CAPG's Blog 

March: Month of Saint Joseph

Virtue: Mortification

The first step to be taken by one who wishes to follow Christ, is, according to our Lord's own words, that of renouncing himself, that is, his own senses, his own passions, his own will, his own judgment, and all the movements of nature, making to God a sacrifice of all these things, and of all their acts, which are surely sacrifices very acceptable to the Lord. And we must never grow weary of this; for if anyone, having, so to speak, one foot already in heaven, should abandon this exercise, when the time should come for him to put the other there, he would run much risk of being lost.— St. Vincent de Paul.

St. Joseph, (Mother of Mercy Catholic Church, Washington, NC)

Prayer to St. Joseph for Persecuted Priests

Dearest St. Joseph, be the protector and defender of those priests undergoing persecution for being faithful to their Lord and Sovereign Priest, Jesus Christ. See in them the image of thy beloved child, and cherish them with that tender solicitude which God places in Thy paternal heart. Obtain for them the good graces of thy Queen and Spouse, for such graces of predilection will surely lighten their burdens and render their crosses sweet. Amen.

  ●   To St. Joseph for a Particular Priest
  ●   Prayer to Saint Joseph for the Church
  ●   Illustrious Patriarch
  ●   Prayer to St. Joseph Patron and Protector of the Universal Church
  ●   Prayer to Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Virgin Mary and Patron of the Holy Church

The Chair of St. Peter

"A day in memory of St. Peter's fixing his episcopal see at Antioch; where, as St. Luke informs us, the followers of Christ were first called Christians. It was just that the prince of the apostles should take this city under his particular care and inspection, which was then the capital of the East, and in which the faith took so early and deep root. St. Chrysostom says that St. Peter made a long stay at Antioch. St. Gregory the Great, that he was seven years bishop of that Church. St. Leo says that we ought to celebrate the chair of St. Peter with no less joy than the day of his martyrdom, for as in this he was exalted to a throne of glory in heaven, so by the former he was installed head of the Church on earth.

On this festival, adore and thank the divine goodness for the establishment and propagation of his Church; and earnestly pray that in his mercy he would preserve the same and extend it, that his name may be glorified by all nations and by all hearts to the boundaries of the earth. The Church of Christ is his spiritual kingdom. He not only founded it, but continues to govern it, and by his spirit to animate its members to the end of the world as its visible head; though he has left St. Peter and his successors as a visible head for its exterior government.

Give thanks on this day for the propagation of the gospel among the Gentiles; and pray that it may be still more and more enlarged, for the enlightening all those who sit in darkness, and know not God. Pray in particular for the people of the East. Pray for all the prelates in Christ's Church, that as they succeed the apostles, they may be animated with an apostolic spirit in renouncing the world and its ways, and applying themselves wholly to the good of their flock. Pray that none may be admitted to that dignity, but such as are truly qualified for the charge, and called by God, as the apostles were. Pray likewise for the peace and unity of the Church, for the remedying all abuses, and that there may be one pastor and one fold." The Catholic Year by Rev. Fr. John Gother

“The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking ‘men speaking perverse things’ (Acts xx. 30), ‘vain talkers and seducers’ (Tit. i. 10), ‘erring and driving into error’ (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still, it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore, We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office.“ -- Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907

Stations of the Cross, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh NC

"The violence of the enemy is always directed against those priests who are most generous and most loyal. The more you are like your Divine Model, your Savior and your God, the more certainly will you be the target for the calumnies, the abuse and persecutions of the wicked."
-- Jesus Living in the Priest: Considerations on the greatness and Holiness of the Priesthood Jacques Nicolas et Rev. P. Millet, S.J.

Intention: 0 dearest Lord Jesus, I offer Thee the way of the Cross which I am about to make for Thy honor and glory and for all Thy priests, especially those who are suffering persecution for Thy sake.

The way of Cross

The Feast of the Holy Face – Shrove Tuesday On April 17th, 1958, His Holiness Pope Pius XII approved the observance of a Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus on Shrove Tuesday (Tuesday before Ash Wednesday).

A Prayer for the Church

O God, by Thy Holy Name have pity on us, protect us, and save us.
O good Jesus, in the sweet Name guard our Sovereign Pontiff; breathe into his
soul the spirit of the Comforter.

Jesus, thy Church is menaced with great trials! Holy Father, by the virtue of
thy salutary Name protect the Church of Jesus Christ. This was the last will of
thy Divine Son; it is the holy prayer which love prompted towards the end of his
life. Holy Father, keep in thy Name those thou hast given me (St. John chap. xxxvii. 11)

O most holy and worthy Mother, refuge of the Church, intercede for us and save us by
the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Michael and the Holy Angels, guard the bark of Peter; disperse its enemies
by the Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Source: Sister Saint-Pierre and the Work of Reparation.

Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face

I salute, adore, and love Thee, O Jesus, my Savior, covered anew with outrages by blasphemers, and I offer Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and Saints, as an incense and a perfume of sweet odor, most humbly beseeching Thee, by the virtue of Thy Sacred Face, to repair and renew in me and in all men Thy image disfigured by sin. Amen

Source: Veronica, or the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1871

• What is the Devotion to the Holy Face (Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Joseph)
  
• The Feast of the Holy Face (World Report)
• League of Saint Martin
• Oratoire de la Sainte Face Tours France
• Video of the Diocese of Tours (In France)
  

"Life is a duty, dare it;

Life is a burden, bear it;

Life is a thorn-crown, wear it,

Though it break your heart in twain,

Though the burden crush you down,

Close your lips and hide your pain,

First the cross and then the crown."

Why a Lentent Season? By Rev. Fr. Michael A. O'Reilly, Paulist Fathers

• Lenten Resolution Worksheet
  

"The practice of Lent is not today what it was in the past. The black fast common in the day of our fathers and grandfathers, would seem to our day and generation a burden too heavy to be borne: the rules of the fast have been lightened and dispensations are multiplied to fit the burden to the back of a people less physically strong than their forbears, living in a time of hurry and strain. In this the Church has acted as a tender Mother, solicitous for the bodies as well as the souls of her children.

But the Church is not alone a tender Mother: she is first and always a faithful Spouse. The law of Christ is her law, the words of Christ are her words; she would not subtract from them one iota, nor will she ever admit that her children cannot follow where He has led. Others may say that His words must not be taken literally; that His law cannot be rigorously applied in the struggle of our complex life; that no man can aspire to the Christ life. Not so, the Spouse of Christ, the Catholic Church. She knows and she believes that Christ is the Son of God, the Divine Word: that He is Eternal Truth Who can neither deceive nor be deceived: that He is Infinite Wisdom Whose commands are possible and Whose counsels are delightful. Has He not said: “Follow Me,” and “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”?

Now the command to do penance was uttered by her Lord and Master in no uncertain terms: “Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke xiii. 3-5). And again, after His resurrection, He built up the faltering faith of His disciples by asserting the necessity of His Passion and of the continuance of the work of penance: “It behooved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day: that penance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name” (Luke xxiv. 46, 47). How, then, may we reconcile the mitigation of the fast and multiplied dispensations with the Church’s fidelity to the exact teaching of the Master? To find the answer we must penetrate more deeply the mind of our Mother; we must analyze more carefully the meaning of penance and study its purposes more attentively.

If we look into the mind of our Mother, we will find her always tender, often indulgent, but never weak: her aim is not to spoil, but to strengthen: to build up, not to tear down. What she concedes to the weakness of the body is not to enervate the soul but to provide it with a more virile temple, a more active co-partner in the following of Christ. If the external circumstances of penance are changed, it is only to stress more deeply the hidden significance of the inevitable divine law: “Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.” Every year the Holy Spirit within her invites her children, most urgently, to turn aside from the busy marts of men and follow our Lord into the desert. Those whose strength permits them the privilege of sharing literally His fast, she warns that “the letter without the spirit is dead”; those whose weakness does not permit them that privilege, she reminds that they are not thereby excused. For them, too, is the ringing call of the Master: “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me,” and it may not be evaded: all may not fast with Christ but all must pray with Him in the desert, if they would not perish.

Now, then, as never before, perhaps, it becomes us to take stock of what Lent is to mean to us in practice, to enter more fully into the self-denials of prayer and acquire more truly the spirit of penance.

Only thus will we be really in touch with the mind of our Mother, faithful to the leading of the Holy Spirit of Love, and obedient to the behest of our Divine Savior and Model: “Be ye perfect.” For, as St. Paul reminds us, only “if we be dead with Him,” shall we “also live with Him” (2 Tim.
ii. 11).

Source: Lent In Practice, (The Spirit of Penance) by Father John Burke C.S.P.

• Prayer for a priest before Confession
• Prayer for a priest after Confession
  
  

"The three days of Quinquagesima, or Shrove-tide, are the immediate preparation for Lent. Whence in them religious persons redouble their fervour in their compunction and penitential exercises. How much this spirit is recommended by the church to all her children at this time, appears in the whole tenor of her holy office. In this week of Quinquagesima, anciently all the faithful made a confession of their sins, and sanctified it by preparatory practices of holy penance.

(...) Origen, one of the earliest and most learned masters of the most illustrious of the Christian schools, established at Alexandria in the second and third ages, writes as follows: "Look about very diligently "to whom you ought to confess your sins. Try first the physician "to whom you are to lay open the source of your disorder; who "ought to know how to sympathize and condole; that if he who "has shown himself a skilful and tender physician shall give you any “advice, you carefully follow it."

The same maxim is inculcated by the most zealous pastors of the church through all succeeding ages. Shrovetide was the most solemn and general time in which all the faithful anciently approached the sacred tribunal of confession with the greatest compunction and fervour. This its very name in our language implies: for our English Saxon ancestors, from this universal custom, called it Shrovetide; that is, the time of confession.

The preparation for Lent by a careful sacramental confession of sins, is most salutary and expedient; nay often indispensably necessary, especially to persons engaged in a state of mortal sin: above all, if this be habitual; if the bands of this dismal slavery be not broken, the fasts and devotions of Lent lose the greater part of their advantages; for no good works can be satisfactory or meritorious, through the infinite price of our redemption, and the most gracious divine promise, unless performed in the state of grace, or in holy charity, by which they are grafted in Christ, as branches in the trunk of the vine. They are sanctified, and find acceptance of God, by this condition of holy charity in Christ, and by the dispositions of sincere repentance and compunction, and the fruit of the sacrament of penance worthily received, before entering upon this holy penitential course." The Moveable Feasts, Fasts, and Other Annual Observances of the Catholic Church By Rev. Fr. Alban Butler

The Sower of good seed, 1180.

“And other some fell among thorns, and the thorns growing up with it choked it."-St. Luke viii. 7.

We, my dear brethren, have received the seed of the Divine word, and we have kept it: we have never fallen away from the true faith as it is in Christ and His Church, and with God's help we never shall. Our steadfastness in the faith is our greatest glory in the sight of heaven and of earth, and whatever our shortcomings may be, we are at least free from the awful crime of apostasy, and this worst of all reproaches can never be laid to our charge. The good soil that produces a hundred fold is ours; but alas! the thorny soil is ours also, and our faith though firmly rooted is often choked by the pernicious jungle growing up around us, in which we suffer ourselves to become entangled.

How many a glorious promise of supernatural faith and virtue in those around us becomes utterly blighted by the thorns of the world's ways and temptations, because no proper care is taken to resist them and stamp them out! The thorny growths that stifle our faith and render it worthless in the sight of God are many indeed, but there is one in particular that is more destructive than all the rest beside. I need hardly name it to you, for you know it but too well—the deadly Upas-tree of intemperance- that casts its withering shade over our hearts and homes and altars! Is there a single person here this morning that does not know of more than one generous soul in whom every fruitful germ of faith and hope and charity, and every sentiment of true Christian manhood and womanhood, have not been blighted by this prevalent passion ? Call the roll of your nearest friends and acquaintances, and how many will you not find absent from the ranks of Christian life, duty, and fidelity through this one vice? There is a skeleton in every closet, and the saloon-keepers have taken the flesh off its bones. This more than anything else chokes the divine seed of the word amongst us; this nullifies the power of our faith; this neutralizes the effects of the Sacraments; this scandalizes our holy religion and makes our consecrated ministry vain; for this is the evil root from whence springs the foul crop of lusts and blasphemies, and crimes and contentions, that stifle every virtue of the Christian life and weigh down the Church of the living God.

Could we but cast out this baneful blight of intemperance from amongst us, our glorious faith would appear in all its strength and beauty, and yield its hundred fold. If it were not for the gross and scandalous lives that so many so-called Catholics lead, nothing could stop the onward march of our faith. This is the one objection raised against us that we cannot satisfactorily meet.

We know very well that ours is the only true religion, and that it supplies every help that we need to enable us to overcome our passions and to lead upright lives. But the world at large knows little or nothing of our faith; it only looks at the dark side of our every-day conduct, and scornfully asks: "Where is the influence of the Catholic religion on the venal politician, the low liquor-seller, the drunken reveler, the meretricious streetwalker, the abominable fathers and mothers who make their homes a hell upon earth, and drive their unfortunate children to destruction ? And what reply can we make? We cannot deny that many who claim to profess our faith are an utter disgrace to it, and a rock of scandal to the world. They, of course, have shaken off all sense of obligation to their religion and its teachings, and have no more conception of religious duty than the cow or the horse. Theirs is a purely animal existence, they live only for the gratification of their lower nature, and we disclaim all responsibility for them. What responsibility has the Catholic Church for those who seldom or ever darken its doors, who never approach its Sacraments, who spend their Saturday nights in the saloons, and their Sunday mornings in drunken slumber? What responsibility has the Church for the recreant rowdies who hang around the corner grog-shops, and the fallen flirts who frequent the sidewalks? They may have Catholic names, but that is the only evidence of their Catholicity. The thorns of dissipation and sensuality and sin of every kind have choked the seed of truth in their hearts, and they are outside the soul of the Church, though they may still claim to belong to its visible pale. But take our consistent Catholics, men and women who are in touch with the spirit of their faith and honestly endeavor to live up to its teachings. Are they not in very truth the salt of the earth? and does not the divine seed planted in their souls produce a hundred fold?"

Source: Five minutes sermons for Low Masses for every Sundays of the Year by the Priests of the Congregation of Saint Paul 1893

The purification of the Virgin Guido Reni

"On this day, on which we celebrate the purification of the blessed Virgin Mary, consider if you have not sufficient motives to oblige you to undertake your own purification. How much do you want of those holy dispositions, which brought the blessed Virgin this day to the temple? Though you can never hope to obtain either humility or obedience to equal hers; yet the distance between you and her gives scope to your endeavors to advance many degrees beyond what at present are. You have a wide field open before you, wherein to work upon yourself, and make some progress towards that purification, without which you can have no advantage in this day's solemnity.

Candles being blessed and distributed on this day, in memory of Christ's being acknowledged and declared the light of the Gentiles, in taking a candle you are to confess Christ to be the true light of the world, and beg that He will mercifully please to be a light to you, both living and dying. If you follow Him, He will be a light to your feet, and conduct you into the ways of true humility and obedience, who in submission to His Father's will, humbled Himself even to the death of the cross. By His help, you will soon discover all the frauds of your treacherous nature; you will learn to unmask all those vain pretexts, by which you are so often misled, and plainly distinguish between the dictates of self-love or corrupt practice, and the commands of God.

It is for want of this light that you so often go out of the way; while, as in the absence of the sun, you set up other lights in his place, so in not having the light of Christ and His justice to direct you, you substitute in His place a false light, and a false justice to be your guide. To how many unavoidable dangers must you then be exposed, when the way in which you are obliged to walk is so very narrow, and attended with precipices on every side? How can you here go on with any safety, when you have nothing before you but false lights, which confound the sight, and often blind your eyes?

This is the true cause of all the errors, injustices, and wickedness in the world. Men go on in the most unwarrantable ways, and they all have their reasons, which give them a sort of assurance and satisfaction in what they do: they have a kind of light which ever accompanies them, but they are not sincere in examining what light it is. They are not solicitous to take Christ with them; and then the enemy is ready enough to offer them false lights in his place. Their deceitful nature is too ready to accept them, because they lead to what pleases. Hence many taking but one false step in the beginning, it is often followed by most destructive consequences, which are almost irrecoverable. Hence we see a world almost entirely corrupt, and even great numbers of those who pretend to salvation, living in the practice of daily frauds, injustice, and oppressions; in most notorious disorders of prodigality, pride, self-love, and intemperance: and yet all generally persuading themselves that things are well enough. Thus blind and deluded they go on, till the entrance into eternity opens their eyes.

And how will you escape this misfortune; being equally subject to the same misery with others, of deceiving yourself? You have no other means to prevent it, but by making choice of that divine light, which is this day offered you, even Christ Himself. Beg therefore earnestly, that He will ever be a light to you: commit yourself to His guidance: have great confidence in His assistance; begin nothing without Him; submit with humility and obedience to all the ways of His commands and providence; and be ever on the watch, that no consideration of yourself, or the world, may draw you out of this way. Beg of Jesus, to let His light go before you, and to give you so sincere and docile a heart, as ever to follow where He directs." The Catholic Year by Rev. Fr. John Gother

Tradition: the churching of women

• Some traditional customs of the church can raise hackles. One of those of recent memory is something called “the churching of women.” Many people — incorrectly — believed that women were not allowed to return to Mass after childbirth because of some impurity on their part. While no longer common in the church, this ritual took place until the liturgical changes after Vatican II in the early 1970s and involved the return of mothers to the celebration of Mass after the birth of a child. Why women stayed away from church after a birth? Compass, Official publication Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin  By Patricia Kasten | Catholic News Service | February 1, 2015

• "Instruction for women after Childbirth: "Churching of women"
  
  
  The law of purification in the Old Testament, it is true, no longer applies to Christian women, because the Church has done away with Jewish ceremonies. But the spirit and intention of that law the Church would yet have complied with. She permits women, therefore, to remain at home, with a good conscience, for six weeks after childbirth, or so long as circumstances may require, without attending divine service, in order to care for their health. This permission is, at the same time, an excellent admonition:

- to women: that, in order to their recovery, they should refrain from anger, from exposure, from hard labor, from injurious food;

- to men: not to refuse their wives during this period, set apart by God Himself under the Old Law, the rest and attention which their nature requires.

But when this time is past the Church desires that women, should, after the example of Mary, repair to the church with their children, to procure the blessing of the priest, to give thanks to God for their safe delivery, to dedicate their children to Him, and to implore of Him, with the priest, grace to bring up their offspring in piety and holiness. In this consists the so-called "churching of women"; and, from what has been said, it is evident, not only that it contains nothing to be ashamed of, but that it should by no means be omitted by such as desire God's blessing. "
Goffine's Devout instructions on the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays and holydays:1896

"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.

We must then pray during these days more than at any other time, giving ourselves up to sighs and to tears, so as to merit by the bitterness of our repentance, to return to the innocence we lost in our first parents. Let us weep then on the way, so as to rejoice at its end. Let us pass along the arena of this life so as to merit the awards awaiting us at its end. Let us not be like foolish travelers, who, forgetting their country, get attached to their place of exile and remain loitering on the way to their home. Let us not be like the senseless people who look not for the medicine which will cure their deadly sickness. Let us run to the healer of our diseases, saying to him, " Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak  heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled." Then our Physician will forgive us our sins. He will cure our sickness. He will shower down on us his choicest blessings.

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