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Lent 2007
“Not in bread alone doth man live; but in every word that proceedeth
from the mouth of God.”
Matt. 4:4
When the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to fast for forty days and forty nights the lesson for all mankind is contained in every detail of that account. We must remember that the Sacred Scriptures are the “Living word of God” addressed to all mankind to the end of time. The word of God is living; and He speaks to those who read it prayerfully with hearts seeking to know God so that th ey may love and serve Him. Christ’s reply to the first temptation of the devil should awaken us to realize that there is spiritual nourishment in every word of Sacred Scripture — it is Christ Who tells us that we find life “in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.”
We are now in the third week of the holy season of Lent. What has been our observance in regard to penance, prayer, fasting, turning our minds to dwell upon the passion and death of our Saviour? How often have we followed Jesus along the sorrowful road to Calvary through the Stations of the Cross? Every day in Lent we should examine our consciences on such important matters. The Church admonishes us every day in the official morning prayer: “Let it not be vain for you to rise early before it is dawn; for the Lord has promised a crown to those who watch.” And the first hymn of morning prayer every day reminds us: “As holy custom has taught us; let us observe this well known fast of forty days…. Therefore let us give less time to talking, eating, drinking, sleeping and amusing ourselves; and show a greater vigilance in our way of life.”
First We Must Fast from Sin
Listen to the words of St, Augustine:
“We reverence the number 40 as containing a certain perfection...You know well that fasting is sanctified by this number. Moses fasted forty days; Elias, the same length of time; and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself observed a forty-day fast. Therefore these three appeared on the mount when the Lord showed Himself to His disciples with glorified face and raiment. He appeared between Moses and Elias to indicate that the Gospel was attested by the Law and the Prophets.
“Whether then we look in the Law or the Prophets, or in the Gospel, we find a 40 day fast recommended. Such a fast is a great and all embracing thing: to abstain from sin and lawless worldly lusts….In this world then, we observe the forty day fast when we live rightly, denying our inclinations to sin and sinful desires.”
It is the inclinations to sin that we must beware of. In order to resist them we must control the appetites, it is necessary then to chastise the body with all its pleasurable desires; and this can only come about if we have a faith that is firm and unshakeable.
So many Catholics, these days, bury their heads in the sand; the sand of ignorance; and of indifference. Satan’s war against the Church has never been so violent and unrelenting. It is no use ranting against the various groups allied to the devil: our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of hell. When Christ came down the Holy Mount, he was faced by a father whose child was possessed by a devil; His disciples were not able to cast out the evil one. They asked our Lord why this was so: notice His reply — “Because of your unbelief…but this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.” By our observance of the fast of forty days; not because it is imposed by law, but out of our love for Jesus Crucified, with a firm desire to be at one with Jesus Christ in His continuing battle against Satan — then we may be sure of growing strong in faith and in our love and sympathy with our suffering Lord, who still suffers in His Church. The Church established the holy season of Lent to remind us of our true position before God. Our fasting for forty days painfully checks our inclination to make to make the end in life comfort and pleasures; having what people call “a good time”.
Alms-Giving, Penance and Prayer
This is a means of making satisfaction for our selfishness; bringing our eyes to see the sufferings of others; penance and prayer submits our mind and will to God in humility and sorrow for our own sins. Meditating on the Passion of our Lord teaches us the malice and defilement of sin which required the Word made flesh —the Son of God to die in anguish on the Cross.
Only from Faith and Charity is born the sorrowful desire to make reparation for our own sins and for the sins of others. It is not for us to nurse an avid pleasure in the thought that they will all be punished in the end; on the contrary we must make every effort to rescue them from such a fate. By a faithful observance of Lent, “under the influence of the Holy Ghost, Whom Jesus Christ communicates to His Church, the faithful increase in likeness to their Head. Walking in the Spirit, ‘doing the truth in charity, they grow in Him Who is the Head, even Christ, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”
It is the law of God’s decree that we cannot reach the fullness of the grace of Christ which shall be ours, unless we become like to the image of the Crucified. “He that taketh not up his Cross and followeth Me is not worthy of Me.” It is not merely that, as the Apostle urges, we are called upon to carry each other’s burdens. It is rather that we should have in us “the mind that is in Christ Jesus” that “we should walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and delivered Himself up for us an oblation and a sacrifice to God.”
There we have the meaning of atonement — being at one with Jesus Christ in mind and heart; and letting no one come between us. It is especially throughout this holy season that our blessed Mother cries out to us from beneath the Cross, where, crushed with grief, she holds the body of her Divine Son in her arms: “Is it nothing to ye, all ye that pass by; behold and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.” Could there be any heart so cold as not to respond in love and sympathy to the Mother of Sorrows, who is our Mother in heaven. Follow the Stations of the Cross as often as possible — it is a powerful means of growing in our love for Christ our Redeemer. Meditate on the mysteries of Christ in Mary’s Rosary, prayerfully and with attention; fix a time every day for at least five mysteries: that is the way to come to Jesus through Mary.
The Second Vatican Council
Many point to the Second Vatican Council as the cause of the troubles that afflict the Church in our own times. But the root of these troubles in the Church and outside of it dates from some seventy years back. Little is known about this. It is good for us to look back to a very real source for the present sad lapses among the clergy; and other evils that cause such great sorrow to the faithful.
We have the testimony of Bella Dodd, a member of the United States Congress, who was a communist agent who eventually came back to the Church, thank God. This is what she revealed: “In the 1930s, we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood [in the United States] in order to destroy the Church from within.” Another former communist, Manning Johnson, testified to Congress: “In the earliest stages it was determined that with only small forces available to them, it would be necessary to concentrate Communist agents in the seminaries…. This policy of infiltrating seminaries was successful beyond even our communist expectations.”
We can be right in assuming that this policy of Communism was employed in other countries too, including our own. Poland is still suffering from the effects of those clerics, some now highly placed, who “collaborated” with the Communist Secret Police.
It is important for us to realise that Communism is not dead, even in Russia. Just before Christmas there was a large demonstration of youthful communists attired in the garb of “Father Winter and Mother Winter” all of whom desire a return to a Stalinist regime.
Atonement — To Be at One with Christ
To remain in Christ by grace there is an essential requisite: that we keep His Commandments. Not only must we accept Him by faith, but with our heart and will, we must follow Him in charity. We must bear fruit, and the fruit of the branch cannot be different from the fruit of the Vine. “Remain in My love. If ye shall have kept my Commandments, you shall remain in My love.” What the pattern of that life in Christ must be is shown to us by Jesus Christ Himself. Immediately after He had begun to teach His Apostles that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and killed, our Divine Lord laid down the only way in which any man can follow Him: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his Cross daily and follow Me.” In the pain of penance we must follow the Man of Sorrows, for we have sinned and it is our sins that once He bore in His Body. In a sense, we must share His passion and death: “we are buried together with Him by baptism unto death, that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.” In the measure in which we shall have crucified the flesh and its lusts, we shall merit the peace of His resurrection in the serenity of love.
from a Lenten Pastoral Letter by Archbishop John C. McQuaid
Reparation
It may be asked with what actions can we make reparation for our sins and for the sins of others with the actions of daily life. What is more ordinary than water? Yet the tiny drop of water is added to the wine which becomes the Precious Blood. Our little actions, transformed by grace, in union with the sufferings of our Divine Redeemer, are accepted by God as atonement for our sins. To Our Divine Lord alone we owe the description of our daily life as a carrying of the Cross. What word more describes the chafing of our experience day by day? There is no stage of life from childhood to the grave in which we cannot unite our Cross with the Passion and Death of Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ.
from the same Pastoral letter – Archbishop John C. McQuaid.
Queen Of Martyrs
With reason is Mary called Queen of Martyrs, for her martyrdom in the death of her Son on the Cross exceeded the sufferings of all the martyrs. “There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother.” Mary, fully united with Jesus in His anguish, remained with Him until He expired. She stood by the Cross and whilst Jesus was in His agony she offered the life of her Son to the eternal Father for our salvation; but in doing so she also was in an agony greater than any death.
O my afflicted Mother, be graciously pleased, by the merits of the sorrows which thou didst endure at the foot of the Cross, to obtain for me true sorrow for my sins and love for Jesus my Redeemer; and by the sword which transpierced thy heart when thou didst see Him bow down His head and expire, I beseech thee to help me at the hour of my death, and then to obtain me eternal salvation, that I may love thee with thy Jesus for ever.
St. Alphonsus de Liguori
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