The Son of Man…shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and scourged and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death; and the third day He shall rise again.” However, as on the other occasions, the Apostles “understood none of these things, and this word was hidden from them”. They did not understand because they imagined that Jesus’ mission was like an earthly conqueror’s and that He would re-establish the kingdom of Israel. Since they dreamed only of triumphs and of occupying the first places in the kingdom, any allusion to the Passion upset and scandalized them. To those who dream only of prosperity and earthly glory, the language of the Cross is incomprehensible. Those who have a purely material ideal of life find it very difficult to understand any spiritual significance, and especially that of suffering. St. Paul said that Christ Crucified was “unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor 1:23). Rebuking St. Peter, who at the first mention of the Passion had exclaimed, “Lord, be it far from Thee, this shall not be unto Thee,” Jesus had said, “Go behind Me, Satan….because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Mt 16: 22,23). To human wisdom, suffering is incomprehensible; it is disconcerting; it can lead one to murmur against divine Providence and even to lose all trust in God. However, according to the wisdom of God, suffering is a means of salvation and redemption. And as it was necessary “for Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory (Lk 24,26), it is also necessary for the Christian to be refined in the crucible of sorrow in order to attain to sanctity, to eternal life.

It was not until after the descent of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles fully understood the meaning of the Passion; then, instead of being scandalized, they considered it the greatest honour to follow and to preach Christ Crucified. The human eye has not sufficient light to comprehend the value of the Cross; it needs a new light, the light of the Holy Spirit. It is not by chance that in today’s Gospel, immediately after the prediction of the Passion, we find the healing of the blind man of Jericho. We are always somewhat blind when faced with the mystery of suffering; when it strikes us in what we hold most near and dear, it is easy to get lost and to grope our way like blind men through uncertainty and darkness. The Church invites us to repeat today the blind man’s prayer of faith:”Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The world id often astonished at the suffering of the good, and instead of encouraging them in their reliance on God, seeks to turn from Him by urging them to defiance and false fear. Our passions themselves, our innate tendencies toward pleasure, often cry out to us and try, by a thousand pretexts, to prevent us from following Jesus Crucified. Let us remain steadfast in our faith, like the poor blind man. He was not disturbed by the crowd that tried to keep him from approaching Jesus, and he did not give up when disciples remonstrated with him and wanted him to be quiet; he only shouted his prayer “even more loudly”.

Let us cry to he Lord from the bottom of our hearts: “De profoundis clamavo ad te, Domine; Domine audi vocem meam!”(Ps 129). Let us ask, not to be exempt from suffering, but to be enlightened at its value. “Lord, that I may see!” As soon as the blind man recovered his sight, he immediately followed Jesus, “glorifying God!”. The supernatural light which we seek from the Lord will give us the strength to follow Him and to carry our cross as He did.

COLLOQUY
O Jesus Christ, Son of the eternal Father, our Lord, true King of all things! What didst Thou leave in the world for Thy descendants to inherit from Thee? What didst Thou ever have, my Lord, save trials, pains, and insults? Indeed Thou hadst only a beam of wood to rest upon while drinking the bitter draught of death. Those of us, then, my God, who desire to be Thy true children and not to renounce their inheritance, must never flee from suffering, Thy crest is five wounds!….O my Jesus, the Cross is Your standard; I should be ashamed to ask to be delivered from it. From one evil only I ardently beg You to preserve me: from any deliberate sin, however slight. O Lord, I beg You by the merits of Your sacred Passion to keep all sin far from me. But as for other evils – bodily or spiritual sufferings, physical pain or mental anguish – I beg Your light and strength: light to understand the hidden meaning which they have in the plans of Your divine Providence, light to understand the hidden meaning which they have in the plans of your divine Providence, light to believe firmly that every sorrow or trial, every pain or disappointment, is planned by You for my greater good; strength not to let myself be influenced by false maxims of the world or led astray by the vain mirage of earthly happiness, strength to accept suffering of any kind with courage and love.

~~~

RESOURCES:

Sexagesima Sunday

by Filed Under: Lent, Pre-Lent, Sexagesima Sunday

SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY

(seks’uh-jeh’sih-mah)
DOUBLE, SECOND CLASS / PURPLE

Feb. 27 – Commemoration of SAINT GABRIEL (POSSENTI)OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS
Confessor

This Sunday moves deeper into immediate preparation for Lent. It is a day of testing the soil of human hearts, to find out how ready everyone is for the good seed of grace that God is sure to offer. Has our vision enlarged to see all men as our brothers? Has our love reached out to all the world’s sufferers, at least by sympathy and prayer? Is our hand open to the needy of our local community?

The Prayer recalls that in old Rome this Mass was always said at the "stational" church of St. Paul-outside-the-Walls.

~~~

SEXAGESIMA

The sixtieth day before Easter, and the second Sunday before Lent. Terminology not used since the revision of the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council.   ~Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life.

~~~

The seed is the word of God.

Sexagesima Sunday GOSPEL ~ Luke 8. 4-15
† Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. Luke.

   At that time, when a very great multitude was gathered together and hastened out of the cities unto Jesus, He spoke by a similitude: The sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, 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 being sprung up yielded fruit a hundredfold. 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 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 heart, 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 they fall away. And that which fell away among thorns are they who have heard and, going their way, are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit. But on the good ground are they who in a good and perfect heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience.

~~~

Sexagesima Sunday
From Divine Intimacy by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

Presence of God – O Lord, I am here before you. Grant that my heart may
be the good ground, ready to receive Your divine word.

Meditation
1. Today Jesus, the divine Sower, comes to scatter the good seed in His
vineyard the Church. He wishes to prepare our souls for a new blossoming of
grace and virtue.

"The seed is the word of God." Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate,
eternal Utterance of the Father, came to sow this word in the hearts of men;
it is, as it were, a reflection of Himself. The divine word is not a sound
which strikes the air and disappears rapidly like the word of men; it is a
supernatural light which reveals the true value of things; it is grace, the
source of power and strength to help us live according to the light of God.
Thus it is a seed of supernatural life, of sanctity, of eternal life. This
seed is never sterile in itself; it always has a vital, powerful strength,
capable of producing not only some fruits of Christian life, but abundant
fruits of sanctity. This seed is not entrusted to an inexperienced
husbandman who, because of his ignorance might ruin the finest sowing. It is
Jesus Himself, the Son of God, who is the Sower.

Then why does the seed not always bring forth the desired fruit?
Because very often the ground which receives it does not have the requisite
qualities. God never stops sowing the seed in the hearts of men; He invites
them, He calls them continually by His light and His appeals; He never
ceases giving His grace by means of the Sacraments; but all this is vain and
fruitless unless man offers God a good ground, that is, a heart, well
prepared and disposed. God wills our salvation and sanctification, but He
never forces us; He respects our liberty.

2. Today’s Gospel mentions four categories of people who receive the
seed of the divine word in different ways.

THE HARD GROUND: souls that are frivolous, dissipated, open to all
distractions, rumors and curiosity; admitting all kinds of creatures and
earthly affections. The word of God hardly reaches their heart when the
enemy, having free access, carries it off, thus preventing it from taking
root.

THE STONY GROUND: superficial souls with only a shallow layer of good
earth, which will be rapidly blown away, along with the good seed, by the
winds of passion. These souls easily grow enthusiastic, but do not
persevere and "in time of temptation fall away." They are unstable, because
they have not the courage to embrace renunciation and to make the sacrifices
which are necessary if one wishes to remain faithful to the word of God and
to put it into practice in all circumstances. Their fervor is a straw fire
which dies down and goes out in the face of the slightest difficulty.

THE GROUND COVERED WITH THORNS: souls that are preoccupied with
worldly things, pleasures, material interests and affairs. The seed takes
root, but the thorns soon choke it by depriving it of air and light.
Excessive solicitude for temporal things eventually stifles the rights of
the spirit.

Lastly, THE GOOD GROUND is compared by Jesus to those "who, with a good
and upright heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in
patience." The good and upright heart is the one which always gives first
place to God, and His justice. The seed of the divine word will bear
abundant fruit in proportion to the good dispositions it finds in us:
recollection, a serious and profound interior life, detachment, sincere
seeking for the things of God above and beyond all earthly things, and
finally, perseverance, without which the word of God cannot bear its fruit
in us.

COLLOQUY
O Jesus, divine Sower, rightly do You complain of the arid, sterile
ground of my poor heart! What an abundant sowing of holy inspirations,
interior lights, and grace You have cast into my heart! How many times You
have invited me to come to You by special appeals, and how many times have I
stopped, after following You for a short time! O Lord, if only I could
understand the fundamental reason for my spiritual sterility, my instability
and inconstancy in good! Will Your light fail me? No, for You are
continually instructing and admonishing my soul in a thousand ways. Oh! if
so many souls living in error and not knowing You had received but a
hundredth part of the light which You have given me so profusely, how much
fruit would they not have drawn from it!

Will Your grace fail me? Is not Your grace my strength? O Lord, I see
that neither Your light nor Your strength will fail me; What I lack is the
perseverance which can faithfully withstand temptations, difficulties, and
darkness; which can face courageously the sacrifices and austerity of the
Christian life. It is easy to make sacrifices and to renounce oneself for a
day, but it is hard to keep on doing it always, every day of our life. Is
this not the reason that You said, O Lord, that the good heart brings forth
fruit "in patience"?

O Jesus, who endured with invincible patience your most sorrowful
Passion and death, give me the patience I need to keep up the struggle
against my passions and my self-love, patience to embrace with perseverance
all the sacrifices required by total detachment, to be able to live without
personal satisfactions and pleasures, to do everything that is repugnant to
me, that hurts me, that crosses me and is displeasing to my self-love.
O Lord, You know that I desire total purification because I long for
union with You; but You cannot purify me entirely if I cannot accept
patiently Your work: the trials, humiliations and detachments that You
prepare for me. O Jesus, divine Sufferer, give me Your patience; make me,
like Yourself, humble and patient.

~~~

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RESOURCES:

 

 

 

Pre-Lent – Sexagesima: Introit

Arise, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end. Why turnest Thou Thy face away, and forgettest our trouble? our belly hath cleaved to the earth: arise, O Lord, help us and deliver us. Vs. (Ps. 43: 2) We have heard, O God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us. Vs. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Arise, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end. Why turnest Thou Thy face away, and forgettest our trouble? our belly hath cleaved to the earth: arise, O Lord, help us and deliver us.

Exsúrge, quare obdórmis, Dómine? exsúrge, et ne repéllas in finem: quare fáciem tuam avértis, oblivísceris tribulatiónem nostram? adhaésit in terra venter noster: exsúrge, Dómine, ádjuva nos, et líbera nos. Vs. (Ps. 43: 2) Deus, áuribus nostris audívimus: patres nostri annuntiavérunt nobis. Vs. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in saécula sæculórum. Amen. Exsúrge, quare obdórmis, Dómine? exsúrge, et ne repéllas in finem: quare fáciem tuam avértis, oblivísceris tribulatiónem nostram? adhaésit in terra venter noster: exsúrge, Dómine, ádjuva nos, et líbera nos. ~Chantblog

*non-Catholic source

Septuagesima Sunday

by Filed Under: 02 February, Lent, Pre-Lent, Septuagesima Sunday

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SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY

DOUBLE, SECOND CLASS / PURPLE

The emphasis today has ceased to be upon the joys of Christ’s coming or upon the peace and wonder of possessing Him. Now the stress is on what it cost Our Lord to atone for the sins of men, on how much everyone needs His atoning death, and on what everyone can do to have a part in atoning for sin.

Every Christian without exception must enter into the warfare between Christ and Satan — the warfare that begins to be dramatized and lived anew in these weeks.

~~~

Septuagesima Season

This Season, then, is a prelude to the penitential mortifications of Lent — a time that ends with the Passion of Christ and leads to the glorious Resurrection and Ascension that end our exile. It’s as if during Septuagesima, we recognize our exile and the reasons for it; during Lent we repent of those reasons; during Passiontide, Our Lord assuages the Father’s wrath at those reasons; and then, during Easter, we rejoice that, through the Cross, we can avoid the eternal price of sin.
For now, though, exile it is, and to indicate this, we eliminate the alleluia — which means "All hail to Him Who is" — from the Mass. Just as at Requiem Masses (and also the Mass for the Holy Innocents), the alleluia isn’t heard and will be heard no more until the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. ~Fisheaters

~~~

Gospel Reading on Septuagesima Sunday

Matthew 20:1-16

The kingdom of heaven is like to an householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And having agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going 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 you also into my vineyard. And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the labourers 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.

~~~

“But if it be thy will to be busy about the things of other men also, busy thyself about their good works, not their sins, that both by the memory of our negligences and by our emulation for the good works they have done, and by setting before ourselves the judgment-seat from which no prayers can deliver, wounded each day by our conscience as by a kind of goad,we may lead ourselves on to humility, and a greater diligence, and attain unto the good things to come, by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ; with whom be to the Father, together with the Holy Ghost, glory, might, honor, now and always, and world without end. Amen.” ~ St. John Chrysostom on Matthew 20:1-16

~~~

RESOURCES:

Pre-Lent – Septuagesima: Introit

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