Monday, March 2, 2020

Monday of the first week of Lent

CLEAN MONDAY

Leviticus, Chapter 19, verse 14

You shall not insult the deaf, or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD.

Be like your Heavenly Father; God is not a bully. Christ was often confronted by the bullies of his time. When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducee, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mt. 22:34-40)

The modern world attempts to bully the faithful in abandoning their relationship with the Lord. Saint Pope Pius X was a pope, who resisted the bullying of the modern world by establishing an oath against modernism^[1]. The crux of this oath has five main points:

1. I profess that God is the origin and end of all things.
2. I accept and acknowledge the external proofs of revelation, that is, divine acts and especially miracles and prophecies as the surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion.
3. I believe with equally firm faith that the Church, the guardian and teacher of the revealed word, was personally instituted by the real and historical Christ.
4. I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport.
5. I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth.

Monday in the First Week of Lent

EPISTLE. Ezech. xxxiv. 11-16.

THUS, saith the Lord God: Behold I Myself will seek My sheep and will visit them. As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit My sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land: and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the habitations of the land. I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel: there shall they rest on the green grass and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed My sheep: and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost : and that which was driven away I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and strong I will preserve: and I will feed them in judgment, saith the Lord Almighty.

GOSPEL. Matt. xxv. 31-46.

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: When the Son of man shall come in His majesty, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Then shall the King say to them that shall be on His right hand: Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink: I was a stranger, and you took Me in naked, and you covered Me: sick, and you visited Me: I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then shall the just answer Him, saying: Lord, when did we see Thee hungry, and fed Thee; thirsty, and gave Thee drink? and when did we see Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and covered Thee? or when did we see Thee sick or in prison, and came to Thee? And the King answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me. Then He shall say to them also that shall be on His left hand: Depart from Me, yon cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink I was a stranger, and you took Me not in naked, and you covered Me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me. Then they also shall answer Him, saying: Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee? Then He shall answer them, saying: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to Me. And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting.

Prayer. Convert us, O God, our salvation; and, that the fast of Lent may benefit us, instruct our minds with heavenly discipline.

Lenten Calendar[2]

Read: Lent is a special time for those preparing to be baptized through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). RCIA is a period of learning and discernment for those seeking to become Catholic. 

Reflect; Take time to reflect on your own decision to become a member of the Church. 

Pray: Keep the elect, candidates, and their sponsors in your prayers this Lent. 

Act: Download the CRS Rice Bowl App. . . today and try a new way of tracking your Lenten journey, while also receiving daily reflections and meatless recipes. 

Clean Monday[3]-Traditional time for going to confession

Clean Monday, also known as Pure Monday, Ash Monday, Monday of Lent or Green Monday, is the first day of Great Lent in the Eastern Orthodox Christian, Saint Thomas Christians of India and Eastern Catholic churches. It is a moveable feast that occurs at the beginning of the 7th week before Orthodox Easter Sunday. The common term for this day, "Clean Monday", refers to the leaving behind of sinful attitudes and non-fasting foods. It is sometimes called "Ash Monday", by analogy with Ash Wednesday (the day when the Western Churches begin Lent). The term is often a misnomer, as only a small subset of Eastern Catholic Churches practices the Imposition of Ashes. The Maronite Catholic Church and The Mar Thoma Nasranis of India-Syro-Malabar Catholic Church are notable amongst the Eastern rite that employs the use of ashes on this day. Liturgically, Clean Monday—and thus Lent itself—begins on the preceding (Sunday) night, at a special service called Forgiveness Vespers, which culminates with the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, at which all present will bow down before one another and ask forgiveness. In this way, the faithful begin Lent with a clean conscience, with forgiveness, and with renewed Christian love. The entire first week of Great Lent is often referred to as "Clean Week", and it is customary to go to Confession during this week, and to clean the house thoroughly. The theme of Clean Monday is set by the Old Testament reading appointed to be read at the Sixth Hour (noon) on this day (Isaiah 1:1–20), which says, in part:

Wash yourselves and ye shall be clean; put away the wicked ways from your souls before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, consider the fatherless, and plead for the widow. Come then, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool (vv. 16–18).

Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus, where it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food, a special kind of azyme bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana" (Greek: λαγάνα) and the widespread custom of flying kites. Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Orthodox Christians throughout Lent, with fish being eaten only on major feast days, but shellfish is permitted in European denominations. This has created the tradition of eating elaborate dishes based on seafood (shellfish, molluscs, fish roe etc.). Traditionally, it is considered to mark the beginning of the spring season, a notion which was used symbolically in Ivan Bunin's critically acclaimed story, Pure Monday. The happy, springtime atmosphere of Clean Monday may seem at odds with the Lenten spirit of repentance and self-control, but this seeming contradiction is a marked aspect of the Orthodox approach to fasting, in accordance with the Gospel lesson (Matthew 6:14–21) read on the morning before, which admonishes:

When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret... (v. 16–18).

In this manner, the Orthodox celebrate the fact that "The springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to open..."

Preparing for Battle[4] Know Your Weapons

The weapon of Sacred Scripture

·         Each time the Devil attacked with the temptation to doubt or disobey God, Jesus quoted Scripture to throw him back.

·         Scripture is our sword against Satan!

·         We must listen carefully to the scriptural readings in Mass and meditate on them deeply.

·         We must read Scripture on our own.

·         We must also memorize scriptural texts that we can use against temptation. Then, when the Enemy assaults us, we can imitate Our Lord by the effective counterassault of quoting the word of God.

Daily Devotions

·         Ask for the Prayers and assistance of the Angels

·         Reflect on Day 15 of 30 days with St. Joseph

·         Manhood of the Master-week 4 day 1

·         Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

·         Make reparations to the Holy Face

·         Nineveh 90-54 day rosary day 49

·         Manhood of the Master-Day 22

·         Drops of Christ’s Blood

·         Universal Man Plan

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[1] http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=5732

[2]http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/march-11.cfm

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Monday

[4]Thigpen, Paul. Manual for Spiritual Warfare. TAN Books.