Work for God (Septuagesima)
by VP
Posted on Sunday January 28, 2024 at 12:00AM in Tradition
"Why stand you here all the day idle?"-Matt. xx.
"We are all called by God, my dear brethren, to labor in His vineyard. That is to say: we are called to serve God faithfully; to fulfil His Divine will; to observe His laws and precepts; to avoid the evil He forbids, and to do the good He prescribes. And we are not only called, but we are strictly bound to fulfil all that is included in this service of God. We are bound in justice, we are bound by gratitude to labor in God's vineyard for His honor and glory, for the salvation of our souls.
God has a supreme right to our service. We are His creatures. It is God who created us, who called us out of nothing. To God we owe our life; to Him we owe the preservation of that life during every moment of existence. And therefore does St. Paul say, "In Him we live and move and have our being." Thus we are entirely dependent on God: we belong to Him, and He has supreme jurisdiction over us; He has the right to prescribe how we should live, how we should serve Him. There can be no exception to this law; He has the sole right to require every one to labor in His vineyard. Where there is a right, there must also be a corresponding duty. It is God's right to command the service of every one; it is the duty of every one to obey.
Hence there can be no idlers in God's vineyard; no man can offer the excuse that he has not been hired.
Every act of neglect of God's service, every evasion of His law, is always an act of injustice. Every sin has, besides its specific malice, the malice of injustice. Every idler in the vineyard of the Lord is in a state of sin; if he says that he has not been hired, he is a liar. God hires every man who comes into this world.
Besides the claim God has on us in justice, He has also a claim on our service by reason of the Redemption. We belong to Him because of the price He has paid for our salvation. "He has redeemed us at the price of His Precious Blood." Justice makes us serve Him, but higher than justice is the claim of love. And His Love constrains us to obey Him. Love makes Him sovereign Lord and Master. We belong neither to the world, nor to the devil, nor to ourselves: we owe nothing to them; we owe everything to Him whose love for us has moved Him to buy us with His blood. And so it is, my brethren, that every act of rebellion against God's law is always an act of ingratitude as well as injustice; every sin, besides its special malice, has the malice of injustice and ingratitude.
What pitiful, what hardened creatures we are when we forget these plain truths: when we act as though we were a law unto ourselves, and practically act as though we are responsible to no one. How dull is our sense of justice, how hardened is our heart when we can forget or ignore God and the claims He has upon us. We let the devil rule us, we make passion our master, we lift up self in place of God.
Are there any amongst us here this morning who have forgotten what they owe to God? Are there any whose years of sin and neglect of God have made them so deaf that they cannot hear His call to them; who do not know that their place is in His vineyard? To such as these does God now say, "Why stand you idle?" You who have wasted the morning, the noon, perhaps the evening of life in idleness, in sin; "go you into my vineyard"; there is still a chance for you to redeem the wasted time. Wake up out of your lethargy. Shake off the stupor that unhallowed pleasure and secret sin have cast over you. Smash the chains that have bound you to the service of the devil, the slavery that has smothered within you every instinct of justice, every worthy prompting of the heart, every noble aim in life. "Why stand you here idle?" This is the call of God to you. Go you into the vineyard of His service. What though for years you have neglected His call, His mercy is still near you, and He will pay you what is just— will pay you with life eternal.
We are now on the threshold of Lent - the special season of prayer and penance. Be no longer idle. Enter upon God's service with courage, with honest zeal, with firm hope in God's mercy. Begin at once - begin with a good confession. God is now calling you; for many of you it is even now the eleventh hour; for many of you this call may be the last."
Source: Five minutes sermons for Low Masses for every Sundays of the Year by the Priests of the Congregation of Saint Paul 1893
Septuagesima
by VP
Posted on Sunday January 28, 2024 at 12:00AM in Tradition
"Septuagesima Time lasts three weeks. The first week is called Septuagesima Week, the second Sexagesima Week, and the third Quinquagesima Week ; names taken from the Sundays beginning each week.
(...)
The
number seven is found in numberless places in the Bible, and here the
holy Church invites us to stop and ponder on this number, and on these
seasons of the year. Let us go back to the olden times of the fathers of
the Church. St. Augustine says "there are two seasons, one the time of
our trials and of our temptation during this life, the other the time of
our happiness and of our glories in the other life. We celebrate these
times, the first before Easter, the second after Easter. The season
before Easter represents the trials of the present life, the season
after Easter signifies the happiness we will have in heaven. Such is the
reason we pass the first of these seasons in fasting and in prayer,
while the second season is consecrated to canticles of joy, and then
fasting is not allowed."
The Church, the guardian and the
interpreter of the Holy Bible, tells us that there are two places
relating to the two seasons spoken of by St. Augustine. They are Babylon
and Jerusalem. Babylon is the symbol of this world of sin and of
temptation, in the midst of which the Christian must pass his time of
trial ; Jerusalem is the heavenly country where the good Christian rests
after his trials and his labors of this life. Of these two cities, the
one worldly, the other heavenly, St. Augustine writes in his immortal
work, " The City of God." The people of Israel, whose history in the
Bible is but a grand figure of the history of the human race, were
exiled from Jerusalem and were held as captives in Babylon. Their
captivity in Babylon lasted for sixty-six years, and according to the
great writers on the Liturgy of the Church, the seventy days of fasting
and of prayer, from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter, recall the captivity of the Jews in Babylon.
Seven
is a mystic number. In six days, God made the world and he rested on
the seventh day. The most ancient traditions of Christianity tell us
(...) that the race of man upon the earth is divided into seven great
epochs. The first dated from the creation of Adam to the Flood, the
second from Noah to the calling of Abraham, the third from Abraham to
Moses, the fourth from Moses to David, the fifth from David to the
captivity in Babylon, the sixth from the captivity to the coming of the
Savior, and the seventh from the time of our Lord to the end of the
world. Thus the age of man on the earth is measured by these great
epochs. During these different times the Lord prepared the race to
receive their Redeemer, and to come into the Church He established for
their salvation. In the first epoch, from Adam to Abraham, all justice,
all goodness, all godliness, which look down from heaven and was planted
in the heart of man, was driven out by sin. In the second, from Abraham
to Moses, God called the people of Israel and made of them his chosen
race, to receive the prophecies relating to His Son. In the third, from
Moses to David, God commanded the tabernacle to be made, the Rites and
Services of the Jewish law to be carried out, to prefigure the Services
of our Church. In the fourth, from David to the Captivity in Babylon,
the nation of the Jews were ruled by kings, the temple of Solomon stood
grand and gorgeous, and the world saw the greatest glories of the people
of God. In the sixth, from the captivity to the days of our Lord, the
Jewish people were the prey of conquering nations; the Maccabees alone
could restore in part their departed splendors. In the seventh, from
Christ to the end of the world, the Church, founded and established by
our Lord, shines out before the nations called to the faith. Its glories
are far greater than those of the tabernacle of Moses. The cathedrals
of Christendom exceed in splendor Solomon's temple. The ceremonies in
our sanctuaries are more sublime than the most gifted imagination of the
Jewish priests could fancy. (...)
Thus the number seven is
deeply planted in the works of the Creator of the universe. Thus for
seven weeks we bow our heads in prayer and fasting before the coming of
the glorious day of Easter, and in joy and praise we raise our heads for
seven weeks during the glorious Paschal time following Easter. The
seven weeks of sadness for our sins before the passion of our Lord, are
followed by the seven weeks of happiness following His resurrection.
Thus after having fasted and prayed like the Savior in the desert, we
rejoice with Him as we rise from the sackcloth and ashes of Lent. We
rise with our souls filled with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
imprinted in our souls. This is what the mystic writers on the
ceremonies of the Church tell us. They say that the seven weeks before
Easter, and the seven weeks following Easter, are according to the
mystic number seven, revealed to man from heaven.
The seven weeks from Septuagesima
to Easter yearly come and go, while the years of our lives, like the
waters of the rivers, flow onward to be lost in the vastness of the
ocean ; thus our years pass rapidly on toward the boundless ocean of
eternity. The Church, our mother, tells us each year to stop and to
think of the Babylon of this world in which we live as strangers, exiled
from our home. She tells us to hang our harps on the willows growing on
the banks of the Euphrates, like the Jews of old held captives in
Babylon, and to prepare for our call to our heavenly Jerusalem above,
which is our home beyond the skies, and whose glories we celebrate
during the joyful time which follows Easter. She wishes us to sing the
canticles of joy in her services, and that while we live here, far from
our home in heaven, yet to keep our thoughts on God while in this world,
lest attached to earthly things we may be exiled for ever from
everlasting bliss with him, for our unfaithfulness while here below,
yet,"How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?"
Following thus the inspired Book, the songs and hymns of gladness are
hushed in the Church Services during this time of penance, signifying
our exile here below. At other times of the year the heavenly Alleluias
are often repeated, now they are heard no more, for exiles in the
Babylon of this world of sin, we are traveling onward toward the
Jerusalem which is above, for "we are travelers far from the Lord."
(...)
The
joyful forty days of the Christmas season have passed. With happiness
have we celebrated the birth of God on earth. Now the Church enters the
sad and solemn time when we prepare for the mysteries of the suffering
and the dying Savior. All around us in the Church are the sombre signs
of penance. We are entering in amid the three weeks of our baptism of
penance, that we may well and worthily celebrate the Lord's baptism of
blood in his sufferings for us on Calvary's cross. We are leaving
Bethlehem and going to Calvary. We are leaving the infant God in his
mother's arms, and following his steps to see him fasting in the desert.
We are leaving him in the manger, and looking for him in Gethsemane.
The Illuminating Life of the Christmas time has passed, and the
Preparing Life of the Septuagesima time
has come. We have seen him in his sweetness as a child; we are going to
see him in his weakness as a man, fasting in the desert. But we must
pray God for his light, in order to see his Son as each year the Church
shows him to us. We must ask for grace to look first into ourselves, and
see the sins which dim the brightness of our souls and keep us from
seeing the truths of religion. We must ask the light of God to clearly
understand how the human race had fallen when our parents sinned by
eating in the garden, and to realize the deep wickedness of our sins and
the deeper mercy of God in becoming man to save us from being lost
forever.
The Septuagesima
Season, then, is the time of the year for the deepest thought. In the
words of a great writer of the eleventh century, the Apostle says, " We
know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now ;
and not only it, but ourselves, also, who have the first fruits of the
spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption of the sons of God, the redemption' of our body. ' That
creature which groans is the soul looking at the corruption of sin which
weeps to be still subject to the vanities of this world in this exile
of tears. It is the cry of the Royal Prophet, " Woe is me that my
sojourning is prolonged." Thus holy David desired the end of his exile
in this vale of tears. The Apostle who was wrapped up to the third
heaven says, "I am straightened between two, having a desire to be
dissolved and to be with Christ."St. Paul wishes to be taken from this
world of sorrow and to be with Christ.
Such are the thoughts which the Church brings before her children during this holy time of Septuagesima, that all may be prepared to celebrate well and worthily the holy Season of Lent. "
Source: The Festal Year, Or, The Origin, History, Ceremonies And Meaning Of The Sundays, Seasons, Feasts And Festivals Of The Church During The Year, Explained For The People by Fr. James L. Meagher 1883