Recently in Lent 2007 Category

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Commemoration of the Sorrowful Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Virgin of Sorrows is the Portress of the Holy Mysteries, the Keeper of the Door of Christ's Pierced Heart, the Mother of our Joy. The last edition of the Missale Romanum, published in 2002, contains two modifications, discreet touches that will leave in the Missal of Paul VI the unmistakable imprint of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II.

The first of these concerns the Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent, the Friday before Palm Sunday. The 2002 edition of the Missal restores the Commemoration of the Compassion of the Virgin Mary formerly celebrated on the Friday of Passion Week, and offers for the Fifth Friday of Lent the following collect:

O God, who during this time
graciously grant to your Church
devoutly to imitate blessed Mary
in contemplation of the Passion of Christ,
grant us, we pray,
through the intercession of the same Virgin,
to cling each day more firmly to your Only-Begotten Son,
and to come at length to the fullness of his grace.

The second touch is in a rubric concerning the chants during the Good Friday adoratio crucis: it suggests that after the traditional chants given in the Missal and the Graduale Romanum the Stabat Mater also be sung in commemoration of the Blessed Virgin’s sorrowful compassion. In this way, a thirteenth century text, presumed to be of Franciscan origin -- it is attributed to Jacopone da Todi --takes it place alongside the ancient antiphon Crucem tuam, the Improperia, and the hymn to the Cross of Venantius Fortunatus.

The Stabat Mater is strong medicine for those who, being of a more abstract or cerebral disposition, would approach the Passion of Christ without getting bloodied, without being set ablaze, without feeling a melting in their breast.

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Psalm 118: 1-2, 4-5, 7-8
Matthew 5:43-48

The Spirit of Compunction

If yesterday's Gospel pierced your heart with sorrow for the sin of anger, it is likely that today's Gospel will open a fresh wound. At the Prayer Over the People on Ash Wednesday we asked God for the spirit of compunction, for the grace of a Word-pierced heart. Do you remember the prayer? It is a threshold text, one of great importance for the rest of Lent:

Upon those who bow themselves before your majesty, O Lord, graciously pour out the spirit of compunction, that, by your mercy, they may win the rewards promised to those who repent.

Wound Thou This Heart of Mine

We asked God to pierce our hearts through with the "two-edged sword of His Word" (Heb 4:11), not once, but again and again. Lent is all about becoming vulnerable; it is about approaching the Word of God with none of the protective gear we so cleverly devise against it. It is about saying to God, "Wound Thou this heart of mine; wound it again and again until by the wounding of Thy Word I am healed"

Pray For Those Who Persecute You

Today the command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us pierces our hearts. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Mt 5:43-45). People ordinarily pass over this command of the Lord, saying, "I am not the sort of person to have enemies."

Enemies

An enemy is one who feels hatred for or fosters harmful designs against another. An enemy is one who lives in a state of enmity. Enmity is a feeling or condition of hostility, ill will, animosity, antipathy, or antagonism. Jesus does not address our being enemies in today's passage; He focuses instead on how we are to respond to those who hold us in enmity, those who have hostile feelings towards us.

Friday of the First Week of Lent

Ezekiel 18:21-28
Psalm 129:1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8
Matthew 5:20-26

Anger

Today Our Lord addresses the sin of anger. "I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment" (Mt 5:22). The law of the Gospel is more exacting by far than the law of old which said, "Whoever kills shall be liable to judgment" (Mt 5:21). Jesus uncovers the root of the killer's sin: anger. Anger goes by any number of names: among them are resentment, rage, exasperation, bile, spleen, belligerence, and wrath.

Unidentified and Unconfessed

The sin of anger often goes unidentified and unconfessed because it lies below the surface like a great fault-line or like the seething entrails of a volcano. We delude ourselves into thinking that we have no sin because the sin has not surfaced. "I haven't thrown a pot, a pan, a book, or a brick. I haven't kicked, or shoved anyone. I haven't let go with any hugely inappropriate words or slammed any doors."

An Invisible Killer

Reasoning thus, we conclude that the sin of anger has no hold over us. Jesus would have us understand, however, that the anger locked up inside us is in every way as poisonous as the anger we let out. One must not think that because one has kept a lid on the boiling cauldron of one's anger, one is without sin. Hidden anger, or the anger we think we succeed in keeping hidden, is as sinful as the anger that comes out in harsh words and hurtful actions. Hidden anger is an invisible killer. That is why, for Our Lord, the angry man falls under the same judgment as the murderer.

Anger Voids Every Virtue

The sin of anger voids every virtue in the sight of God. It is an ugly splotch spoiling even our good deeds. Abba Agathon says that, "a man who is angry, even if he were to raise the dead, is not acceptable to God." The struggle against the sin of anger is long and hard. Abba Ammonas said, "I have spent fourteen years in Scetis asking God night and day to grant me the victory over anger."

Thursday of the First Week of Lent

Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25
Psalm 137: 1-2ab, 2cde-3, 7c-8
Matthew 7:7-12

Women of Lent

Yesterday the queen of Sheba, today Queen Esther: the liturgy directs our gaze to these women of the Bible, that we might recognize in them the mystery of the Church, and in the Church see ourselves. The editors of the First Reading omitted, for whatever reason, the highly significant second verse of the fourteenth chapter of Esther:

She took off her splendid apparel and put on the garments of distress and mourning, and instead of costly perfumes she covered her head with ashes and dung, and she utterly humbled her body, and every part that she loved to adorn she covered with her tangled hair (Vg Est 4: 17).

Having given this description of Esther, the text goes on to say, "and she prayed to the Lord God of Israel" (Est 14:3).

Esther: Icon of the Lenten Church

Esther comes to us today as an icon of the Lenten Church, the penitent Church, the praying Church. We see her "prostrate upon the ground, together with her handmaids" (Vg Est 4: 17p), praying "from morning until evening"(Vg Est 4:17p): a community of women in prayer. We are reminded too of that other icon of the Lenten Church, venerated in the East as one of the patrons of Great Lent, Saint Mary of Egypt. She, like Esther, took off her splendid apparel, put on the garments of distress and mourning, utterly humbled her body, and prayed. In Esther, we see a prototype of the Church, the "utterly humbled" Body of Christ, the Bride forever associated to His priesthood of mediation. In Saint Mary of Egypt, we see an antetype, a reflection of the great feminine archetype going back to Eve and perfected in the mystery of the Church.

The Bride of Christ

In knowing herself, a woman comes to know the mystery of the Church; and in knowing and reverencing the mystery of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, a woman comes to know and reverence her true self. It is the gift and office of man to receive woman in the mystery of her otherness even as Christ receives and honours His bride the Church.

It is in the recognition and reception of woman -- among them, Eve, Esther, the Virgin Mother Mary, and Saint Mary of Egypt -- that man and, in particular, the priest, discovers himself as one called to a sacrificial love for the Church, to holiness, and to the life of repentance and prayer. This is why the liturgical calendar shines with the memory of so many holy women. Each of them says in her own voice, "Whosoever sees me sees the Church." This is why Esther is given us today. She is an icon of the Lenten Church, praying in a body that is "utterly humbled."

Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

Jonah 3:1-10
Psalm 50;3-4, 12-13, 18-19
Luke 11:29-32

I can't resist adding a word about this portrait of Saint Mary of Egypt by Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera, also known as Lo Spagnoletto. Ribera came to Naples in search of Caravaggio in 1609, but Caravaggio had just died. Ribera's Mary of Egypt is emaciated and hollow-cheeked. Her once voluptuous body is wrinkled and weatherbeaten. She stands in prayer against the landscape of her conversion: the desert. There is even a certain resemblance between the saint and the skull on the ledge in front of her. The broken loaf of bread is a symbol of the Word of God, recalling the saying of Our Lord in the desert: "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4).

Indolence

Lent is supposed to be unsettling. Lent is supposed to disrupt our routines. Lent is about entering into another rhythm of life, a rhythm different from the one by which we ordinarily organize our lives. The unwillingness to be disturbed, to make a change, even a very little one, in what has become customary reveals an underlying resistance to the grace of conversion.

Newman speaks of indolence. Indolence is a state of sluggishness; it is the habit of seeking to avoid exertion. The indolent person says, "I am quite comfortable with things as they are, thank you. I have neither the desire nor the need to change my routines, to displace myself, or to do anything differently from the way I have always done it." Indolence is incompatible with Lent.

Alacrity

The opposite of indolence is alacrity -- a very Benedictine virtue -- an eager willingness to get up and get moving. The dictionary defines alacrity as a "cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness." When Saint Benedict treats of Lenten penances in Chapter Forty-Nine of the Rule, he says that they are to be offered "spontaneously in the joy of the Holy Spirit." There is in this something of the quickfooted and swift obedience of Chapter Five of the Rule, an obedience that brooks no delays.

Sackcloth and Ashes

In today's gospel Our Lord gives us two examples of alacrity in penitence: that of the Ninevites and that of the Queen of Sheba. The Ninevites wasted no time in responding to Jonah's preaching. He had gone but a day's journey into the city, preaching repentance, when the people of Nineveh believed God. "They proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them" (Jon 4:5).

Jonah's message completely disrupted things as they were. Word of it reached the ears of the king. "He arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes" (Jon 4:6). A dramatic departure from routine! The king proclaimed a fast affecting not only the people of the city, but even their beasts, their herds, and their flocks. The Ninevites are to put on sackcloth, but so too are their beasts. The image of a sheep, a goat, or a cow wearing sackcloth is almost too amusing; clearly it signifies a departure from business as usual. The extraordinary thing is that this public penitence is done with alacrity, in prompt obedience to Jonah's preaching. Nothing is said of a town meeting to discuss and decide what response might be appropriate. Jonah's message is pressing and it is urgent that the people of Nineveh waste no time in talk, lest the judgment of God overtake them.

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

Isaiah 55:10-11
Psalm 33:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19
Matthew 6:7-15

Lectio and Oratio

Today's Mass invites us to focus on two practices necessary to the Christian life at all times, but utterly crucial during Lent: in the First Reading, lectio, and in the Gospel, oratio. In Isaiah God speaks of his descending Word, the same Word proclaimed from the ambo and heard in our solitary lectio divina. In the Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word Himself, gives us words for prayer to the Father: the very form of our common and solitary oratio.

Pope Benedict XVI on Lectio Divina

When Pope Benedict XVI addressed the young Catholics of the world in view of the World Youth Day 2006, he them to the practice of lectio divina. He even explained it for them in his letter. This is what he said:

My dear young friends, I urge you to become familiar with the Bible, and to have it at hand so that it can be your compass pointing out the road to follow. By reading it, you will learn to know Christ. Note what Saint Jerome said in this regard: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (PL 24,17; cf Dei Verbum, 25). A time-honoured way to study and savour the word of God is lectio divina which constitutes a real and veritable spiritual journey marked out in stages. After the lectio, which consists of reading and rereading a passage from Sacred Scripture and taking in the main elements, we proceed to meditatio. This is a moment of interior reflection in which the soul turns to God and tries to understand what his word is saying to us today. Then comes oratio in which we linger to talk with God directly. Finally we come to contemplatio. This helps us to keep our hearts attentive to the presence of Christ whose word is "a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (2 Pet 1:19). Reading, study and meditation of the Word should then flow into a life of consistent fidelity to Christ and his teachings.

Saint Benedict

Pope Benedict XVI and Saint Benedict are, so to speak, on the same page. For Saint Benedict, Lent is the season of lectio divina par excellence. He goes so far as to rearrange the daily timetable, changing the ordered routine of things, so as to provide more time for lectio divina during Lent (cf. RB 48:14). Lent requires a change in routine; there is a healthy sense in which Lent should be upsetting. It is a time to stop doing things as we have always done them and to quicken to a more bracing rhythm of life.

Distribution of Lenten Books

The distribution of Lenten books prescribed by the Rule (RB 48:15) is a kind of Lenten sacrament. In the old monastic ceremonials each monk received his Lenten book from the hand of the abbot, kissing the book to signify not only his joy in being trusted with a precious book from the library, but also his willingness to hear the Word and be converted.

Under the Sign of the Cross

On this second day of Lent, Our Lord sets before us the whole mystery of His Passion, Cross, and Resurrection. Lent opens under the sign of the Cross; the Lenten pilgrimage is the Via Crucis, the way of the Cross. "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised"; (Lk 9:22).

The Cross leads straight into the promised land. To choose the Cross is to choose life:

I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendents may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him; for that means life to you and length of days (Dt 30:20).

Agápe

Not only does Our Lord show us the mystery; He invites us to follow Him into it. "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Lk 9:23). Just because one is suffering -- physically, emotionally, or spiritually -- does not mean that one is following Christ along the way of the Cross. Suffering alone is of no value. One who follows Christ along the way of the Cross sees Him infuse agápe, sacrificial love into every moment of His Passion. It is this and nothing else that gives suffering value; it ennobles it, making it precious in the sight of God and redemptive for the world. Agápe, self-giving sacrificial love, draws all the virtues after it: humility, obedience, silence, patience, meekness, fortitude, and mercy. Agápe is the love that pierces the heart with sorrow for sin and inflames it with the desire to make reparation.

The Cross Taken to Heart

How does the Way of the Cross described in today's Gospel pass from the sacred page into one's heart so as to find expression in one's life? What we commonly call devotion to the Passion is simply a way of taking to heart the mystery of the Cross. One expresses in life the things that one has taken to heart. The Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross (or Stations of the Cross) is precisely this: a way of taking to heart the mystery of suffering infused with sacrificial love by which Christ saves us, heals us, and unites us to His work of redemption.

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-18
Psalm 50:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14, 15
2 Corinthians 5:20 -- 6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Compunction

Ash Wednesday addresses the heart. Ashes are sprinkled on our heads, but Lent is lived in the heart. God wants pierced hearts. God looks for the broken heart. "Even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments" (Jl 2:12-13). Paradoxically, in order to give God one's whole heart, it must first be pierced and broken. This is what we mean when we speak of compunction and contrition.

The traditional Lenten disciplines -- fasting and abstinence, almsgiving, silence, keeping vigil, and increasing the time devoted to lectio divina each day -- are not ends in themselves. They are the tried and true means by which one arrives at having a pierced and broken heart, at some measure of compunction and contrition.

Joyful Fasting

1. Fasting and abstinence help to crack the heart's stony shell; hunger makes one vulnerable. But here is the catch: Our Lord would have us fast as if we were feasting. One of the fruits of fasting is spiritual joy. Fasting cleanses and refines the palate of the soul, making it possible to "taste and see that the Lord is sweet" (Ps 33:9). "When you fast do not look dismal . . . anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Mt 6:16-17). The fasting pleasing to Our Lord makes the face cheerful and lifts up the heart.

Fasting (going without eating) and abstinence (not eating certain foods) need not be enormous feats of ascetical prowess. One's fasting and abstinence should always be proportionate to one's health and state in life. The value of fasting and abstinence is that they allow us to feel a certain emptiness. They put us in touch with our real hunger: the hunger that only God can satisfy.

Ultimately all fasting and abstinence have a Eucharistic finality. "He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst" (Jn 6:35), says the Lord. Fasting is doing what it is supposed to do when it sends us hungering and thirsting to the Word of God and to the Holy Mysteries of the Altar.

Guercino's (1591–1666) Crowning With Thorns depicts two attitudes toward the Suffering Christ. On the one hand we see a soldier clad in armour. With a gloved hand he forces the crown of thorns into the sacred head of Christ. His armour and gloves protect him from any direct contact with the Body of Christ. On the other hand, we see a self–righteous spectator; he holds himself at certain distance from Christ and, like the soldier, protects himself from direct contact with the Body of Christ. He holds Our Lord's scarlet cloak of derision with one hand: signifying his approval of the cruel Passion of the Lamb.

Introit

This morning's Mass opens with Psalm 21, the very psalm that, in Saint Matthew's Gospel, Our Lord intones from the Cross: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'"(Mt 27:46). Today's Introit is a solemn entry into the prayer of the suffering Christ to the Father. It is Christ who prays:

O Lord, remove not Thy help to a distance from Me;
look towards My defence.
Save Me from the lion's mouth;
and My lowness from the horns of the unicorn (Ps 21:20, 22).

One cannot sing, or hear, or meditate today's Introit without recalling what is written in the Letter to the Hebrews concerning the prayer of Christ: "In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard for His godly fear" (Heb 5:7). The sacred liturgy during these days of Passiontide and Holy Week gives us the "prayers and supplications, the loud cries and tears" of Christ our Head and our High Priest. In a unique way, these prayers and supplications, these loud cries and tears of His, have passed into the chant of the Church, which interprets them for us. One need only sing the soaring, pleading aspice (see GR, p. 133) of this morning's Introit to experience this.

The verse of the Introit takes up the heart–rending cry:

O God, my God, look upon me:
why hast thou forsaken me?
Far from my salvation are the words of my sins" (Ps 21:2).

How are we to understand such a prayer in the mouth of Our Lord. Jesus crucified is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1:29). The immaculate Lamb calls our sins His sins; He has taken them upon Himself. They have been driven into His hands and His feet; they have become a crown of thorns wounding His sacred head. "God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending His own Son in the likeness of flesh and [as an offering] for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom 8:3). Saint Paul goes so far as to say, "For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).

For Sidney

Some time ago, a remarkable young man named Sidney wrote me from Brazil to ask for a blessed Agnus Dei. I promised him that I would post something about the Agnus Dei here. It is fitting to do so as we prepare to enter Holy Week and, through the glory of the Paschal rites, the mystery of the immolated Lamb.

An Agnus Dei, so called from the image of the Lamb of God impressed on the face of it, is made of virgin wax, balsam, and chrism, blessed according to the form prescribed by the Roman Ritual.

An old Irish prayerbook (Dublin 1860) gives a prayer to be said daily by those who wear an Agnus Dei. Following the impulse given by this prayer, one who wears an Agnus Dei is compelled to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Ap 14:4) in a spirit of Eucharistic victimhood, that is, of sacrificial love and oblation.

Prayer of One Who Wears an Agnus Dei

O my Lord Jesus Christ,
the true Lamb who takes away the sins of the world;
by Thy mercy which is infinite, pardon my inquities,
and by Thy Sacred Passion, preserve me this day
from all sin and evil.

I offer myself up to Thee as an entire oblation,
and in memory of that Sacrifice of Love
which Thou didst offer for me on the Cross,
and in satisfaction for my sins.
Accept this oblation, I beseech Thee, O my God,
and may it be acceptable to Thee
in the odour of sweetness. Amen.

A Paschal Sacramental

This peculiarly Roman sacramental, goes back at least as far as the ninth century. Amalarius and the Pseudo–Alcuin refer to it. The blessing of the Agnus Dei medallions used to take place at the Lateran Basilica on Holy Saturday. The archdeacon vested in a dalmatic would receive from the Pope a silver phial containing Sacred Chrism. He would pour the Sacred Chrism into a cauldron of liquid wax. The Agnus Dei medallions would be made from this blessed wax and distributed on the Sunday In Albis after the singing of the Agnus Dei at the Papal Mass.

The Cistercian Privilege

The oldest extant Agnus Dei medallions date from the pontificates of John XXIII (1316–34) and Gregory IX (1227–41). Later on, the Roman Pontiffs reserved the blessing of the medallions to themselves, and assigned the privilege of preparing them to the Benedictine–Cistercian monks of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

At the Banquet of the Lamb

The sixteenth century rite for the blessing of the Agnus Dei medallions makes use of holy water, chrism, and balsam. It was the custom for the Supreme Pontiff to bless the medallions in the first year of his pontificate during the Octave of Holy Pascha, and to bless them every seven years thereafter. The ceremony consisted of three orations addressed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thus would he bless the medallions themselves and the water mixed with chrism and balsam into which they would be plunged. When the medallions were removed from the water the Paschaltide Vespers hymn, Ad Cenam Agni Providi would be sung. The same blessing was repeated as often as necessary according to need, and also on special solemnities or anniversaries. Every element of the confection and blessing of the Agnus Dei contributes to its mystical significance.

Recover the Agnus Dei

In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Agnus Dei was one of those treasured sacramentals that fell into disuse. It is, I think, time to restore the solemn blessing of the Agnus Dei and recover the use of so precious a sacramental. The Church stands in need of “friends of the Lamb,” and of Eucharistic victim souls who will follow the Lamb in purity, in humility, in silence, and in the oblation of themselves.