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• Considerations
• Liturgy of the Mass

Reflexions on the Liturgy of the Day

Sin is always a folly and a weakness, no matter of what kind it may be, or who he be that commits it. The rebel angel, and fallen man, may, in their pride, make efforts to persuade themselves that, when they sinned, they did not act as fools, and were not weak; but all their efforts are vain; sin must ever have this disgrace upon it, that it is folly and weakness, for it is a revolt against God, a contempt for His law, a mad act of the creature, who, being made by his Creator to attain infinite happiness and glory, prefers to debase himself by turning towards nothingness, and then falls even lower than the nothingness from which he was taken. It is, however, a folly that is voluntary, and a weakness that has no excuse; for, although the creature have nothing of his own but darkness and misery, yet his infinitely merciful Creator, by means of His grace, which is never wanting, puts within that creature’s reach divine strength and light.

It is so with even the sinner that has been the least liberally gifted; he has no reason that can justify his offences. But when he that sins is a creature who has been laden with God’s gifts, and, by His divine generosity, been raised higher than others in the order of grace, oh! then the offence he commits against his Benefactor is an injury that has no name. Let this be remembered by those who, like David, could say that their God has multiplied His magnificence over them. They may, perhaps, have been led by Him into high paths which are reserved for the favoured few, and may have reached the heights of divine union: yet must they be on their guard; no one who has still to carry with him the burden of a mortal body of flesh is safe, unless by exercising a ceaseless vigilance. On the mountains, as on the plains and in the valleys, at all times and in all places, a fall is possible; but when it is on those lofty peaks which, in this land of exile, seem bordering on heaven, and but one step from the entrance into the powers of the Lord, what a terrific fall when the foot slips there! The yawning precipices which that soul had avoided on her ascent are now all open to engulf her; abyss after abyss of crime she rushes into, and with a violence of passion that terrifies even them that have long been nothing but wickedness.

Poor fallen soul! pride, like that of satan, will now try to keep her obstinately fixed in her crimes: but, from the depths into which she has fallen, let her, like David, send forth the cry of humility; let her lament her abominations; let her not be afraid to look up, through her tears, at those glorious heights which were once her abode – an anticipated heaven. Without further delay, let her imitate the royal penitent, and say with him: I have sinned against the Lord! and she will hear the same answer that he did: The Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die; and as with David, so also with her, God may still do grand things in her. David, when innocent, was a faithful image of Christ, who was the object of the love of both heaven and earth; David, sinner but penitent, was still the figure of the Man-God, as laden with the sins of the whole world, and bearing on His single self the merciful and just vengeance of His offended Father.

Liturgy of the Mass

The Introit for this fifth Sunday, is taken from Psalm the 26th, which was composed by David on occasion of his coronation in Hebron. It expresses the humble confidence of him who has nothing here below to trust in; and yet he has the Lord, as his light and salvation. In the events just referred to, nothing less than a blind faith in God’s promises could have kept up the courage of the young shepherd of Bethlehem, and nothing less could have inspired the people who had made him their king. But we must see beyond this; we must understand that the kingship of Jesse’s son and his descendents, in the ancient Jerusalem, represents, for our Mother the Church, a grander royalty, and a more lasting dynasty,—the kingship of Christ and the dynasty of the Sovereign Pontiffs.

Introit

The Lord is the strength of His people, and the protector of the salvation of His Christ: save, O Lord, Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance, and govern them for ever. Ps. To Thee, O Lord, will I cry out: O my God, be not silent, refuse not to answer me, lest I become like those who descend into the pit... The Lord...

The Collect gives us an admirable summing up of the strong yet sweet action of grace upon the whole course of Christian life. It has evidently been suggested by those words of St. James: Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.

Collect

O God of all power, to whom belongs whatsoever is best: implant in our hearts the love of Thy name, and grant us an increase of religion: that Thou mayst nourish what is good in us, and, whilst we make endeavours after virtue, mayst guard the things thus nourished. Through...

Epistle

Lesson of the Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle (Romans 6, 3-11)
Brethren: all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death. For 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. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ. Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once: but in that He lives, He lives unto God. So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Reflection on the Epistle

The Masses of the Sundays after Pentecost have, so far, given us but once a passage from St. Paul’s Epistles. It has been to Sts. Peter and John that the preference has been hitherto given of addressing the Faithful at the commencement of the sacred Mysteries. It may be that the Church, during these weeks, which represent the early days of the apostolic preaching, has intended by this to show us the disciple of faith and the disciple of love as being the two most prominent in the first promulgation of the new Covenant, which was committed, at the onset, to the Jewish people. At that time, Paul was but Saul the persecutor, and was putting himself forward as the most rabid opponent of that Gospel, which later on he would so zealously carry to the furthest parts of the earth. If his subsequent conversion made him become an ardent and enlightened apostle even to the Jews, it soon became evident that the house of Jacob was not the mission that was to be specially the one of his apostolate. After publicly announcing his faith in Jesus the Son of God; after confounding the synagogue by the weight of his testimony, he waited in silence for the termination of the period accorded to Juda for the acceptance of the covenant; he withdrew into privacy, waiting for the Vicar of the Man-God, the Head of the apostolic college, to give the signal for the vocation of the Gentiles, and open, in person, the door of the Church to these new children of Abraham.

But Israel has too long abused God’s patience; the day of the ungrateful Jerusalem’s repudiation is approaching, and the divine Spouse, after all this long forbearance with his once chosen, but now faithless Bride, the Synagogue—has gone to the Gentile nations. Now is the time for the Doctor of the Gentiles to speak; he will go on speaking and preaching to them, to his dying day; he will not cease proclaiming the word to them, until he has brought them back, and lifted them up to God, and consolidated them in faith and love. He will not rest until he has led this once poor despised gentile world to the nuptial union with Christ, yes, to the full fecundity of that divine union, of which, on the 24th and last Sunday after Pentecost, we shall hear him thus speaking: We cease not to pray for you, and to beg that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye may walk worthy of God, in all things pleasing him; being fruitful in every good work. … Giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the Saints in light, … and hath translated us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

It is to the Romans that are addressed today’s inspired instructions of the great Apostle. For the reading of these admirable Epistles of St. Paul, the Church, during the Sundays after Pentecost, will follow the order in which they stand in the canon of Scripture: the epistle to the Romans, the two to the Corinthians, then those to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, will be read to us in their turns. They make up the sublimest correspondence that was ever written—a correspondence where we find Paul’s whole soul, giving us both precept and example how best we may love our Lord: I beseech you, so he speaks to his Corinthians, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.

Indeed, the Gospel, the kingdom of God, the Christian life, is not an affair of mere words. Nothing is less speculative than the science of salvation. Nothing makes it penetrate so deep in the souls of men as the holy life of him that teaches it. It is for this reason that the Christian world counts him alone as Apostle or Teacher, who in his one person holds the double teaching of doctrine and works. Thus, Jesus, the Prince of Pastors, manifested eternal truth to men, not alone by the words uttered by his divine lips, but likewise by the works he did during his life on earth. So too the Apostle, having become a pattern of the flock, shows us all, in his own person, what marvelous progress a faithful soul may make under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of sanctification.

Let us, then, be attentive to every word that comes from this mouth, ever open to speak to the whole earth; but at the same time, let us fix the eyes of our soul on the works achieved by our Apostle, and let us walk in his footsteps. He lives in his Epistles; he abides and continues with us all, as he himself assures us, for the furtherance and joy of our faith.

Nor is this all. If we value, as we ought, the example and the teaching of this father of the gentiles, we must not forget his labors and sufferings and solicitudes, and the intense love he bore towards all those who never had seen, or were to see, his face in the flesh. Let us make him the return of dilating our hearts with affectionate admiration of him. Let us love not only the light, but also him who brings it to us—and all them who, like him, have been getting for us the exquisite brightness from the treasures of God the Father and his Christ. It is the recommendation made so feelingly by St. Paul himself; it is the intention willed by God Himself, by the fact of his confiding to men like ourselves the charge of sharing with Him the imparting this heavenly light to us. Eternal Wisdom does not show herself directly here below; she is hidden, with all her treasures, in the Man-God; she reveals herself by Him; and by the Church, which is the mystical body of that Man-God, and by the chosen members of that Church, the Apostles. We cannot either love or know our Lord Jesus Christ, save by and in Him; but we cannot love or understand Jesus unless we love and understand his Church. Now, in this Church—the glorious aggregate of the elect both of heaven and earth—we should especially love and venerate those who are, in a special manner, associated with our Lord’s sacred humanity in making the divine Word manifest—that Word who is the one center of our thoughts, both in this world and in the world to come.

According to this standard, who was there that had a stronger claim than Paul to the veneration, gratitude, and love of the Faithful? Who of the Prophets and holy Apostles went deeper into the mystery of Christ? Who was there like him, in revealing to the world the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus? Was there ever a more perfect teacher, or a more eloquent interpreter, of the life of union—that marvelous union which brings regenerated humanity into the embrace of God, union which continues and repeats the life of the Word Incarnate in each Christian? To him, the last and least of the saints (as he humbly calls himself), was given the grace of proclaiming to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; to him was confided the mission of teaching to all nations the mystery of creation—mystery hidden so long in God, as the secret to be, at some distant day, revealed to men, and would show them what was the one only meaning of the world’s history—the mystery, that is, of the manifestation, through the Church, of the infinite Wisdom which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For, as the Church is neither more nor less than the body and mystical complement of the Man-God,—so, in St. Paul’s mind, the formation and growth of the Church are but the sequel of the Incarnation; they are but the continued development of the mystery shown to the angelic hosts, when this Word Incarnate made himself visible to them in the Crib at Bethlehem. After the Incarnation, God was the better known of his Angels; though ever the self-same in his own unchanging essence, yet to them he appeared grander and more magnificent in the brilliant reflection of his infinite perfections, as seen in the Flesh of his Word. So, too, although no increase in them was possible, and their plenitude was their fixed measure; yet the created perfection and holiness of the Man-God have their fuller and clearer revelation in proportion as the marvels of perfection and holiness which dwell in Him, as in their source, are multiplied in the world.

Starting from Him, flowing ever from His fulness, the stream of grace and truth ceaselessly laves each member of the body of the Church. Principle of spiritual growth, mysterious sap, it has its divinely appointed channels: and these unite the Church more closely to her Head than the nerves and vessels, which convey movement and life to the extremities of our body, unite its several parts to the head which directs and governs the whole frame. But just as in the human body, the life and the head and of the members is one, giving to each of them the proportion and harmony which go to make up the perfect man, so in the Church, there is but one life: the life of the Man-God, of Christ the head, forming his mystical Body, and perfecting, in the Holy Ghost, its several members. The time will come when this perfection will have attained its full development; then will human nature, united with its divine Head in the measure and beauty of the perfect age due to Christ, appear on the throne of the Word, an object of admiration to the Angels, and of delight to the most holy Trinity. Meanwhile, Christ is being completed in all things and in all men; as heretofore at Nazareth, Jesus is still growing; and these his advancings are gradual fresh manifestations of the beauty of infinite Wisdom.

The holiness, the sufferings, and then, the glory of the Lord Jesus—in a word, his life continued in his members, this is St. Paul’s notion of the Christian life: a notion most simple and sublime which, in the Apostle’s mind, resumes the whole commencement, progress and consummation of the work of the Spirit of love in every soul that is sanctified. We shall find him, later on, developing this practical truth, of which the Epistle read to us today merely gives the leading principle. After all, what is Baptism, that first step made on the road which leads to heaven—what else is it but the neophyte’s incorporation with the Man-God, who died once unto sin that he might forever live in God his Father? On Holy Saturday, after having assisted at the blessing of the font, we had read to us a similar passage from another Epistle of St. Paul, which put before us the divine realities achieved beneath the mysterious waters. Holy Church returns to the same teaching today, in order that she may recall to our minds this great principle of the commencement of the Christian life, and make it the basis of the instructions she is here going to give us. If the very first effect of the sanctification of one who, by Baptism, is buried together with Christ, is making him a new man, the creating of him anew in this Man-God, the ingrafting his new life upon the life of Jesus whereby to bring forth new fruits—we cannot wonder at the Apostle’s unwillingness to give us any other rule for our contemplation or our practice, than the study and imitation of this divine model. There, and there only, is man’s perfection, there is his happiness: as then ye have received the knowledge of Jesus Christ the Lord, walk ye in him; for as many of you as have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ. Our Apostle emphatically tells us that he knoweth nothing, and will preach nothing but Jesus. If we are to be of St. Paul’s school, adopting the sentiments of our Lord Jesus Christ and making them our own, we shall become other Christs, or, rather, one only Christ with the Man-God, by the sameness of thoughts and virtues, under the impulse of the same sanctifying Spirit.

Between the two lessons of Epistle and Gospel, the Gradual and Alleluia-Verse come urging us to make that humble and confiding prayer, which should ever be ascending to God from the Christian soul.

Gradual

Turn to us a little, O Lord, and be appeased with Thy servants. ℣. O Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, from generation to generation. Alleluia, Alleluia. ℣. In Thee, O Lord, have I put my trust, let me never be confounded: save me by Thy justice, and rescue me: bend Thine ear unto me: make haste to save me. Alleluia.

Gospel

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Mark (8:1-9)
At that time: When there was a great multitude with Jesus, and had nothing to eat, calling His disciples together, He said to them: I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with Me three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I shall send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way: for some of them came from afar off. And His disciples answered Him: From whence can any one fill them here with bread in the wilderness? And He asked them: How many loaves have you? They said: Seven. And He commanded the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, giving thanks He broke, and gave to His disciples for to set before them, and they set them before the people. And they had a few little fishes; and He blessed them, and commanded them to be set before them. And they did eat and were filled, and they took up that which was left of the fragments, seven baskets. And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and He sent them away.

Reflection on the Gospel

Take notice of the condition specified in our Gospel, as necessary for those who aspire to such nourishment as that. “It is not,” says Saint Ambrose, “to lazy people, nor to them that live in cities, nor to them that are great in worldly honours, but to them that seek Christ in the desert, that is given the heavenly nourishment: they alone who hunger after it are received by Christ into a participation of the Word and of God’s kingdom.” The more intense their hunger, the more they long for their divine object and for no other, the more will the heavenly food strengthen them with light and love, the more will it satiate them with delight.

All the truth, all the goodness, all the beauty of created things, are incapable of satisfying any single soul; it must have God. So long as man does not understand this, everything good or true that his senses and his reason can provide him with, so far from being able to satiate him, is ordinarily nothing more than a distraction from the one object that can make him the happy being he was created to be, and a hindrance to his living the true life which God willed him to attain. Observe how our Lord waits for all his human schemes to fail, and then He will be his helper, if he will but permit Him.

The men of our today’s Gospel are not afraid to abide with Him in the desert, and put up with the consequent privations of meat and drink; their faith is greater than that of their brethren who have preferred to remain in their homes in the cities, and has raised them so much the higher in the order of grace; for that very reason, our Lord would not allow them to admit anything of a nature to interfere with the divine food He prepares for their souls.

When the Jewish people were led forth by Moses from Egypt, they said: “The Lord God hath called us; we will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, to sacrifice unto the Lord our God.” In like manner, the disciples of Jesus have retired into the wilderness, as our today’s Gospel tells us; and, after three days, they have been fed with a miraculous bread, which foretold the victim of the great sacrifice, of which the Hebrew one was a figure. In a few moments, both the bread and the figure are to make way, on the altar before which we are standing, for the highest possible realities.

Let us, then, go forth from the land of bondage of our sins; and since our Lord’s merciful invitation comes to us so repeatedly, let our souls get the habit of keeping away from the frivolities of earth, and from worldly thoughts. And now as we sing the Offertory-anthem, let us beseech our Lord that He may graciously give us strength to advance farther into that interior desert, where He is always the most inclined to hear us, and where He is most liberal with His graces.

(The Liturgical Year ~ Dom Prosper Gueranger)