Lent 2020

The Call of Lent

Lent is the commemoration of the Passion of Christ, a book of great beauty for those who take time to read it. Lent is a song of love, with the Mass of the day its theme. Slowly, it unfolds its music, its pages filled with Christ’s love for us.

To be so loved calls for loving back. If only we began that “loving back,” our lives and those of our families, our nation, and all the world would be changed and become Christ-centered instead of self-centered. The essence of it all can be found so easily, in any parish church, morning, noon, or night at Mass. A few minutes in a quiet church, following and participating in the Mass, preparing with the priest to offer the Perfect Sacrifice, and with it, our lives, our loves, our problems, our business, we plunge into the fire of the Mass—God—and come out ourselves a fire, a light, a flame, warming our cold world, lighting its path home.

Lent brings with it Calvary. Let us, then, arise and walk every step of these Lenten days until, standing with Mary under Christ’s cross, we begin to love him back as he should be loved, and by that very loving, restore his kingdom to him. Our walking through the slow, beautiful days of Lent must begin with the Mass, the fruit of Calvary, the fruit of the cross.

Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Take up your cross

The Grace to Take Up Our Cross

Pain, sickness, trouble, seem to strike senselessly and often warp the lives they touch. Why this one or that one should be singled out for suffering is more than anyone can know here and now…. What we do know is that God is our Father and that he permits only those things to happen to us that are for our good. They are indeed for our own good if we use them rightly.

“Offer it up!” is a stock phrase that will bring a smile of recognition to anyone who has ever gone to a Catholic school. It was a little phrase that in childhood could transform everything from a lost prize or a skinned knee to a dose of bitter medicine or the teasing of a trying companion. With older years and the sophistication of our age it is easy to forget that life’s biggest, sorest, bitterest crosses can be “offered up” in union with our suffering Lord just as successfully as the smaller trials of childhood. Furthermore, they can be endured cheerfully, not just as a medical measure to help our cure, but as coin for heaven. Every pain is expendable, and it is a pity to waste even the tiniest bit. Naturally this does not mean that a person with appendicitis is expected to fold his hands and die piously without ever calling the doctor. The Lord who gave us remedies expects us to use them. But there will always be pain which no doctor can alleviate, and there will always be suffering which no remedy can cure. What is to be done with that? It is a free gift to us, like the cross thrust on Simon of Cyrene’s shoulders. To grumble while we bear it will not make it any lighter nor relieve us of it…. To bear the cross of suffering with regard for him who allows us to carry it is to use wisely and well a sure means to heaven.

Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, o.p.

Lent 2020

Beginning Our Lenten Journey

On this day, marked by the austere symbol of ashes, we enter the season of Lent, beginning a spiritual journey that prepares us for celebrating worthily the Easter Mysteries. The blessed ashes imposed upon our forehead are a sign that reminds us of our condition as creatures, that invites us to repent, and to intensify our commitment to convert, to follow the Lord ever more closely. Lent is a journey, it means accompanying Jesus who goes up to Jerusalem, the place of the fulfilment of his mystery of Passion, Death and Resurrection; it reminds us that Christian life is a “way” to take, not so much consistent with a law to observe as with the very Person of Christ, to encounter, to welcome, to follow….

It is above all in the liturgy, by participating in the holy mysteries, that we are led to make this journey with the Lord; it means learning at the school of Jesus, reviewing the events that brought salvation to us but not as a mere commemoration, a remembrance of past events. In the liturgical actions Christ makes himself present through the power of the Holy Spirit and these saving events become real. There is a keyword that recurs frequently in the liturgy to indicate this: the word “today”; and it should be understood in its original and practical, rather than metaphorical, sense. Today God reveals his law and we are granted to choose today between good and evil, between life and death (Dt 30:19). Today the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel (Mk 1:15). TodayChrist died on Calvary and rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father; today the Holy Spirit is given to us; today is a favorable time…. 

Dear friends, on this Lenten journey let us be careful to accept Christ’s invitation to follow him more decisively and consistently, renewing the grace and commitments of our Baptism, to cast off the former person within us and put on Christ, in order to arrive at Easter renewed and able to say, with Saint Paul: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). I wish you all a good Lenten journey!

Pope Benedict XVI

Called to surpassing righteousness

Jesus was not satisfied with destroying sin and meriting only a sufficient amount of grace for our salvation. He did much more and he himself declared it, I have come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly (Jn 10:10). This plenitude of life is the plenitude of grace, the supernatural life which causes sanctity to blossom. Sanctity is not reserved for a few; Jesus, by his Incarnation and by his death on the cross, merited the means of salvation and sanctification for all who believe in him. He, the All-holy, came to sanctify us, and has taught us, Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48).

Jesus did not give this precept to a chosen group of persons, nor did he reserve it for his Apostles and close friends; he proclaimed it to the multitude who were following him. Saint Paul received his message and announced it to the Gentiles, this is the will of God, your sanctification (1 Thes 4:3). And in our times the Church…has repeated it strongly and on many occasions to the modern world: “Christ has called the whole human race to the lofty heights of sanctity…. There are some who say that sanctity is not everyone’s vocation; on the contrary, it is everyone’s vocation, and all are called to it…. Jesus Christ has given himself as an example for all to imitate.” And elsewhere: “Let no one believe that sanctity belongs to a few chosen people, while the rest of humanity can limit itself to a lesser degree of virtue….” Jesus comes not only to save me, but to sanctify me. He is calling me to sanctity and has merited for me all the graces I need to attain it.

Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, o.c.d.

You are the light of the world

The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the Kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in his saving redemption, and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ…. In the Church there is a diversity of ministry but a oneness of mission. Christ conferred on the Apostles and their successors the duty of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling in his name and power. But the laity likewise share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of the whole people of God in the Church and in the world.

They exercise the apostolate in fact by their activity directed to the evangelization and sanctification of men and to the penetrating and perfecting of the temporal order through the spirit of the Gospel. In this way, their temporal activity openly bears witness to Christ and promotes the salvation of men. Since the laity, in accordance with their state of life, live in the midst of the world and its concerns, they are called by God to exercise their apostolate in the world like leaven, with the ardor of the spirit of Christ.

The laity derive the right and duty to the apostolate from their union with Christ the head; incorporated into Christ’s Mystical Body through baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through confirmation, they are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord himself…not only that they may offer spiritual sacrifices in everything they do but also that they may witness to Christ throughout the world. The sacraments, especially the most Holy Eucharist, communicate and nourish that charity which is the soul of the entire apostolate.

Such a life requires a continual exercise of faith, hope, and charity. Only by the light of faith and by meditation on the word of God can one always and everywhere recognize God, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)…. The very testimony of their Christian life and good works done in a supernatural spirit have the power to draw men to belief and to God; for the Lord says, even so let your light shine before men in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Apostolicam Actuositatem

The greatness of John the Baptist

This was John’s greatness, in virtue of which he reached such heights of greatness among the great that he crowned his great and countless virtues, in which he was second to no mortal man, with the greatest of all the virtues: humility. Reckoned as he was the highest of all, he freely and with the greatest devotion preferred to himself the Most Lowly One—and he put him before himself to such an extent as to declare himself unworthy to take off his shoes.

Let others wonder that he was foretold by prophets, that he was promised by an angel and the same angel as Christ, that he came of so holy and noble parents, that he was given to aged and sterile parents…by a gift of grace, that he was holy before he was born, a prophet before he prophesied, that he was more than a prophet because he was an angel, with an angel’s function and living an angelic life on earth, in the flesh and yet transcending the flesh, and although wholly innocent yet exhibiting a pattern of penance more by his example than by his word, that he preceded the coming of the Redeemer in the spirit and power of Elijah and prepared his way in the desert, that he converted the hearts of fathers to their sons and of sons to their fathers, that he merited to baptize the Son, to hear the Father, and to see the Holy Spirit, finally that he strove for the truth even to death and, so that he might go before Christ also to the lower regions, was Christ’s martyr before Christ’s Passion.

Blessed Guerric of Igny

Hearing Christ’s summons

All through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in baptism, but afterwards also; whether we obey his voice or not, he graciously calls us still. If we fall from our baptism, he calls us to repent; if we are striving to fulfill our calling, he calls us on from grace to grace, and from holiness to holiness, while life is given us. Abraham was called from his home, Peter from his nets, Matthew from his office, Elisha from his farm, Nathanael from his retreat; we are all in course of calling, on and on, from one thing to another, having no resting place, but mounting towards our eternal rest, and obeying one command only to have another put upon us. He calls us again and again, in order to justify us again and again—and again and again, and more and more, to sanctify and glorify us.

It were well if we understood this; but we are slow to master the great truth, that Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by his hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us follow him. We do not understand that his call is a thing which takes place now.

Saint John Henry Newman

The Presentation of the Lord

Joy and Sorrow with Jesus and Mary

Mary said her Fiat in peace and holy joy on the day of the Annunciation. There was sorrow too in her heart at the thought of the sufferings which Isaiah had ­foretold would befall her Son. Still more light is thrown for her on the mystery of the Redemption when the holy old man Simeon speaks of the child Jesus as the ­salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to the revelation of the Gentiles. Mary remains silent in wonder and thanksgiving…. 

Turning then to Mary herself, Simeon addressed to her the prophetic words: And your own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed. Mary will have a share in the Savior’s trials. His sufferings will be hers. Her very heart will be pierced by a sword of sorrow….

Jesus’ fullness of grace had two apparently contradictory effects: the most perfect peace of soul; the will to offer himself as a redemptive victim. Mary’s grace produced two similarly contrasting effects: the pure joys of the days of the Annunciation and the Nativity; the desire to be united most generously to the sufferings of her Son for our salvation. Thus, presenting him in the Temple, she already offers him for us. Joy and sorrow are wedded in the heart of the Mother of God who is already the Mother of all who will believe in her Son.

Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, o.p.