The following is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)
THE Church gives us to-day another subject for our meditation: it is the vocation of
Abraham. When the waters of the deluge had subsided, and mankind had once more
peopled the earth, the immorality, which had previously excited God’s anger, again grew
rife among men. Idolatry, too, into which the antediluvian race had not fallen, now showed
itself, and human wickedness seemed thus to have reached the height of its malice.
Foreseeing that the nations of the earth would fall into rebellion against Him, God resolved
to select one people that should be peculiarly His, and among whom should be preserved
those sacred truths, which the Gentiles were to lose sight of. This new people was to
originate from one man, who would be the father and model of all future believers. This was
Abraham. His faith and devotedness merited for him that he should be chosen to be the
father of the children of God, and the head of that spiritual family, to which belong all the
elect of both the old and the new Testament.
It is necessary, therefore, that we should know Abraham, our father and our model. This
is his grand characteristic: fidelity to God, submissiveness to His commands, abandonment
and sacrifice of everything in order to obey His holy will. Such ought to be the prominent
virtues of every Christian. Let us, then, study the life of our great patriarch, and learn the
lessons it teaches.
The following passage from the Book of Genesis, which the Church gives us in her Matins
of today, will serve as the text of our considerations.
From the Book of Genesis. Ch. xii.
And ,the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred and out of
thy father’s house, and come into the land which I shall show thee. And I will make of thee a
great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. I will
bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee shall all the kindred
of the earth be blessed. So Abram went out as the Lord had commanded him, and Lot went
with him. Abram was seventy five years old when he went forth from Haran. And he took
Sarai his wife, and Lot, his brother’s son, and all the substance which they had gathered, and
the souls which they had gotten in Haran: and they went out to go into the land of Chanaan.
And when they were come into it, Abram passed through the country into the place of
Sichem, as far as the noble vale: now the Chanaanite was at that time in the land. And the
Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him: To thy seed will I give this land. And he built there
an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And passing on from thence to a mountain,
that was on the east side of Bethel, he there pitched his tent, having on the west, and Hai on
the east. He built there, also, an altar to the Lord, and called upon his name.
Could the Christian have a finer model than this holy patriarch, whose docility and
devotedness in following the call of his God are so perfect? We are forced to exclaim, with
the holy fathers: ‘0 true Christian, even before Christ had come on the earth! He had the
spirit of the Gospel, before the Gospel was preached! He was an apostolic man before the
apostles existed!’ God calls him: he leaves all things—his country, his kindred, his father’s
house—and he goes into an unknown land. God leads him, he is satisfied; he fears no
difficulties; he never once looks back. Did the apostles themselves more? But see how grand
is his reward! God says to him: ‘In thee shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed.’ This
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Chaldean is to give to the world Him that shall bless and save it. Death will, it is true, close
his eyes ages before the dawning of that day, when one of his race, who is to be born of a
Virgin and be united personally with the divine Word, shall redeem all generations, past,
present, and to come. But meanwhile, till heaven shall be thrown open to receive this
Redeemer and the countless just who have won the crown, Abraham shall be honoured, in
the limbo of expectation, in a manner becoming his great virtue and merit. It is in his bosom,
that is, around him, that our first parents (having atoned for their sin by penance), Noah,
Moses, David, and all the just, including poor Lazarus, received that rest and happiness,
which were a foretaste of, and a preparation for, eternal bliss in heaven. Thus is Abraham
honoured; thus does God requite the love and fidelity of them that serve Him.
When the fullness of time came, the Son of God, who was also Son of Abraham, declared
His eternal Father’s power, by saying that He was about to raise up a new progeny of
Abraham’s children from the very stones, that is, from the Gentiles. We Christians are this
new generation. But are we worthy children of our father? Let us listen to the apostle of the
Gentiles: ‘By faith, Abraham, when called (by God), obeyed to go out into a place, which he
was to receive for an inheritance: and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith,
he abode in the land, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the co-heirs of the same
promise; for he looked for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’
If, therefore, we be children of Abraham, we must, as the Church tells us during
Septuagesima, look upon ourselves as exiles on the earth, and dwell by hope and desire in
that true country of ours, from which we are now banished, but towards which we are each
day drawing nigher, if, like Abraham, we are faithful in the various stations allotted us by our
Lord. We are commanded to use this world as though we used it not; to have an abiding
conviction of our not having here a lasting city, and of the misery and danger we incur when
we forget that death is one day to separate us from everything we possess in this life.
How far from being true children of Abraham are those Christians who spend this and the
two following days in intemperance and dissipation, because Lent is soon to be upon us! We
can easily understand how the simple manners of our Catholic forefathers could keep a
leave-taking of the ordinary way of living, which Lent was to put a stop to, and reconcile
their innocent carnival with Christian gravity; just as we can understand how their rigorous
observance of the laws of the Church for Lent would inspire certain festive customs at
Easter. Even in our own times, a joyous shrove-tide is not to be altogether reprobated,
provided the Christian sentiment of the approaching holy season of Lent be strong enough
to check the evil tendency of corrupt nature; otherwise the original intention of an innocent
custom would be perverted, and the forethought of penance could in no sense be
considered as the prompter of our joyous farewell to ease and comforts. While admitting all
this, we would ask, what right or title have they to share in these shrove-tide rejoicings,
whose Lent will pass and find them out of the Church, because they will not have complied
with the precept of Easter Communion? And they, too, who claim dispensations from
abstinence and fasting during Lent, and, for one reason or another, evade every penitential
exercise during the solemn forty days of penance, and will find themselves at Easter as
weighed down by the guilt and debt of their sins as they were on Ash Wednesday—what
meaning, we would ask, can there possibly be in their feast-making at shrove-tide.
Oh! that Christians would stand on their guard against such delusions as these, and gain
that holy liberty of children of God, which consists in not being slaves to flesh and blood,
and preserves man from moral degradation! Let them remember that we are now in that
holy season, when the Church denies herself her songs of holy joy, in order the more
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forcibly to remind us that we are living in a Babylon of spiritual danger, and to excite us to
regain that genuine Christian spirit, which everything in the world around us is quietly
undermining. If the disciples of Christ are necessitated, by the position they hold in society,
to take part in the profane amusements of these few days before Lent, let it be with a heart
deeply imbued with the maxims of the Gospel. If, for example, they are obliged to listen to
the music of theatres and concerts, let them imitate St. Cecily, who thus sang, in her heart,
in the midst of the excitement of worldly harmonies: ‘May my heart, 0 God, be pure, and let
me not be confounded!’ Above all, let them not countenance certain dances, which the
world is so eloquent in defending, because so evidently according to its own spirit; and
therefore they who encourage them will be severely judged by Him, who has already
pronounced woe upon the world. Lastly, let those who must go, on these days, and mingle
in the company of worldlings, be guided by St. Francis of Sales, who advises them to think,
from time to time, on such considerations as these:—that while all these frivolous, and
often dangerous, amusements are going on, there are countless souls being tormented in
the fire of hell, on account of the sins they committed on similar occasions; that, at that very
hour of the night, there are many holy religious depriving themselves of sleep in order to
sing the divine praises and implore God’s mercy upon the world, and upon them that are
wasting their time in its vanities; that there are thousands in the agonies of death, while all
that gaiety is going on; that God and His angels are attentively looking upon this thoughtless
group; and finally, that life is passing away, and death so much nearer each moment.
We grant that, on these three days immediately preceding the penitential season of Lent,
some provision was necessary to be made for those countless souls, who seem scarce able
to live without some excitement. The Church supplies this want. She gives a substitute for
frivolous amusements and dangerous pleasures; and those of her children upon whom faith
has not lost its influence, will find, in what she offers them, a feast surpassing all earthly
enjoyments, and a means whereby to make amends to God for the insults offered to His
divine Majesty during these days of carnival. The Lamb, that taketh away the sins of the
world, is exposed upon our altars. Here, on this His throne of mercy, He receives the
homage of them who come to adore Him, and acknowledge Him for their King; He accepts
the repentance of those who come to tell Him how grieved they are at having ever followed
any other Master than Him; He offers Himself to His eternal Father for poor sinners, who
not only treat His favours with indifference, but seem to have made a resolution to offend
Him during these days more than at any other period of the year.
It was the pious Cardinal Gabriel Paleotti, archbishop of Bologna, who first originated the
admirable devotion of the Forty Hours. He was a contemporary of St. Charles Borromeo,
and, like him, was eminent for his pastoral zeal. His object in this solemn Exposition of the
most blessed Sacrament was to offer to the divine Majesty some compensation for the sins
of men, and, at the very time when the world was busiest in deserving His anger, to appease
it by the sight of His own Son, the Mediator between heaven and earth. St. Charles
immediately introduced the devotion into his own diocese and province. This was in the
sixteenth century. Later on, that is, in the eighteenth century, Prosper Lambertini was
archbishop of Bologna; he zealously continued the pious design of his ancient predecessor,
Paleotti, by encouraging his flock to devotion towards the blessed Sacrament during the
three days of carnival; and when he was made Pope, under the name of Benedict XIV., he
granted many Indulgences to all who, during these days, should visit our Lord in this mystery
of His love, and should pray for the pardon of sinners. This favour was, at first, restricted to
the faithful of the Papal States; but in the year 1765 it was extended, by Pope Clement XIII.,
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to the universal Church. Thus, the Forty Hours’ Devotion has spread throughout the whole
world, and become one of the most solemn expressions of Catholic piety. Let us, then, who
have the opportunity, profit by it during these last three days of our preparation for Lent.
Let us, like Abraham, retire from the distracting dangers of the world, and seek the Lord our
God. Let us go apart, for at least one short hour, from the dissipation of earthly enjoyments,
and, kneeling in the presence of our Jesus, merit the grace to keep our hearts innocent and
detached, whilst sharing in those we cannot avoid.
We will now resume our considerations upon the liturgy of Quinquagesima Sunday. The
passage of the Gospel selected by the Church, is that wherein our Saviour foretells to His
apostles the sufferings He was to undergo in Jerusalem. This solemn announcement
prepares us for Passiontide. We ought to receive it with feeling and grateful hearts, and
make it an additional motive for imitating the devoted Abraham, and giving our whole
selves to our God. The ancient liturgists tell us that the blind man of Jericho spoken of in this
same Gospel is a figure of those poor sinners, who, during these days, are blind to their
Christian character, and rush into excesses, which even paganism would have coveted. The
blind man recovered his sight, because he was aware of his wretched state, and desired to
be cured and to see. The Church wishes us to have a like desire, and she promises us that it
shall be granted.
In the Greek Church, this Sunday is called Tyrophagos, because it is the last day on which
is allowed the use of white meats, or, as we call them, milk-meats. Beginning with
tomorrow, it is forbidden to eat them, for Lent then begins, and with all the severity
wherewith the oriental Churches observe it.
MASS
The station is in the church of St. Peter, on the Vatican. The choice was suggested, as we learn
from the Abbot Rupert’s ‘Treatise on the Divine Offices,’ by the lesson of the Law given to Moses,
which used then to be read in this Sunday’s Office. Moses was looked upon, by the early Christians
of Rome, as a type of St. Peter. The Church having, since that time, substituted the vocation of
Abraham for the passage from Exodus (which is now deferred till Lent), the station for this Sunday is
still in the basilica of the prince of the apostles who was prefigured also by Abraham, the father of
believers.
The Introit is the prayer of mankind, blind and wretched as the poor man of Jericho; it asks for
pity from its Redeemer, and beseeches Him to guide and feed it.
How appropriate for this Sunday is the magnificent eulogy of charity, here given by our apostle!
This virtue, which comprises the love both of God and of our neighbour, is the light of our souls.
Without charity we are in darkness, and all our works are profitless. The very power of working
miracles cannot give hope of salvation, unless he who does them have charity. Unless we are in
charity, the most heroic acts of other virtues are but one snare more for our souls. Let us beseech
our Lord to give us this light. But let us not forget that, however richly He may bless us with it here
below, the fullness of its brightness is reserved for when we are in heaven; and that the sunniest day
we can have in this world, is but darkness when compared with the splendour of our eternal charity.
Faith will then give place, for we shall be face to face with all truth; hope will have no object, for we
shall possess all good; charity alone will continue, and, for this reason, is greater than faith and hope,
which must needs accompany her in this present life. This being the glorious destiny reserved for
man when redeemed and enlightened by Jesus, is it to be wondered at that we should leave all
things, in order to follow such a Master? What should surprise us, and what proves how degraded
is our nature by sin, is to see Christians, who have been baptized in this faith and this hope, and have
received the first-fruits of this love, indulging, during these days, in every sort of worldliness, which
‘is only the more dangerous because it is fashionable. It would seem as though they were making it
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their occupation to extinguish within their souls the last ray of heavenly light, like men that had
made a covenant with darkness. If there be charity within our souls, it will make us feel these
offences that are committed against our God, and inspire us to pray to Him to have mercy on these
poor blind sinners, for they are our brethren.
In the Gradual and Tract, the Church sings the praises of God’s goodness towards His elect. He
has set them free from the slavish yoke of the world, by enlightening them with His grace; they are
His own children, the favoured sheep of His pasture.
Jesus tells His apostles, that His bitter Passion is at hand; it is a mark of His confidence in them;
but they understand not what He says. They are as yet too carnal-minded to appreciate our Saviour’s
mission; still, they do not abandon Him; they love Him too much to think of separating from Him.
Greater by far than this is the blindness of those false Christians, who, during these three days, not
only do not think of the God who shed His Blood and died for them, but are striving to efface from
their souls every trace of the divine image! Let us adore that sweet mercy, which has drawn us, as it
did Abraham, from the midst 'of a sinful people; and let us, like the blind man of our Gospel, cry out
to our Lord, beseeching Him to grant us an increase of His holy light. This was his prayer: Lord! that I
may see! God has given us His light; but He gave it us in order to excite within us the desire of seeing
more and more clearly. He promised Abraham, that He would show him the place He had destined
for him; may He grant us, also, to see the land of the living! But our first prayer must be, that He
show us Himself, as St. Augustine has so beautifully expressed it, that we may love Him, and show us
ourselves that we may cease to love ourselves.
In the Offertory, the Church prays that her children may have the light of life, which consists in
knowing the Law of God. She would have our lips pronounce His doctrine and the divine
commandments, which He has brought us from heaven.
The Communion antiphon commemorates the miracle of the manna, which fed in the desert the
descendants of Abraham; and yet this food, though it came from heaven, did not preserve them
from death. The living Bread, which we have had given to us from heaven, gives eternal life to the
soul: and he who eats it worthily shall never die.
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