Sexagesima Sunday
12 February 2023
St. Dominic, Canton
Praised be Jesus Christ!
Last Sunday for
Septuagesima I was in central Italy, assisting in choir at the conventual Mass
of the monastery in Norcia, the birthplace of St. Benedict and St. Scolastica. The
young monk preached a very good homily on preparing ourselves for Lent already
in Septuagesima by doing proper and good penance. His basic message was that we
should be serious about Lenten penance, by doing so in a measured or balanced way.
He admonished the faithful present at Sunday Mass and the monks as well not to
overdo it by inventing their own penances and hardships. He told them simply to
go by the rule. It was a very Catholic message. This Sunday, Sexagesima Sunday the
second of the three Sundays of Septuagesima at the heart of our pre-Lent, is a
very good time to address another topic which should be central to our being
Catholic. It is the role of suffering in our lives, in the lives of us God’s
chosen ones.
In his
meditation quoted for this Sunday in BENEDICTUS, The Traditional Catholic
Companion, dom Benedict Bauer (d. 1963) puts it this way. He says:
“St. Paul tells us that he who
would serve Christ must undergo hardships of all kinds, and be prepared to
fight the good fight for Christ. He must not expect to find his way to Christ
by an easy way, but by way of hardships, self-denial, toil, patience in suffering,
fidelity under temptation, and in an unwavering reliance on supernatural grace.”
Today’s
epistle is quite a long passage from 2 Corinthians in which St. Paul
illustrates that very point by describing all the hardships he faced, the accidents
like shipwrecks, as well as the brutal persecution and opposition he had to
face as part of his life for the sake of the Gospel. My hope would be that you too
can embrace all sorts of trials in life without seeing them as excluding you
from God’s love. Apart from the ordinary things which come our ways as faithful
Catholics, I think you know that I am talking about the harassment from some of
the highest authorities in Rome and elsewhere which comes your way as
traditional Catholics. This week we even had a bizarre story about the FBI
taking that stance by Rome as their cue to pursue traditional Catholics and
people who carry rosaries as suspected terrorists. I guess you might say we are
keeping good company with St. Paul: “Brethren, you gladly suffer the foolish;
whereas yourselves are wise. For you suffer if a man bring you into bondage, if
a man devour you, if a man take from you, if a man be lifted up, if a man
strike you in the face… forty stripes less one… beaten with rods… stoned… in
perils of waters… robbers… in hunger… Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is
scandalized, and I am not on fire?” St.
Paul!
It is the Old
Testament figure of Job who in his great misfortune best sums up what our
attitude toward unmerited suffering should be: “The Lord gave and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Septuagesima
and this Sexagesima Sunday in particular can be, at least I hope and pray that it
will be a teaching for you about how God can and does manifest His love for you
in this life, regardless of the misfortune which may come your way. Pope St.
John Paul II makes this point forcefully in his Apostolic Letter of 1984 Salvifici
Doloris (On Redemptive Suffering), written for the Year of Redemption. He
starts off by quoting St. Paul [Col. 1, 23-24].
“If so ye continue in the
faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which
you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven:
whereof I Paul am made a minister. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and
fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh,
for his body, which is the church…” The Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version (p. 3142). Catholic Way
Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Now
penance (last Sunday’s message) is something we take on, first and foremost, out
of obedience to the Church’s direction. Suffering is something else and is not
really reasonable from a human point of view. That is why toward the end of the
Book of Job God calls Job out for protesting the terrible hardships and loss
which had come his way. How can we know God’s will for us? What might He permit
us to endure? Honestly, we cannot be sure, we cannot know entirely. In
traditional circles we hear and read a lot about the Kingship of Christ and
about the social implications of His Reign. But acknowledging Christ’s Kingship
over all does not mean that we can place the Lord Jesus on a golden throne. Rather
we must seek Him with the Blessed Mother and St. John and with them we bend the
knee before Him lifted high upon His Cross on Calvary. Christ’s glory is in His
being lifted up upon the Cross, a sign of scandal and contradiction for Jews
and Gentiles alike.
Even
if that Cross and the part of it which is ours weighs heavily upon you, bear
it, embrace it with Christ our King! In preparation for Lent, spend this week
with St. Paul, trying to make your hardships your boast! Sorting out my life
from the point of view of our Gospel parable of the sower and the seed which
does not always fall on good ground, I may think that when I have done my
homework of prayer and study, of fasting and abstinence as directed in Church
law, of avoiding temptation and rooting out bad habits, preparing the good
soil, if you wish, then I’ve got it made. St. Paul and the Church remind us
that even good soil demands labor of us and that good yield does not come without
its share of sweat from our brow.
So
then, very simply with St. Paul rejoice this pre-Lent and Lent for your share
of suffering with the King! Suffering is the lot of the apostle together with
his Lord.
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