Sunday, March 4, 2018
Third Sunday of Lent
Isaiah, Chapter 63,
verse 17
Why
do you make us wander, LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we
do not fear you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of
your heritage.
This chapter in Isaiah is called the Divine Warrior
and Isaiah in this chapter refers to Christ as a warrior. Isaiah laments that
we in our weak human nature have turned our hearts away from God and that we
have no fear of divine justice. Have we become so enamored with the world and
our own lives that when we look into the heavens at night we only see
impressive specks of glittering rocks we call stars and not the love of the
creator which made them?
There is an expression, “Attitude is everything!”
and so what should our attitude be and why is Isaiah lamenting that Israel did
not fear God? The answer lies in our personal attitude toward life. Holy fear
is born out of love and is a response to the God the creator; it is a fear more
closely related to awe. It is the loving fear of a child that does not want to
disappoint a parent and goes to great lengths to please them. So we should
develop this sense of Holy fear doing what is right and good to please the
Father. Remembering that, “Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Let
us daily ask of our Lord to remove our hearts of stone and give us a heart of
love thus making the winter brighter and our burdens lighter and bring cheer to
the hearts of all we encounter. May we through love be brought to Holy fear
enabling us to be careful in the practice of our faith and bring us to a spirit
of penitence.
May we with the palmist say, “Lord, make us turn to you; let us
see your face and we shall be saved.
(Psalm 80)
One
of the Precepts of the Church is to receive the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion at least once a year, during Lent or
Paschaltide. Catholics once dedicated the three days prior to Lent as a special
time to go to confession. Shrovetide arose from the desire to prepare for the
holy asceticism of the Great Fast. Once Lent begins, however, confession should
still be sought out: since Lent is a time for frequent and frank examinations
of conscience, confession is a sacrament that should be liberally taken
advantage of during this time.
Christ again foreshadows his victory (this time over the
devil), but as we move closer to Passiontide, he also hints at the way in which
this will be done.
Know Your Commander and Comrades
Our Commander, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Conqueror of hell and death, calls us to battle alongside Him
against the Enemy so that we can have a share in His victory. To fight the good
fight, however, we must know not only our adversary and his strategies; we must
also know the comrades that our great Commander has given to us. Our comrades
in arms are our Lady and the Saints. Just as Eve’s yes to the Enemy’s
temptation brought death and the Devil’s domination into the world, so Mary’s
yes to God opened the door for the ultimate victory of her Son over Satan. Whenever
the Enemy’s assaults on us seem to multiply, we should call on Mary not just as
our Blessed Mother, but as a mighty warrior before whom the demons tremble. St.
Bonaventure once put it: “Men do not fear a powerful, hostile army as much as
the powers of hell fear the name and protection of Mary.” We also have the aid
of St. Michael and the Angels. “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who
fear Him, and delivers them” (Ps 34: 7). We also have our fellow Christians. We
must not focus so much on heavenly warriors that we forget our earthly
comrades-in-arms. Our brother and sister soldiers in the battles of this life
need our support, and we need theirs. We should be praying daily with them and
for them, spiritual soldiers “vigilant in all perseverance and supplication for
all” our fellow combatants (Eph 6: 18). We should be offering them
encouragement and counsel when we find them weary or confused, tempted by the
Devil’s lies, accusations, doubts, enticements, and provocations. Roman
soldiers were taught to fight alongside comrades with their backs toward one
another. That way, as they battled the enemy, they were protecting one
another’s backs. One man’s sword was another man’s shield. If they didn’t fight
in this way, they were exposed to mortal danger. The same is true in spiritual
warfare. Wherever a fellow soldier is vulnerable to the Enemy’s onslaught, we
must make up the difference with the shield of our faith. This is one important
reason why Our Lord established the Church. His grace to conquer the Enemy
comes to us through her worship, her sacraments, and her teaching.
The holy Church gave us, as the subject of our meditation for the first Sunday of Lent, the Temptation which our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to suffer in the Desert. Her object was to enlighten us with regard to our own temptations, and teach us how to conquer them. To-day, she wishes to complete her instruction on the power and stratagems of our invisible enemies; and for this she reads to us a passage from the Gospel of St. Luke. During Lent, the Christian ought to repair the past, and provide for the future; but he can neither understand how it was he fell, nor defend himself against a relapse, unless he have correct ideas as to the nature of the dangers which have hitherto proved fatal, and are again threatening him. Hence, the ancient Liturgists would have us consider it as a proof of the maternal watchfulness of the Church, that she should have again proposed such a subject to us. As we shall find, it is the basis of all to-day’s instructions. Assuredly, we should be the blindest and most unhappy of men, if, - surrounded as we are by enemies, who unceasingly seek to destroy us, and are so superior to us both in power and knowledge, - we were seldom or never to think of the existence of these wicked spirits. And yet, such is really the case with innumerable Christians now-a-days; for, truths are diminished from among the children of men [Ps. xi. 2].
So common, indeed, is this heedlessness and forgetfulness of truth, which the Holy Scriptures put before us in almost every page, that it is no rare thing to meet with persons who ridicule the idea of Devils being permitted to be on this earth of ours! They call it a prejudice, a popular superstition, of the Middle-Ages! Of course they deny that it is a dogma of Faith. When we read the History of the Church or the Lives of the Saints, they have their own way of explaining whatever is there related on this subject. To hear them talk, one would suppose that they look upon Satan as a mere abstract idea, to be taken as the personification of evil. When they would account for the origin of their own or others’ sins, they explain all by the evil inclination of man’s heart, and by the bad use we make of our free-will. They never think of what we are taught by Christian doctrine; namely, that we are also instigated to sin by a wicked being, whose power is as great as is the hatred he bears us. And yet, they know, they believe, with a firm faith, that Satan conversed with our First Parents, and persuaded them to commit sin, and showed himself to them under the form of a serpent. They believe, that this same Satan dared to tempt the Incarnate Son of God, and that he carried him through the air, and set him first upon a pinnacle of the Temple, and then upon a very high mountain. Again; they read in the Gospel, and they believe, that one of the Possessed, who were delivered by our Savior, was tormented by a whole legion of devils, who, upon being driven out of the man, went, by Jesus’ permission, into a herd of swine, and the whole herd ran violently into the sea of Genesareth, and perished in the waters. These, and many other such like facts, are believed, by the persons of whom we speak, with all the earnestness of faith; yet, notwithstanding, they treat as a figure of speech, or a fiction, all they hear or read about the existence, the actions, or the craft of these wicked spirits.
Are such people Christians, or have they lost their senses? One would scarcely have expected that this species of incredulity could have found its way into an age like this, when sacrilegious consultations of the devil have been, we might almost say, - fashionable. Means, which were used in the days of paganism, have been resorted to for such consultations; and they who employed them seemed to forget, or ignore, that they were committing what God in the Old Law, punished with death, and which, for many centuries, was considered by all Christian nations as a capital crime. But if there be one Season of the Year more than another in which the Faithful ought to reflect upon what is taught us both by faith and experience, as to the existence and workings of the wicked spirits, - it is undoubtedly this of Lent, when it is our duty to consider what have been the causes of our last sins, what are the spiritual dangers we have to fear for the future, and what means we should have recourse to for preventing a relapse. Let us, then, hearken to the Holy Gospel. Firstly, we are told, that the devil had possessed a man, and that the effect produced by this possession was dumbness. Our Savior casts out the devil, and, immediately, the dumb man spoke. So that, the being possessed by the devil is not only a fact which testifies to God’s impenetrable justice; it is one which may produce physical effects upon them that are thus tried or punished. The casting out the devil restores the use of speech to him that had been possessed. We say nothing about the obstinate malice of Jesus’ enemies, who would have it, that his power over the devils, came from his being in league with the prince of devils:- all we would now do is, to show that the wicked spirits are sometimes permitted to have power over the body, and to refute, by this passage from the Gospel, the rationalism of certain Christians. Let these learn, then, that the power of our spiritual enemies is an awful reality; and let them take heed not to lay themselves open to their worst attacks, by persisting in the disdainful haughtiness of their Reason. Ever since the promulgation of the Gospel, the power of Satan over the human body has been restricted by the virtue of the Cross, at least in Christian countries; but this power resumes its sway as often as faith and the practice of Christian piety lose their influence. And here we have the origin of all those diabolical practices, which, under certain scientific names, are attempted first in secret, and then are countenanced by being assisted at by well-meaning Christians. Were it not that God and his Church intervene, such practices as these would subvert society. Christians! Remember baptismal vow! You have renounced Satan: take care, then, that by a culpable ignorance you are not dragged into apostacy. It is not a phantom that you renounced at the Font; he is a real and formidable being, who, as our Lord tells us, was a murderer from the beginning [St. John, viii. 44].
But, if we ought to dread the power he may be permitted to have over our bodies; if we ought to shun all intercourse with him, and take no share in practices over which he presides, and which are the worship he would have men give him; - we ought, also, to fear the influence he is ever striving to exercise over our souls. See, what God’s grace has had to do in order to drive him from our soul! During this holy season, the Church is putting within your reach those grand means of victory, - Fasting, Prayer, and Almsdeeds. Tue sweets of peace will soon be yours, and, once more, you will become God’s temple, for both soul and body will have regained their purity. But be not deceived; your enemy is not slain. He is irritated; penance has driven him from you; but he has sworn to return. Therefore, fear a relapse into mortal sin; and in order to nourish within you this wholesome fear, meditate upon the concluding part of our Gospel. Our Savior tells its, that when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water. There he writhes under his humiliation; it has added to the tortures of the hell he carries everywhere with him and to which he fain would give some alleviation, by destroying souls that have been redeemed by Christ. We read in the Old Testament that, sometimes, when the devils have been conquered, they have been forced to flee into some far-off wilderness: for example. The holy Archangel Raphael took the devil that had killed Sara’s husbands, and bound him in the desert of Upper Egypt [Tob. viii. 3]. But the enemy of mankind never despairs of regaining his prey. His hatred is as active now, as it was at the very beginning of the world, and he says: I will return into my house, whence I came out. Nor will he come alone. He is determined to conquer; and therefore he will, if he think it needed, take with him seven other spirits, even more wicked than himself. What a terrible assault is this that is being prepared for the poor soul, unless she be on the watch, and unless the peace, which God has granted her, be one that is well armed for war! Alas! with many souls the very contrary is the case and our Savior describes the situation in which the devils finds them on his return: they are swept and garnished, and that is all! No precautions, no defense, no arms. One would suppose that they were waiting to give the enemy admission. Then Satan, to make his re-possession sure, comes with a seven-fold force. The attack is made;- but, there is no resistance, and straightways the wicked spirits entering in, dwell there; so that, the last state becometh worse than the first; for before, there was but one enemy, - and now there are many. In order that we may understand the full force of the warning conveyed to us by the Church in this Gospel, we must keep before us the great reality, that this is the acceptable time. In every part of the world, there are conversions being wrought; millions are being reconciled with God; divine Mercy is lavish of pardon to all that seek it. But, will all persevere? They that are now being delivered from the power of Satan, - will they all be free from his yoke, when next year’s Lent comes round? A sad experience tells the Church, that she may not hope so grand a result. Many will return to their sins, and that too before many weeks are over. And if the Justice of God overtake them in that state - what an awful thing it is to say it, yet it is true, - some, perhaps many, of these sinners will be eternally lost! Let us, then, be on our guard against a relapse; and in order that we may ensure our Perseverance, without which it would have been to little purpose to have been for a few days in God’s grace, - let us watch, and pray; let us keep ourselves under arms; let us ever remember that our whole life is to be a warfare. Our soldier-like attitude will disconcert the enemy, and he will try to gain victory elsewhere.
Tue Third Sunday of Lent is called Oculi, from the first word of the Introit. In the primitive Church, it was called Scrutiny-Sunday, because it was on this day that they began to examine the Catechumens, who were to he admitted to Baptism on Easter night. All the Faithful were invited to assemble in the Church, in order that they might bear testimony to the good life and morals of the candidates. At Rome, these examinations, which where called the Scrutinies, were made on seven different occasions, on account of the great number of the aspirants to Baptism; but the principal Scrutiny was that held on the Wednesday of the Fourth Week We will speak of it later on. The Roman Sacramentary of St. Gelasius gives us the form, in which the Faithful were convoked to these assemblies. It is as follows. “Dearly beloved Brethren: you know that the day of Scrutiny, when our elect are to receive the holy instruction, is at hand. We invite you, therefore, to be zealous and assemble on N., (here, the day was mentioned,) at the hour of Sext; that so we may be able, by the divine aid, to achieve without error, the heavenly mystery, whereby is opened the gate of the kingdom of heaven, and the devil is excluded with all his pomps.” The invitation was repeated, if needed, on each of the following Sundays. The Scrutiny of this Sunday ended in the admission of a certain number of candidates: their names were written down, and put on the Diptychs of the Altar, that they might be mentioned in the Canon of the Mass. The same also was done with the names of their Sponsors. The Station was, and still is, in the Basilica of Saint Laurence outside the walls. The name of this, the most celebrated of the Martyrs of Rome, would remind the Catechumens, that the Faith they were about to profess, would require them to be ready for many sacrifices.
Daily Devotions
·
Manhood of
the Master-Day 1 week 6
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Do
30 min. in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
·
Please
pray for me and this ministry
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