Reflections on the Via Dolorosa, the Via Crucis (2024)

Our Lord walked the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, on Good Friday as He carried that Cross that our sins had imposed so unjust upon Him. He willingly embraced His Cross so as to pay back in His Sacred Humanity the debt that was owed to Him in His Infinity as God, to re-open the Gates of Heaven that had been closed by Adam’s sin and to stretch out His arms on the horizontal beam of the Cross so as to embrace all men for all time to lift them up on the vertical beam to the Father in Heaven in Spirit and in Truth. Whether any one human being cooperates with the graces won for his immortal soul on the wood of the Holy Cross is up to the free will of that person. We do know, however, that God wants us to cooperate with the graces, made possible for us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, and to be conscious of the fact that our lives might very well be demanded of us this very night. Are we ready to make an accounting of our lives at the moment of our Particular Judgments?

Although the practice of praying the Way of Cross is one that should be kept throughout Lent, we should be particularly mindful of the need to do as we approach Holy Week in just two weeks from today, that is, on Sunday, April 14, 2019! This Laetare Sunday, therefore, provides us with an opportunity to walk the Way of Sorrows, that is, the Way of the Cross, that is actually our royal road to victory. One of the many good spiritual practices that we should have resolved to make at the beginning of Lent twenty-five days ago was to pray the Way of the Cross daily. There are many excellent sources of meditation for the Stations of the Cross. The one that is most familiar to Catholics belongs to the great Doctor of Moral Theologians, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori. Not to be overlooked, however, are the wonderful set of reflections written by John Henry Cardinal Newman (Newman’s Way of the Cross). I came upon these for the first time in 1980. They are deeply inspiring and can be put to memory if they are done faithfully every day. Cardinal Newman’s meditations provide excellent food for prayer during the Easter Triduum of Our Lord’s Passion and Death and I cannot recommend them enough.

Without prejudice to these–and other–excellent meditations on the Way of Cross and without seeking for one moment to substitute the reflections that follow for those meditations, I would like to present a few supplemental thoughts about each of the Stations of the Cross that might be of some help as we make our way through the Week of Weeks that is now almost upon us as a preparation for the Easter Season, which lasts ten days longer than Lent so as to signify that the joys of eternal blessedness in Heaven last forever. Our pilgrimage here on earth, even if it lasts one hundred years, is a blip in time by comparison.

I. Jesus is Condemned to Death

Our sins transcended time, helping to motivate the crowd assembled beneath Pontius Pilate’s porch to cry out for the release of Barabbas, the Zealot who believed that the way to deal with the oppressive Romans was to fight them with the sword. In reality, though, each time we sin, whether mortally or venially, we are crying out for Barabbas. We are seeking the expedient path to ready luxury and/or spiritual sloth. We do not want to choose completely for Our Lord as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through the Catholic Church. We want to hold on to our selfishness, our impatience, our lack of zeal for souls, including our own, our materialism, and the compromises we have made with the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

Truth be told, however, we play the part of Pontius Pilate a lot in our lives, remaining silent, perhaps, when the truths of the Faith are under attack from our own family members and friends, preferring not to speak about the Faith, especially concerning the Social Reign of Christ the King, in “mixed company” so as to avoid suffering some career setback and/or loss of popularity. And we live at a time when the modern day successors of Pontius Pilate, Catholics in public life who support the evils of our day under cover of law, do indeed wash their hands of the blood of the innocent as they seek the approval of the crowd.

Remember, one of the first plebiscites in the history of the world took place on Pontius Pilate’s front porch. Truth Himself lost the vote. Political expediency, that is, pragmatism, won the day. The Just Judge of all men was condemned by an unjust vote of a jury of His own creatures, whom He was about to redeem on the wood of the Holy Cross. We must pray that He will be merciful to us when we are judged after we have breathed our last breath in this vale of tears, forgiving us for the role we played in His own condemnation and for the many times we have betrayed Him by acts and words and thoughts of commission and omission.

II. Jesus Takes Up and Carries His Most Holy Cross

Our Lord took up the instrument of our redemption, the Holy Cross, and carried it to Golgotha. Weakened by the loss of His Most Precious Blood and Crowning with thorns, having spent the night in jail, having had nothing to eat or drink for over twelve long hours, Our Lord resolves to carry His Cross despite His weakened condition.

Each one of our sins darkens our intellects and weakens our wills. Each one of our sins makes us all the more inclined to sin. There is only one way to repair the damage we do to our souls by means of our sins: the Cross. We must take up our crosses, great and small, on a daily basis, recognizing that there is nothing we suffer, whether physically or spiritually or emotionally, that is the equal of what the very, very least of our venial sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death. Who are we to complain or even whimper when some cross is visited upon us? Our Lord never permits us to suffer beyond our capacity. In His ineffable Mercy, you see, He never really makes us suffer as our sins truly deserve. We would die of sheer fright if we knew exactly how our sins had wounded Our Lord once in time and how they wound His Mystical Body, the Church, today. Mercifully, Our Lord gives us an opportunity to pay Him back in this mortal life for the debt that we owe Him for each one of our sins. Mercifully, Holy Mother Church permits us to gain indulgences for our souls and those of others. Those of us who are totally consecrated to Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart give her freely all of the merits our indulgenced acts we gain each day, trusting that she will apply some of those merits to benefit us now and at the hour of our deaths. Our Lady, who stood by the foot of her Divine Son’s Holy Cross so valiantly, helps us to carry our own crosses so that we can truly “lift high the Cross” as the great Lenten hymn reminds us.

There is no other path to Heaven than the Cross, which we are called to take up in our own lives and in the larger life of the Church in her human elements and in the world. Each cross that comes our way is perfectly fitted just for us. We can walk the royal road that leads to eternal victory as the sons of Mary Immaculate, never counting the cost and always considering a privilege to suffering with her and to offer it to her Divine Son through her Immaculate Heart.

III. Jesus Falls for the First Time

The weight of sins and the punishment they had already inflicted on Our Lord’s Sacred Humanity caused Him to fall for the first time as He walked the Via Dolorosa. He could have died right there if He had chosen to give up His spirit. He wanted to fulfill perfectly the Father’s will by redeeming us on the wood of the Holy Cross. He got up to continue to walk on the road to Calvary amidst the jeers and the hatred of the crowd, which just five days before had hailed him to the cheers of “Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord.”

Our merciful Lord has compassion on us erring sinners. He wants to rise up from our falls, whether venial or mortal, into sin, and to seek out His Divine Mercy in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Moreover, having been the recipients of such an unmerited, gratuitous gift as His sacramental absolution in the confessional, He expects us to be administrators of mercy, of forgiveness, to everyone else. That is, we must will the good of all other people, no matter how badly they have hurt us. We must pray for those who refuse to forgive us the wrongs we have done them, praying that there will be a happy reconciliation in eternity, please God we and they die in states of sanctifying grace. We must not only rise from our sins to try once again to scale the heights of sanctity with joy. We must rise from our pettiness and natural desire to hold grudges in order to pray for those from whom we are estranged and those who will only understand the intentions of our own hearts on the Last Day, when all of the just will be reconciled one unto the other.

Similarly, we can never permit the seemingly “heavy” weight of our daily crosses to crush our zeal for the Catholic Faith, including our zeal for the Cross itself. We must realize that Our Lord really meant it when He said:

Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light. (Mt. 11:29-30)

We can never permit ourselves to stay on the ground when we fall by means of sins or surrender to human discouragement, surrender to a loss of visible consolations in this vale of tears. We must rise up each day and walk the royal road of the cross anew without complaint and without hesitation.

IV. Jesus Meets His Most Afflicted Mother

The encounter between Our Lord and His Most Blessed Mother on the Via Dolorosa was truly heart-wrenching. The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which had been formed out of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, is consoled by the loving glance of Our Lady as she experiences her fourth dolor. The Son and His Blessed Mother suffered as one. There was a total communion of Hearts as the most perfect human being to have lived, the jewel of our race, Mary, grieved to see what our sins had caused her Divine Son, the Theandric Person, in the Sacred Humanity she had given Him by the power of the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation. Indeed, the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich recounts that Our Lady fainted as she saw what our sins had done to her Divine Son as He walked the Via Dolorosa.

How much do we continue to grieve Our Lady by means of our sins, by means of our lukewarmness, by means of our unwillingness to pray the Rosary well and to ask her, the Mediatrix of all graces, for all of the graces that we need to save our souls and to fulfill our duties in our freely chosen states-in-life? Do we really fly unto her, the Virgin of Virgins, to beg her to help us to undo the effects of sins on our sins by the patient carrying of our own daily crosses? Do we invoke her in times of trouble, both spiritual and temporal? Do we believe that she is all powerful with her Divine Son, that she will answer our prayers if we have total confidence in her intercessory power? Are we resolved never to grieve her again by means of our sins?

No fully human being has ever suffered as Mary suffered. No mother has ever suffered as Mary suffered. None of our sufferings and sacrifices can compare to Mary’s, who so loved the Father’s will that she watched her Divine Son be manhandled by means of our sins and ingratitude throughout the course of His Passion and Death. The way to Jesus Our Lord runs through Mary Our Blessed Mother. We must resolve not only to grieve her no more by means of our sins. We must resolve to love her perfectly as her consecrated slaves, resolving to make her known and loved by all men, generously dispensing her Miraculous Medal and her Green Scapular to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Our Lady converted the Catholic-hating Jew named Alphonse Ratisbonne on January 20, 1842, by appearing to him in the Church of San Andrea delle Fratte in the image that is impressed upon the Miraculous Medal, which Ratisbonne had been given to wear by his brother Theodore, who had converted to the Faith. Why do we not think that Our Lady will convert us by means of these sacramentals that she has given so mercifully for the salvation of the souls of the lost and the confused, the souls of infidels and heretics and schismatics and apostates?

Mary must be our constant companion during this Lent–and during every day of our lives, remembering her by various invocations and short prayers, making sure to honor her daily by praying her Most Holy Rosary and meditating upon her Seven Dolors.

V. Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus to Carry the Cross

Mary’s prayers won for Jesus the reluctant help of Simeon of Cyrene as He carried His Cross. Our Lord did not need Simon’s help. However, He accepted Simon’s help to give us an example that we must follow: that we must never be slow to come to the spiritual or temporal assistance of others, especially as they are carrying some heavy cross.

It is part of slothful human nature to be slow to perform the Spiritual and the Corporal Works of Mercy. We are so reluctant to embrace even the smallest of inconveniences to serve our brothers and sisters in Our Lord, forgetting the words of Our Lord, Who said:

Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me. (Mt. 25:40)

We must especially seek to serve the spiritual needs of our family members and friends, never ceasing to invite them into a deeper union with Our Lord through His true Church, especially by means of embracing Our Lord’s perennial teaching without any hint of compromise with the ethos of conciliarism by fleeing from the false shepherds of the false church who have done so much harm to so many souls. For the only way to be able to carry our daily crosses, be they spiritual or temporal, is as believing Catholics who recognize that the Cross is the means of our redemption, that our individual crosses are required in strict justice and are part of God’s merciful plan for our salvation. This is how we can truly help our family members and friends carry their crosses.

Moreover, we must learn from Our Lord to accept the help of others when it is offered to us. We must not be so proud or seemingly self-reliant as to refuse to accept the generosity of others as they seek to help us carry our own crosses. We must accept the help of others with grace, recognizing that we cannot deny to others the possibility of gaining merits from assisting us. We can be a source of grace for others just as Our Lord was for Simon of Cyrene and his two sons, Rufus and Alexander.

VI. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

Saint Veronica wiped the face of Our Lord as He walked the Via Dolorosa. His Most Holy Face was bruised and swollen from having been slapped and beaten. It was covered with blood, sweat and spittle. That Holy Face, which radiated with bright beams the purity and glory of His Sacred Divinity when He was born in Bethlehem on Christmas Day, was marred beyond recognition. Our sins were responsible for the marring of Our Lord’s Most Holy Face.

Our souls radiated with the bright beams of the very inner life of the Blessed Trinity when at the moment they were baptized. Our sins, however, have marred and obscured the baptismal innocence of our souls, thus requiring us to have them bathed repeatedly in the Sacred of Penance in the Most Precious Blood of the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world. We must beg Our Lord to leave an impression of His Most Holy Face on our own souls just as He left an impression of It on Saint Veronica’s veil. We want to see the face of Christ in all others and for others to see His face of true charity, which wills the good of each person, on our own faces. We want to remake the world in the image of the Most Holy Face of Jesus.

We should take to heart the Prayer of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus to the Most Holy Face of Jesus:

O Jesus, who in Thy bitter Passion didst become “the most abject of men, a man of sorrows”, I venerate Thy Sacred Face whereon there once did shine the beauty and sweetness of the Godhead; but now it has become for me as if it were the face of a leper! Nevertheless, under those disfigured features, I recognize Thy infinite Love and I am consumed with the desire to love Thee and make Thee loved by all men. The tears which well up abundantly in Thy sacred eyes appear to me as so many precious pearls that I love to gather up, in order to purchase the souls of poor sinners by means of their infinite value. O Jesus, whose adorable Face ravishes my heart, I implore Thee to fix deep within me Thy divine image and to set me on fire with Thy Love, that I may be found worthy to come to the contemplation of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen.

We should also take to hearts the words of Our Lord to Sister Pierina, who was told by Our Lord and His Blessed Mother to promote devotion to His Holy Face:

I firmly wish that My face reflecting the intimate pains of My soul, the suffering and love of My, be more honored! Whoever gazes upon Me already consoles Me.

VII. Jesus Falls for a Second Time

Our sins caused Our Lord to fall a second time. Our Lord had thrown the devil off of a cliff at the end of His forty days of prayer and fasting in the desert. The devil had his way with Our Lord, thrusting Him down under the weight of our sins the first time in retribution for his having been cast out of Heaven and thrusting Him down this second time under the weight of our sins in retribution for Our Lord’s refusal to worship Him during the those forty days in the desert.

Oh, we fall so many times. Our faith fails us so many times. We trust in our own strength–or that of other mere mortals, not realizing that Our Lord really meant it when He said:

I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. (Jn. 15:5)

We will fall and we will fail in our merely human, naturalistic efforts to seek to resolve problems in our own life and the world without referencing Our Lord and the Deposit of Faith He has entrusted solely to the Catholic Church, without relying upon His sanctifying graces to root out the grip that sin has on our souls. We must walk the rocky, frequently dangerous road that leads to the Narrow Gate of Life Himself, being willing to get up when we fall, to accept humiliations and misunderstandings in the spirit that Our Lord Himself accepted them, to avoid even the slightest temptation to walk the smooth road that leads to the wide gate of eternal perdition. We must never give the devil dominion over any aspect of our lives, cleaving to Our Lord through everything He has revealed to the Catholic Church, including His Social Teaching, at all times without hint of compromise with the spirit of the world.

VIII. Jesus Speaks to and Consoles the Daughters of Jerusalem

And there followed him a great multitude of people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us. For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry? (Lk. 23:27-31)

Yes, we must weep over our sins.

There was the story of a man some years ago who was grieving for himself in a time personal sorrow. He had the sensus Catholicus, however, to utter the following words as he cried, “Dear Lord, if only I grieved for my sins as I am grieving for myself right now.”

A priest once said, “I wish I could spend the rest of my life in a monastery grieving for my sins.”

As was noted earlier, none of us knows how much our sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His fearful Passion and Death. We must seek to do penance for our sins and to live penitentially, especially now during this season of penance. We must embrace a spirit of Holy Poverty, seeking to be enriched spiritually and not materially, to live as the Holy Family of Nazareth lived, content with modesty of means rather than desiring to covet the most luxurious lifestyle imaginable.

Our Lord consoled the daughters of Jerusalem. We must console His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary with our acts of penance, offered in love for what He gave us on the wood of the Holy Cross: the possibility of eternal life in Heaven.

IX. Jesus Falls for a Third Time

Exhausted by His lack of sleep and nutrition and hydration, spent by the loss of His Most Precious Blood and the effort that it took to carry His Cross, Our Lord fell for a third time on the Via Dolorosa. He could have died then and there. To fulfill perfectly His Co-Equal Father’s Holy Will, He lifted Himself up as He was derided by the Roman soldiers and jeered by the crowd. He had to go on to Calvary to win back for us on the tree of the Holy Cross what was lost for us on the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: eternal life.

We must ask Our Lord give us the supernatural strength that we need every day to rise up out of our spiritual slumber and to persevere, especially when things appear, humanly speaking, to be the most difficult. We live in the midst of unimaginable difficulties within the true Church in her human elements. The easiest thing to do would be to quit, to think that all is lost. We must rise up each day and simply be about the business of saving our souls as Catholics, offering up all of our personal and ecclesiastical difficulties to Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart with total confidence and joy.

The devil knows that he will be shut up in Hell for all eternity at the end of time, which is one of the reasons he used the weight of our sins to cast Our Lord to the ground, bleeding and prostrate, for yet a third time. The adversary, who prowls around the world like a roaring lion seeking to devour souls, as Saint Peter reminded us:

Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. (1 Pt. 5:8)

It is the devil who wants us to quit and to be discouraged in the midst of difficulties. Relying upon Our Lord’s graces that come to us through the loving hands of Our Lady, we must walk to Calvary every day of our lives. There is just no other way to live if one want to live forever in Heaven.

X. Jesus is Stripped of His Garment

Our Lord arrived at Calvary and is stripped of the only thing He owned, His tunic, exposing His Body to great pain as entire pieces of His Flesh are ripped off with the tunic. He is subjected to further mockery as His Holy Body, lacerated by the scourging and bruised with the blows He received from the Roman soldiers, is exposed to public view.

The figurative tunic that covers the stench of our own sins will be exposed to public view on the Last Day. May it be the case that the true state of our soul will not be one of mockery and derision by those who have adjudged just by Our Lord. May it be the case by the graces of Our Lady that our souls will be healed of any and all wounds caused by our sins. We must keep this ever in mind when we pray at the Tenth Station. Our Lord’s Holy Body, Which was wounded by our sins, stood as an object of derision and mockery. We must strive with all of our being to cooperate with the graces won for us on Calvary so that we will die in such a way that our souls, having been purified if need be in Purgatory, will shine as brilliantly as Our Lord’s Glorified Body did on Easter Sunday.

We must also remember that we must be detached from all of the possessions and people and places of this passing vale of tears. We must be attached to God’s Holy Will alone as He has manifested It through the Catholic Church. It matters not if we lose all of our friends and if we lose all of our possessions and lack even a fit dwelling place as we make our pilgrimage here in the Church Militant to eternity. It matters only that we are attached to God through His Holy Church by remaining always in a state of Sanctifying Grace. We must also be stripped of our own selfishness and pride, willing to die to self more and more each day, especially during this season of Lent, so as to let Our Lord live more and more in every fiber of our being.

XI. Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

Our sins nailed Our Lord to the gibbet that is the Holy Cross. The soldiers thrust His wounded back onto the vertical beam, causing great pain as splintered pieces of wood went directly into the lacerations caused by the scourging. Our sins pounded those nails into His Holy Hands, with which He had instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Holy Orders the night before, to the horizontal beam of the Cross. The nails were pounded in at the juncture of the wrist and the hand, severing the median nerve, which played like a violin against the nails, causing unspeakable torture throughout Our Lord’s Holy Body, as examinations of the Shroud of Turin have revealed. Our sins then nailed Our Lord’s Holy Feet, which had walked the face of the earth to teach and preach and perform miracles, to the base of the Holy Cross.

Our Lord was lifted high on the Cross. Just as Moses lifted the bronze serpent high in the desert to heal those who had been bitten by the seraph serpents, so are we healed by looking at the One Who was lifted up high on the Holy Cross on the heights of Golgotha, the Skull Place. He extended His arms in the gesture of the Eternal High Priest on the horizontal beam of the Cross to lift us up on the vertical beam to the Father in Spirit and in Truth.

We must be willing to be nailed to our own crosses every day. The great saints prayed for crosses. Imagine that? They prayed for crosses, knowing that the only way to save their own souls and the souls of others was to suffer with Our Lord by being nailed to Cross day in and day out.

As he was dying a few years ago, one priest asked the priest who had come to administer the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to him why he, the dying priest, had to suffer so much. The other priest’s was very simple: “Because souls are expensive.”

Yes, souls are expensive. Their redemption was won by Our Lord’s being nailed to the wood of the Holy Cross. We must therefore die to self for love of Him as He died on the Cross for love of us, making it possible for us to know the crown of eternal glory in Paradise.

XII. Jesus Dies on the Cross

Here it is: the supreme moment in the history of the world. The moment for which the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity had become Incarnate in Our Lady’s virginal and immaculate womb by the power of the Holy Ghost. The moment at which the New and Eternal Covenant that had been instituted at the Last Supper was ratified. The moment at which the Old Covenant was superceded forever when the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The moment in which the New Adam won back for on the tree of the Holy Cross what was lost for us by the first Adam on the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. The moment in which what appeared to those who lacked Faith to be Our Lord’s defeat but was actually His supreme victory over the power of sin and eternal death: His Bloody Sacrifice of the Cross to atone once and for all for human sins.

Only a handful of people stood beneath the Holy Cross to console Our Lord as He breathed His last. The Blessed Mother, she who is the Queen of Martyrs , our Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate, and the young man given to her to be her son, Saint John the Evangelist, were there. So was Saint Mary Magdalene. So were a handful of others. The vast majority of those present as Our Lord died and the centurion’s lance pierced His Side to issue forth Blood and Water, the sacramental elements of the Church, were there to goad Him to the last. Others passed by in utter indifference as they went about their business as usual, not realizing that their own redemption was being wrought on the wood of the Cross upon which hung the Saviour of the world.

Our sins put us on the wrong side of the Cross on Good Friday. We were in the crowd goading Our Lord. We were “passing by,” too busy to notice the Sacrifice that was taking place for our sakes.

In His ineffable Mercy, however, Our Lord permits us to be with Him on the right side of the Cross every time we assist at Holy Mass, which is the unbloody perpetuation of that one Sacrifice of the Cross. The Mass, although it takes place at a given time in a given place at the hands of a given priest, is timeless, which is one of the reasons the sanctuary of the Church is set off from the nave. As the Mass is the timeless perpetuation of Calvary in an unbloody manner, its rites must reflect the transcendent mystery of Our Lord’s Redemptive Act, not the passing fads of the time in the name of the slogan called “inculturation of the Gospel.” The Immemorial Mass of Tradition clearly communicates this sense of the transcendent, the immutable, the timeless. The Protestan and Masonic Novus Ordo worship service does not. Anyone who does not see this is steeped in self-deception. Something that is premised on lies and misrepresentations cannot clearly communicate what originated with God Himself. It admits of various legitimate options and adaptations, to say nothing of unchecked improvisations that are undertaken precisely to undermine the sacrificial nature of the Mass and the sacerdotal nature of the priesthood in the minds of ordinary Catholics.

Indeed, the very ethos of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service eschews the spirit of penance and mortification that should mark the interior life of any serious Catholic at all times, especially so during Lent. There are only two days appointed for obligatory fasting in the Novus Ordo, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. This bias against penance and self-denial is found in Paragraph 15 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal:

The same awareness of the present state of the world also influenced the use of texts from very ancient tradition. It seemed that this cherished treasure would not be harmed if some phrases were changed so that the style of language would be more in accord with the language of modern theology and would faithfully reflect the actual state of the Church’s discipline. Thus there have been changes of some expressions bearing on the evaluation and use of the good things of the earth and of allusions to a particular form of outward penance belonging to another age in the history of the Church. (General Instruction to the Roman Missal, Paragraph Fifteen.)

Who says that forms of outward penance belong “another age in the history of the Church”?

Not God.

Not His Catholic Church.

Only prideful men who pose as shepherds and who have convinced most Catholics in the world that the practices of the “past” were “bad” and that we must do “positive” things in Lent rather than “negative” things such as fasting and denying ourselves various legitimate pleasures dare to assert such a thing.

Not God.

Not His Catholic Church.

We must love the Mass as Our Lord taught it to the Apostles before He Ascended to the Father’s right hand in glory. It is the sole means by which we can access to Our Beloved before we see Him face to face in Heaven, please God we die in a state of sanctifying grace. We keep Him company at the foot of the Cross in every Mass with Our Lady, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Mary Magdalene–and all of the angels and the saints, each of whom is present mystically. If we want to appreciate the fullness of Our Lord’s love for us we must cleave to Him in the Mass and make whatever sacrifices we need to make to assist exclusively at the Mass that is all about God from the moment a priest of the Roman Rite enters the sanctuary and addresses God, not us, and recites theJudica me (Psalm 42), except in Masses for the dead and during Passiontide, to the time he recites, at least during most Masses of the year, the Gospel of the Incarnation at the end of Mass.

A deep and abiding love for the Mass, which is one of the fruits of the Twelfth Station of the Cross, will lead us to spend time with Our Lord in fervent prayer before His Real Presence. If we want to spend all eternity with Our Lord in Heaven, isn’t it a pretty good idea to want to spend time with Him here as He remains for us the Prisoner of Love in the tabernacle, where Our Lady, the Mediatrix of all graces and Co-Redemptrix of the world, who suffered the fifth of her seven dolors at the foot of the Holy Cross, stands with us in supplication?

XIII. The Body of Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross

Our Lord’s Body is taken down from the Cross and placed into the loving arms of Our Lady, who has just given birth to us spiritually in great pain as the adopted sons and daughters of the living God. She suffers the sixth of her seven dolors as the One Whose infant Body she cradled in her tender arms in Bethlehem is now placed in her arms without any life in Him at all. She weeps over the sins that caused Him to suffer. She weeps over the fact that her Divine Son had died for many men in vain, those who would not even minimally say “My Jesus, Mercy” as they breathed their last.

Our Lady herself the recounted the events of the taking of her Divine Son's dead Body from the Cross as recorded in Venerable Mary of Agreda's New English Edition of The Mystical City of God:

730. The evening of that day of the Parasceve was already approaching, and the loving Mother had as yet no solution, which She desired so much, to the difficulty of the burial of her deceased Son Jesus. But the Lord ordained that the tribulations of his most tender Mother would be relieved by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, whom He had inspired with the thought of caring for the burial of their Master. They were both just men and disciples of the Lord, although not of the seventy-two, for they had not as yet openly confessed themselves as disciples for fear of the Jews, who suspected and hated as enemies all those who followed Christ and acknowledged Him as Master. The mandate of the divine will regarding the burial of her Son had not been manifested to the most prudent Virgin, and due to the difficulty which presented itself her sorrowful predicament increased such that She saw no way out by her own diligence. In her affliction She raised her eyes to heaven and said: “Eternal Father and my Lord, by the condescension of thy goodness and infinite wisdom I was raised to the exalted dignity of being the Mother of thy Son, and by that same bounty of an immense God Thou hast permitted me to nurse Him at my breast, nourish Him, and accompany Him to his death. Now it is incumbent upon me as his Mother to give honorable burial to his sacred body, though my strength can only manage to desire it and my heart is torn because I cannot attain it. My God, I beseech Thy Majesty to dispose by thy power the means to execute it.”

731. This prayer the most pious Mother offered up after the sacred body of the Lord was pierced by the lance. Soon after She saw another group of men coming toward Calvary with ladders and other apparatus seemingly for the purpose of taking from the Cross her priceless Treasure; but since She did not know their intentions She was afflicted anew with apprehension due to the cruelty of the Jews, and turning to St. John She said: “My son, what may be the object of these people in coming with all these instruments?” The Apostle answered: “Do not fear those who are coming, my Lady, for they are Joseph and Nicodemus with some of their servants, all of them friends and servants of thy divine Son and my Lord.” Joseph was just in the eyes of the Most High (Jn. 19:38), a noble decurion in the employment of the government, a member of the council, who as is given us to understand in the Gospel had not consented to the resolves and the proceedings of the murderers of Christ (Lk. 23:50-1), and who had recognized Him as the true Messiah. Although Joseph had been a secret disciple of the Lord, yet at his death, in consequence of the efficacious influence of the Redemption, he openly confessed his adherence. Setting aside all fear of the envy of the Jews, and caring nothing for the power of the Romans, he went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus (Mk. 15:43) in order to take Him down from the Cross and give Him honorable burial. He openly maintained that He was innocent and the true Son of God, as testified by the miracles of his life and death.

732. Pilate dared not refuse the request of Joseph, but gave him full permission to dispose of the dead body of Jesus as he thought fit. With this permission Joseph left the house of the judge and called upon Nicodemus. He too was a just man, learned in divine and human letters and in the Holy Scriptures as is evident in what St. John related of him when he visited Christ our Lord at night in order to hear his doctrine (Jn. 3:2). Joseph provided the winding sheets and burial cloths for the body of Jesus, while Nicodemus bought about one hundred pounds of the spices (Jn. 19:39) which the Jews were accustomed to use in the burial of distinguished men (Mt. 27:59). Provided with these and other necessities they went to Calvary. They were accompanied by their servants and some other pious and devout persons in whom likewise the blood shed for all by the crucified God had produced its salutary effects.

733. They approached most holy Mary, who in the company of St. John and the holy women stood in inconceivable sorrow at the foot of the Cross. Instead of a salute, their sorrow at the sight of so painful a spectacle as that of the divine Crucified was roused to such vehemence and bitterness that Joseph and Nicodemus remained for a time prostrate at the feet of the Queen, with all of them at the Cross amid tears and sights without speaking a word. All of them wept, crying out and lamenting bitterly until the invincible Queen raised them from the ground and animated and consoled them, whereupon they saluted Her in humble compassion. The most observant Mother thanked them for their kindness and the service they would render to their God, Lord and Master in giving burial to his deceased body, and offered them the reward for that work in his name. Joseph of Arimathea answered: “Already, our Lady, do we feel in the secret of our hearts the sweet delight of the divine Spirit, who has moved us to such love that we could never merit it or succeed in explaining it.” Then they took off their mantles and with their own hands Joseph and Nicodemus placed the ladders to the Holy Cross. On these they ascended in order to detach the sacred body, the glorious Mother being very near, and St. John and Magdalen in attendance. It seemed to Joseph that the sorrow of the heavenly Lady would be renewed when the sacred body would be lowered and She would touch Him, and therefore he advised the Apostle to take Her aside in order to divert Her. But St. John, who knew better the invincible Heart of the Queen, answered that from the beginning of the Passion She had been present at all the torments of the Lord, and that She would not leave Him until the end because She venerated Him as God and loved Him as the Son of her womb.

734. Nevertheless they begged Her for her own good to retire for a short time while they lowered her Master from the Cross. But the great Lady responded: “My dearest masters, since I was present when my sweetest Son was nailed to the Cross, fear not to allow me to be present at his taking down, for this act of such piety, though it shall hurt anew my heart, yet shall give me relief in my grief since I shall again hold Him and gaze upon Him.” Thereupon they began to arrange to take down the body. First they detached the crown from the head, laying bare the lacerations and deep wounds it had caused. They handed it down with great reverence, and amid abundant tears placed it in the hands of the sweetest Mother. She received it prostrate on her knees, and in deepest adoration bathed it with her tears, permitting the sharp thorns to wound her virginal countenance in pressing it to her face. She asked the eternal Father to inspire due veneration toward the sacred thorns in those Christians who would obtain possession of them in future times.

735. In imitation of the Mother, St. John with the pious women and the other faithful there present also adored it, and this they also did with the nails, which were first handed to most holy Mary for veneration and afterward to the bystanders. Then the great Lady placed Herself on her knees and held the unfolded cloth in her outstretched arms ready to receive the dead body of her Son. In order to assist Joseph and Nicodemus, St. John supported the head of Christ and Mary Magdalen the feet, and thus they tearfully and reverently placed Him into the arms of his sweetest Mother. This was for Her an event of equal compassion and joy, for in seeing Him covered with wounds, and his beauty disfigured, which had been greater than all the sons of men (Ps. 44:3), the sorrows of her most chaste Heart were again renewed, while in holding Him in her arms and at her bosom her incomparable sorrow was rejoiced and her love satiated by the possession of her Treasure. She looked upon Him with supreme worship and reverence, shedding tears of blood. In union with Her, as He rested in her arms, all the multitude of her attendant Angels worshipped Him, though this act was hidden from the bystanders. Then first St. John, and after him all those present in their turn, adored the sacred Body. In the meanwhile the most prudent Mother, seated on the ground, held Him in her arms so they could satisfy their devotion.

736. In all these proceedings our great Queen acted with such heavenly wisdom and prudence that She excited the admiration of angels and men, for her words were of great deliberation, most sweet in her caresses and compassion for her deceased Son, most tender in her pity, and mysterious in what they expressed and comprehended. Her sorrow exceeded all that could ever be felt by mortals. She moved the hearts to compassion and tears; She enlightened all so they could realize such a divine sacrament now transpiring. Above all this, without excess or failure in what She had to do, She maintained a humble majesty of countenance in the serenity of her face despite the painful sorrow She was suffering. With uniform adaptation to the circumstances She spoke to her beloved Son, to the eternal Father, to the Angels, to the bystanders, and to the whole human race, for whose Redemption the Lord had undergone his Passion and Death. I shall not detain myself in specifying the most prudent and sorrowful words of the great Lady on this occasion, for Christian piety will be able to conceive many of them, and it is not possible for me to pause for each one of these mysteries.

737. Some time passed during which the Sorrowful Mother held at her bosom the deceased Jesus, and since evening was far advancing St. John and Joseph besought Her to allow the burial of her Son and God to proceed. The most prudent Mother permitted it, and then they embalmed the sacred body using all one hundred pounds of the spices and aromatic ointments brought by Nicodemus (Jn. 19:40). Thus anointed the deified body was placed on a bier in order to be carried to the sepulchre. The heavenly Queen, most attentive in her zealous love, called from heaven many choirs of Angels, who together with her Guardian Angels accompanied the burial of their Creator. Immediately they descended from on high in shapes visible to their Queen and Lady, though not to the rest. A procession of heavenly spirits was formed and another of men, and the sacred body was borne along by St. John, Joseph, Nicodemus and the centurion, who had confessed the Lord and now assisted at his burial. They were followed by the Blessed Mother, by Mary Magdalen, the Marys, and the other pious women, disciples of Christ. In addition to these a great number of the faithful joined them, for many had been moved by divine light and had come to Calvary after the lance thrust. All of them thus ordered processed in silence and in tears to a nearby garden where Joseph had hewn into the rock a new grave in which nobody had as yet been deposited or buried (Jn. 19:41). In this most blessed sepulchre they placed the sacred body of Jesus. Before they closed it up with the heavy stone the devout and prudent Mother adored Christ anew, causing the admiration of men and angels. All of them imitated Her, adoring the crucified Savior now resting in his grave. Thereupon they closed the sepulchre with the stone, which according to the Evangelist was very heavy (Mt. 27:60).

738. At the same time the graves which had opened at the death of Christ were again closed, for among the other mysteries of their opening up was this, that these graves as it were unsealed themselves in order to receive Him whom the Jews had repudiated when He was alive and their Benefactor. At the command of the Queen many Angels remained to guard the sepulchre where She had left her Heart. In the same order and silence in which they had come they now returned to Calvary. The heavenly Mistress of virtues approached the Holy Cross and worshipped it in deepest reverence. In this Joseph and all the rest of the mourners followed Her. It was already late and the sun had set when the great Lady went from Calvary to the house of the Cenacle, accompanied by those who had been at the burial. Leaving Her in the Cenacle with St. John, the Marys, and other companions, the others took leave of Her with great tears and sobs, asking Her to give them her blessing. The most humble and prudent Lady thanked them for their service they had performed for her most holy Son and the benefit She had received. She permitted them to depart with many hidden and interior favors, and the blessings of sweetness from her natural kindness and pious humility. (New English Edition of The Mystical City of God: Book Six: The Transfixion, Chapter XXIV.)

No Lent is well-lived unless one renews his total consecration to Our Divine Redeemer through Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, which was pierced with the sword of sorrow that had been prophesied by the aged Simeon at her Purification as her Divine Son was presented in the Temple. We must pray that Our Lady will receive our souls at the hour of our deaths as she received her Divine Son’s dead Body at the hour of His death on the wood of the Holy Cross, that we will not be one of those for whom her Divine Son had died in vain.

One of the ways we can console Our Lady is to promote the praying of her Seven Dolors. Our Lady said that great graces would be extended to us if we prayed her Seven Dolors and made them known to others. Our Lady pleaded with Saint Bernadette and she pleaded with the Fatima seers for us to do penance for our sins. This is an excellent way to do penance for our sins.

XIV. The Body of Jesus is Buried

And after these things, Joseph of Arimathea (because he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. (Jn. 19:38)

Our Lord was born in a cave that He did not own. His dead Body was buried in a cave that He did not own. Our Lady wrapped His infant Body in swaddling clothes. She wrapped His dead Body in the burial shroud.

The tombstone was sealed against the tomb. Our Lady had to say goodbye to her Divine Son until the Resurrection forty hours later on Easter Sunday. She had to keep a vigil in prayer as she grieved the death of her Son before He manifested Himself to her immediately after He rose from the dead. Saint John the Evangelist consoled her:

The other ten Apostles, however, lacking Our Lady’s Faith, hid in fright, not knowing what was to come next. Their own faith would not be strengthened until the saw Our Lord after the Resurrection, although Saint Thomas the Apostle would not take the word of his brother bishops: he wanted to see Our Lord and to put his fingers in His nail prints and to put his hand in His Wounded Side. Yes, they hid in fright.

We undergo a figurative “death,” if you will, every night, putting on a different set of clothes as we enter into, for however a long or short period of time, a period of suspended animation in sleep, which is a figure of death. If God’s will is for us to arise the following morning we do so as a figure of the first day of creation and the first day of our re-creation, that is, Easter Sunday. In other words, each day of our lives follows both the Order of Creation and the Order of Redemption, which is why Holy Mother Church teaches us to meditate on the Four Last Things before we go to bed each night: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. One day, you see, we will go to sleep only to wake up with the eyes of our soul at the moment of the Particular Judgment.

The burial of Our Lord’s Body, therefore, reminds us that we must be prepared for the day when our own mortal bodies will return to the dust of the earth. We receive ashes tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, to remind us of that very fact. It is thus incumbent upon us to be buried to the concerns of this passing world and to concentrate on participating in the glories of the Last Day, when the bodies of the just will rise up incorrupt and glorious and be reunited with their souls for all eternity in Heaven, gazing upon the splendor of the Beatific Vision of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The burial of Our Lord’s Body also reminds us that we must be patient as He manifests His Holy Will in our own lives and in the life of the Church. Our Lady kept a vigil for forty hours. We must keep a vigil in prayer during the forty days of Lent and during every day of our lives, understanding that Our Lord may very well restrain us from seeing any “resolution” to our current difficulties in this mortal life, that we, like the Apostles, who did not see the glory of Christendom with their own eyes, may not see the glory of a restored Christendom as the fruit of the Triumph of His Most Blessed Mother’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart with the eyes of the body. We must be content to work in cooperation with His ineffable graces for such a day and to receive an apostle’s reward when we die. And what better place to keep that vigil than in front of Our Lord Himself, where, as noted before, Our Lady herself awaits us to keep her company in prayer, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary.

This reflection contains nothing novel or profound. Indeed, it would be a bad thing if it were novel. This reflection is merely a review of some basic facts of the Faith that we must keep in mind and seek to live out more fully during this great season of penance that has yet three more weeks to run.

On Laetare Sunday, March 10, 2024

Today is Laetare Sunday, a day of rejoicing as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s Easter victory over the power of sin and eternal death is made manifest to the world yet again. The Gospel passage that is read at Holy Mass today provides us with Saint John the Evangelist’s account of Our Lord’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes, which is a prefiguring of the miracle of Transubstantiation that takes place every time the ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross is offered at the hands of a true priest.

Saint Augustine of Hippo’s reflection on this miracle is contained in a set of readings read at Matins in today’s Divine Office:

The miracles which our Lord Jesus Christ did were the very works of God, and they enlighten the mind of man by mean of things which are seen, that he may know more of God. God is Himself of such a Substance as eye cannot see, and the miracles, by the which He ruleth the whole world continually, and satisfieth the need of everything that He hath made, are by use become so common, that scarce any will vouchsafe to see that there are wonderful and amazing works of God in every grain of seed of grass. According to His mercy He kept some works to be done in their due season, but out of the common course and order of nature, that men might see them and be astonished, not because they are greater, but because they are rarer than those which they lightly esteem, since they see them day by day.

Or it is a greater miracle to govern the whole universe, than to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves of bread; and yet no man marvelleth at it. At the feeding of the five thousand, men marvel, not because it is a greater miracle than the other, but because it is rarer. For Who is He Who now feedeth the whole world, but He Who, from a little grain that is sown, maketh the fulness of the harvest? God worketh in both cases in one and the same manner. He Who of the sowing maketh to come the harvest, is He Who of the five barley loaves in His Hands made bread to feed five thousand men; for Christ's are the Hands which are able to do both the one and the other. He Who multiplieth the grains of corn multiplied the loaves, only not by committing them to the earth whereof He is the Maker.

This miracle, then, is brought to bear upon our bodies, that our souls may thereby be quickened; shown to our eyes, to give food to our understanding; that, through His works which we see, we may marvel at that God Whom we cannot see, and, being roused up to believe, and purified by believing, we may long to see Him, yea, may know by things which are seen Him Who is Unseen. Nor yet sufficeth it for us to see only this meaning in Christ's miracles. Let us ask of the miracles themselves what they have to tell us concerning Christ for, soothly, they have a tongue of their own, if only we will understand it. For, because Christ is the Word of God, therefore the work of the Word is a Word for us. (Saint Augustine of Hippo, as found in Matins, Divine Office, Laetare Sunday.)

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on this Laetare Sunday also emphasized the fact that the Divine Redeemer, Who has died for our sins and has risen from the dead, now feeds the whole world with Himself, the true Manna come down from Heaven:

We are now come to the explanation of another name given to the fourth Sunday of Lent, which was suggested by the Gospel of the day. We find this Sunday called in several ancient documents, the Sunday of the five loaves. The miracle alluded to in this title not only forms an essential portion of the Church’s instruction during Lent, but it is also an additional element of to-day’s joy. We forget for an instant the coming Passion of the Son of God, to give our attention to the greatest of the benefits He has bestowed upon us; for under the figure of these loaves multiplied by the power of Jesus, our faith sees that Bread which came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. ‘The Pasch,’ says our Evangelist, ‘was near at hand’; and, in a few days, Our Lord will say to us: ‘With desire I have desired to at this Pasch with you.’ Before leaving this world to go to His Father, Jesus desires to feed the multitude that follows Him; and in order to [do] this, He displays His omnipotence. Well may we admire that creative power, which feeds five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes, and in such wise that even after all have partaken of the feast as much as they would, there remain fragments enough to fill twelve baskets. Such a miracle is, indeed, an evident proof of Jesus’ mission; but He intends it as a preparation for something more wonderful; He intends it as a figure and a pledge of what He is soon to do, not merely once or twice, but every day, even to the end of time; not only for five thousand men, but for the countless multitude of believers. Think of the millions, who, this very year, are to partake of the banquet of the Pasch; and yet, He whom we have seen born in Bethlehem (the house of bread) is to be the nourishment of all these guests; neither will the divine Bread fail. We are to feast as did our fathers before us; and the generations that are to follow us, shall be invited, as we now are, to come and taste how sweet is the Lord.

But observe, it is in a desert place, as we learn from St. Matthew, that Jesus feeds these men, who represent us as Christians. They have quitted the bustle and noise of cities in order to follow Him. So anxious are they to hear His words, that they neither hunger nor fatigue; and their courage is rewarded. A little recompense will crown our labours, our fasting and abstinence, which are now half over. Let us, then, rejoice, and spend this day with the light-heartedness of the pilgrims whoa re near the end of their journey. The happy moment is advancing, when our soul, united and filled with her God, will look back with pleasure on the fatigues of the body, which, together with our heart’s compunction, have merited for her a place at the divine banquet.

The primitive Church proposed this miracle of the multiplication of the loaves as a symbol of the Eucharist, the Bread that never fails. We find it frequently represented in the paintings of the catacombs and on the bas-reliefs of the ancient Christian tombs. The fishes, too, were given together with the loaves, are represented on these venerable monuments of our faith; for the early Christians considered the fish to be the symbol of Christ, because the word ‘fish’ in Greek is made up of five letters, which are the initials of these words: Jesus Christ, Son (of) God, Saviour.

In the Greek Church this is the last day of the week called, as we have already noticed, Mesonestios. Breaking though her rule of never admitting a saint’s feast during Lent, she keeps this mid-Lent Sunday in honour of the celebrated abbot of the monastery of Mount Sinai, St. John Climacus, who lived in the sixth century. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B,, The Liturgical Year: Volume V--Lent, pp. 316-318.)

Yes, this is a day of moderate rejoicing, which is noted as follows by the Abbot of Solesmes in the prayer he composed for this day:

Let us, then, rejoice! We are children, not of Sina, but of Jersualem. Our mother, the holy Church, is not a bond-woman, but free; and it is unto freedom that she has brought us up. Israel served God in fear; his heart was ever tending to idolatry, and could be kept to duty only by the heavy yoke of chastisement. More happy than he, we serve God through love; our yoke is sweet, and our burden light! We are not citizens of the earth; we are but pilgrims passing through it to our true country, the Jerusalem which is above. We leave the earthly Jerusalem to the Jew, who minds only terrestrial things, is disappointed with Jesus, and is plotting how to crucify Him. We also have too long been groveling in the goods of the world; we have been slaves to sin; and he more the chains of our bondage weighed upon us, the more the chains of our bondage weighed upon us, the more we talked our being free. Now is the favourable time; now are the days of salvation; we have obeyed the Church’s call, and have entered into the practice and spirit of Lent. Sin seems to us now, to be the heaviest of yokes; the flesh, a dangerous burden; the world, a merciless tyrant. We begin to breathe the fresh air of holy liberty, and the hope of our speedy deliverance fills us with transports of joy. Let us, with all possible affection, thank our divine Liberator, who delivers us from the bondage of Agar, emancipates us from the law of fear, and making us His new people, opens to us the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, at the price of His Blood.

The Gradual expresses the joy felt by the Gentiles, when invited to enter the house of the Lord, which has now become their own. The Tract shows God protected His Church, the new Jerusalem, which is not to be conquered and destroyed as was that first one. This holy city communicates her own stability and security to them that are in her, for the Lord watches over both the mother and the children. Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B,, The Liturgical Year: Volume V--Lent, pp. 320-321.)

Yes, the Old Covenant has been superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant that our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday. Agar and her son, Ishmael, have been sent away. Holy Mother Church is the one and only true means of salvation, and she is blameless in the sight of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom. She provides her children with security and stability, not confusion and ceaseless change, something that should prove to anyone who has the gift of intellectual dispassion to admit once and for all that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not and can never be the spotless mystical bride of Christ the King, the Catholic Church.

May Our Lady of Sorrows guide and protect us during the remaining three weeks as we meditate upon the Sorrowful Mysteries her Most Holy Rosary, and may we always, always, always invoke the power intercession of Saint Joseph.

The month of Saint Joseph, March, ends today but he is always first after Our Lady to whom we must fly as he is the one chosen by God from all eternity to protect the Holy Family with whom we seek to be united by virtue of Our Lord’s Easter victory over the power of sin and death after He had walked the Via Crucis—the Via Dolorosa—and died for us on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.'

Appendix A

Father Francis X. Weninger's First Ssmon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

This miracle, then, is brought to bear upon our bodies, that our souls may thereby be quickened; shown to our eyes, to give food to our understanding; that, through His works which we see, we may marvel at that God Whom we cannot see, and, being roused up to believe, and purified by believing, we may long to see Him, yea, may know by things which are seen Him Who is Unseen. Nor yet sufficeth it for us to see only this meaning in Christ's miracles. Let us ask of the miracles themselves what they have to tell us concerning Christ for, soothly, they have a tongue of their own, if only we will understand it. For, because Christ is the Word of God, therefore the work of the Word is a Word for us. (Saint Augustine, Twenty-fourth Tract on the Gospel of Saint John.As found in Matins, The Divine Office.)

And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks,
He distributed to them."--John 6.

In today's Gospel all are admonished to strengthen, particularly, that disposition of the heart which exercises, in a special manner, a beneficial influence over our life in the service of God, namely, our trust in His providence. There are so many trials in this world for both body and soul! So many evils, so many maladies and dangers threatening the health and life of man! How great, how urgent, frequently, are the cares for our daily existence! And if this is true of the body, what shall we say of the dangers to which the soul is exposed on the way of salvation?

Hence, how important it is for us to strengthen our trust in the providence of the Almighty. We shall consider, today, one by one, the motives for doing this.

O Mary, thou who art next to God, our most consoling refuge and trust, strengthen in our hearts this confidence in God, that we may be aided by Him in every need! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

That confidence in the providence of God is a most important disposition of the mind, is evident from what I have said in the introduction about the many needs of both body and soul.

Accordingly, Christ reminds us often and emphatic ally of this confidence, and exhorts us to cultivate it. The same is done by the Apostles. St. Peter, especially, admonishes us earnestly to place ourselves, like children, in God's fatherly arms, and cast all our care upon Him. How readily would we obey this admonition of Christ and His Apostles, were we to consider Who God is, what He has done for us and for the world, were we to reflect on the lofty destiny for which He has created us, and the protection He has promised, if we place our trust in Him!

To strengthen, then, your trust in the providence of God, ponder first: Who God is. We place our confidence in another in proportion as we feel convinced that he understands what we need, and that he has it in his power to do for us whatever our safety requires. Again, this confidence we grant cheerfully and unreservedly if we know that our protector has the will to assist us, that he loves us, and that his relations towards us are such that we have a right to expect from him this aid; particularly, if he has promised to help us, and has already given us proofs of his readiness to keep his word.

Who does not see at a glance, after what has been said, how just and well-founded is our trust in God, and His providence, and how firm our hope should be in the help of God under every hardship of life? God knows what we need; He is omniscient; everything, says St. Paul, lies unfolded before Him like an open book. He knows the needs of our body and soul much better than we do ourselves. Let us trust in Him.

He is almighty; He can help us. It is He who, as Creator, called heaven and earth into existence, and who governs and preserves them. Has He the will to help us? Who can doubt it? Is He not infinite goodness, and at the same time our Creator and Father.

What splendid, what numerous proofs of the providence of God as Creator and Ruler of the world, surround us! What harmony, order and consistency we perceive in the entire visible creation, if we let our eyes wander from this earth to the far off starry hosts! For thousands of years the sun has risen and gone down never a second too early or too late. Child of man! does not the first ray of the sun say to you: There is a Providence? here am I again! Confide, trust!

But as the ancient philosopher Plato has said, the care of Providence appears to us more astounding in the smallest plant and animal which God's omnipotence has called into existence, than in the magnificent heavenly bodies and their wonderful movements. Does not Christ Himself point to this when He emphatically says: "Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them? Are not you of much more value than they?" "And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith!" (Matt. 6, 26, 30).

How earnest should be our endeavor to strengthen our trust in God, when we think of the being He gave us; a being that reflects His likeness and surpasses in perfection all visible creatures! And for what end has He created us? Answer: For Himself, that we may one day become "like unto Him," for His and our own glorification.

But what must our feelings be, when we think of the price He paid for us, when through sin, we were threatened with destruction? Did He not clothe Himself with our nature, live for our sake a life of infinite merit, and consummate the work of Redemption in excruciating sufferings and a bitter death?

Therefore, child of man, likeness of God, redeemed soul, have confidence! God will save you; He will help you.

Our trust in God will be still more strengthened, if we reflect upon the manner in which He bestowed upon us His infinite merits. He could not have granted them with greater liberality, did He come into the world to save each one of us alone. For us especially, the children of His holy Church, He has opened wide all the fountains of divine grace, and left abundant means unto salvation.

Each one knows how often Providence has protected him personally in many dangers of body and soul. Who can think of all this, and not throw himself, with all the trust of Christian hope, into the fatherly arms of God? This is not only a just, but at the same time a noble and meritorious act.

I say noble, for this trust marks the difference between the children of God and the children of the world. The latter are filled with care only to secure by industry their own and their children's temporal welfare; and when misfortunes assail them, they think not of God, but seek help from man, as if man could aid them without the will of the Almighty. And if men help us, from whom do they receive the power to do so but from God?

It is unfortunate that men, even Christians, think of this so seldom, but ever run for aid to human be ings, sometimes even doing, or allowing others to do, for their alleviation, things which offend God. Thus act, especially, those Catholics who, merely to gain assistance in time of need, scruple not to join secret societies, which, for important reasons, are condemned by the Church.

What an admonition, a warning to us, especially in these times, and this country, to beware of being drawn into the nets of secret societies, and of being thus excluded from the spiritual consolations of holy Communion, not only during life, but also at the hour of death!

Confidence in God is also a particularly holy and meritorious act, because it includes so many other acts of virtue, namely, the recognition of the sovereignity of God over all His creatures and the entire world, His omnipotence, power, goodness, truth, fidelity and love. It is, therefore, an act which especially honors and pleases God, and to which He has promised His special protection: "Because he hoped in Me, I will deliver him, I will protect him," is the promise made by God in the Psalms. It is an act which fully expresses the confession and longing of the pious soul: All for the greater glory of God, even my trials and my sorrows.

We have seen in the lives of many of the saints how successfully this disposition of mind will aid us to do great deeds in the service of God. Although poor, unknown, persecuted, how many great deeds they undertook and completed for the glory of God and the salvation of souls! Why? Knowing well their own capacity, they were humble and acknowledged themselves worthless, incompetent servants, but their trust was in God; hence their grand plans and their perfection, and hence their strength and perseverance. Trust in God, was their support.

Finally, how consoling, how sweet an act to place ourselves like children in the arms of our Father, and look confidingly up to Him in the storms of life. It is a foretaste of the peace, the eternal rest that the blessed enjoy in the contemplation of God! Amen! (Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., First Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.)

Appendix B

Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., Second Sermon for the Fourth Sundy of Lent

And a great multitude followed Him.”–John 6.

The people followed Jesus into the wilderness, because they were desirous of hearing Him. Their bodies hungered, but their souls were so refreshed, so delighted with the word He spoke, that they forgot their corporal needs, and Christ, to recompense their zeal, wrought a miracle.

What an example for us, to hear attentively the Word of God. and draw from it fruit for the benefit of our souls! Unfortunately, the wondrous fruits of the spoken word of God are not to be found in the great majority of Christian people. And why? The words of today’s Gospel, if carefully considered, will answer this question.

Were the dispositions of the children of the Church like those of the five thousand people who followed Christ into the wilderness, the Word of God would bring forth abundant fruit for the salvation of all.

Mary, thou who didst gain from the words of thy divine Son such wondrous benefits, pray for us that we also may henceforth draw abundant fruit therefrom for our soul’s salvation! O speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

Five thousand men followed Christ into the wilderness to hear Him speak. How great must their desire have been to understand His doctrine! It caused them to disregard the necessaries of life; they did not even think of providing food. What a salutary lesson for those Christians, who frivolously neglect to hear the word of God from those of whom Christ has said: “Those; who hear you, hear me! The desire to hear the Word of God is fearfully wanting in many Christians. Are there only a few who the whole year long listen not to a single sermon? who think they are doing wonders if they assist at Mass every Sunday? Is it surprising that they lead an indifferent life, or even follow the ways of evil without concern? How can it be otherwise? During the entire year they hear not a word of advice or instruction regarding those duties, which, as children of the Church, they must fulfill, if they would lead a good and holy life.

They live from year to year unconcernedly in the occasions of sin. And why? Because no one reproves them or shows to them the dangers which threaten their souls. They live in sin, because no one pictures to them frequently and touchingly the wickedness, the misfortune, the guilt of sin. It does not enter their thoughts to walk in the path of righteousness, or to live a holy life, because no one reminds them of their obligations, and because they have before their eyes only the example of other in different Christians. How different would the case be, if they heard the Word of God every Sunday with a well disposed heart! But this assistance they fail to secure.

The radical fault lies in the slight esteem they have for the Word of God. Hence, even if they do hear a sermon, they devote their attention to the style and delivery of the speaker, and listen to him more as a man and lecturer, than as a priest and preacher. St. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, gives thanks to God that they had received his word “not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the Word of God, Who worketh in you that have believed.” Will God work in those who listen to the divine Word as the word of men?

The priest speaks in the name of God. It is the Lord who addresses us, when by His commission the preacher expounds the teachings and precepts of the Church. St. Teresa one day saw our Lord Himself standing at the side of a priest in the pulpit softly whispering into his ear what he was preaching to the people. How attentively must not the saint have listened to every word which came from the lips of that priest! How carefully would you not listen to this sermon, were you to see beside me Christ suggesting to me all that I am saying! And yet, whenever a priest of the Church preaches the Gospel and expounds it according to the interpretation of the Fathers and of holy Mother Church, it is really Christ that speaks to us. Has he not declared emphatically: “He that hears you hears Me?”

Do not therefore say: “I am not interested in what the preacher says; I know it already, and perhaps just as well as he.” You forget that divine grace accompanies the word of the priest as minister of the Lord, which is not the case when he who addresses you is not a priest, or not possessed of divine mission.

Hence the frequent astonishing conversions of repentant sinners, who have assisted at a sermon which convinced or moved them, although the sermon, perhaps told them nothing new, nothing that they had not heard before.

Divine grace, which accompanied the words of the priest, accomplished the deed. Therefore I say, if we do not profit by sermons, it is because we lack that hunger and thirst for the Word of God, which a proper esteem for it is calculated to produce.

There are many, however, who though they feel the need and good of a sermon, yet always fail to hear one, and always find numberless excuses to justify their conduct. They say: I have not the time, my business prevents me. I live properly, and know what the duties of a Christian are. I answered these excuses when I spoke on the nature, worth, and divine influence of the Word of God. I will now merely say, in regard to time, that he who wills can do much, often can do whatsoever he wills. Moreover we should remember that we can expect no blessing even in this world, if, neglecting to speak to God in prayer, and to listen to His sacred Word, we desecrate the Lord s day by servile work, business transactions, or frivolous intercourse with others.

Our Lord says: “Seek ye, therefore, first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Those, however, who live frivolously and who care not to hear the Word of God, heed not this admonition.

The Church possesses no attraction for such people, and they only visit it to fulfill, outwardly, their duties as Christians. Even if they sometimes do hear a sermon they take it not to heart, and find in it no food for the soul. And yet the Word of God is the Manna which, as the Holy Ghost says, contains all sweetness, and which, if we properly meditate upon it, will allay the hunger of our soul.

A man who desires ardently his salvation ought naturally to hunger and thirst after a more complete knowledge of the science which will secure it for him. Listen to sermons! They will teach you this science. The word of God will enlighten you.

He who seeks in truth his salvation, desires strength to live in accordance with the recognized will of God. Listen to sermons! The Word of God will animate and strengthen you, by untold motives, to fulfill your duties and lead a holy life.

The heart of man hungers and thirsts after good advice, and guidance to escape the evils or to cure the diseases of his soul. Listen to sermons! The Word of God offers you these means; make use of them, and your soul will be benefited.

Man here upon earth, longs for consolation in sorrow and suffering; hear the Word of God! It will comfort, it will refresh you. A heart sighing after holiness, desires to receive the graces necessary to this end. Listen to the Word of God coming from on high! Meditate in union with the people of today’s Gospel, that is: with grateful love for Jesus, reflect on the Word of God, and the Lord will satisfy the hunger of your soul, bestow upon you light, comfort, and strength in His service! Amen! (Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., Second Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.)

Appendix C

Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J.'s ., Third Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

"And this He said to try him; for He Himself knew what He would do."--John 6.

"Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?" Christ asked Philip. He questioned him thus to try him. He--Jesus--knew that by a miracle He would feed those who, in order to hear His Word, had so zealously followed Him.

That which Christ did in today s Gospel is repeated by divine Providence unceasingly in the life of man. Men so often know not what they do, and so little accustom themselves to yield submissively to the decrees of Providence! Were it otherwise, how willingly would God do great and wonderful things in us!

I say: Only too often you know not what you are doing, no matter how clever you deem yourself; but God always knows what He does. Hence yield yourself to His guidance.

Mary, thou who didst stand silent beneath the cross, obtain for us that we may submit as perfectly as thou didst to the divine, though trying, decrees of Providence! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

"Father, they know not what they do!" Indeed, most men know not what they do. They neither understand nor reflect on the ways of God, nor allow themselves to be guided by His fatherly hand. They wish the Lord to follow whither they lead, and to do as they wish, because they imagine it will promote their happiness, while only too often it proves to be the cause of their misfortune and ruin.

This is the case, first, with all those who are foolish enough to seek the gratification of their wishes where it can not be found, but where, on the contrary, they meet the reverse. Man, who is created for happiness, seeks to satisfy the inclinations of his nature. He desires worldly goods, honors and pleasures, and these for the longest possible period. God, however, has not created him for these, but for Himself, for His glory; and this, for all eternity, but under the one condition that we serve Him.

The sinner seeks the gratification of his natural inclinations for riches, honors and pleasures; but where and how does he seek it? In creatures, and by the transgression of God's laws. Oh, fatal delusion; for what are all earthly possessions? Dust! What is all earthly honor? Vapor! What is all worldly pleasure? Delusion! What is the longest age? Scarcely a moment, if compared with eternity.

Besides, how true and undeniable is the assurance of Holy Writ, that each one will be punished in that wherein he offended! The proud suffer humiliation; the avaricious, imaginary need; the passionate, wrongs; the envious, losses; the impure, great bodily torments; the intemperate, thirst; the indolent, hardships.

And, notwithstanding this, such men think that they act wisely, and consider the ways of the virtuous foolish, because these do not allow themselves every enjoyment, but turn their eyes from time to eternity, and bestow all their care upon the latter.

"Father, they know not what they do!" But Jesus knoweth what He does when He afflicts these worldly, sinful children of His Church with misfortune, when He throws obstacles in their evil path, and thus calls, admonishes and urges them to repentance.

When the Lord in this manner designs to seek men they ought to be most grateful; for then there is hope that they will return to the path of salvation. No more terrible judgment can befall the sinner than when God allows him to walk unpunished the road to destruction, and recompenses the good moral qualities, which he may still possess, with temporal goods, for then nothing awaits him in the other world save the endless punishment of sin.

But not only to sinners, but also to those who, though they fear God, and keep His commandments, still lead in the world the life of lukewarm and tepid Christians, are the words of God addressed: "They know not what they do," nor what they desire. God, however, knows why He sends this or that calamity, if Christians do not, who, in their ignorance, endeavor to resist or avoid the dispensations of Providence.

The evil sometimes goes still further. Even among good Christians there are unfortunately many who, finding the ways of God incomprehensible, dare even to criticise them in their own mind, or in the presence of their intimate friends, and who, refusing to put themselves entirely in God's hands, never draw, for the sanctification of their souls, the full benefit from the sacred dispensations of divine Providence.

Why are these miserable and deluded persons so obstinate, so unyielding? I answer: Because they judge the ways of God as they appear to them; they are not sufficiently penetrated with the light of holy faith, and do yield to their self-conceit.

It is not without reason that Jesus exhorts us "not to judge according to the appearance." It may happen, and, in fact, not seldom does happen, that pious and zealous souls make plans, and are confused and embarrassed when, on the point of carrying them out, they find that these plans have been thwarted and rendered futile. God allows this; but men do not know it, and can not comprehend why He permits it. Why? Because they do not really know men as they are; but God knows them.

They do not know themselves, or how they stand in the sight of God. Not so, however, Jesus. He knows how weak they are, and that, if they began the work, they would leave it unfinished, and abandon it, which would be worse than not to have begun it at all.

They can not read the heart of men. Not so, however, Jesus. He knows what He does. He knows that those very persons who now seem favorably disposed towards them, would afterwards oppose their work, and destroy it. They do not know that a good deed done now may prevent the execution of a better work later.

Finally, they do not consider that God has no need of us to lead souls to their destination, and that frequently He only bestows upon us the merit of our good intentions. "Lord, Thou hast no need of my works," says the Psalmist. Oh, how beneficial to every soul would it be if she made a similar confession! Then the arm of God would not be shortened; for, seeing us perfectly willing to let Him act for us, and to leave to Him the results of all our labors, whatever their importance, He would be most ready to multiply the loaves of bread that is, to increase His graces and blessings, because we would then be working only for His honor and glory, and not for our own self-love and vanity.

If we are thus disposed, if we act in this manner, then will those, who are Christians only in name, be induced to say, when they consider our life: We can not understand how people can live thus; how they can care so little for worldly goods, so little for amusement, honor, and the approbation of men; and, withal, be so lavish in providing for the needy, in seeking, at so much trouble and division, for the well-being of others. How can they despise the world, and seem to find heaven upon earth in union with Jesus, especially in the Most Holy Sacrament? They do not understand this; they do not know it. But those who live thus know why, and they can say, with David: "I believe, therefore do I speak thus."

I believe, I trust in Jesus, therefore I live thus, and in joy and sorrow exclaim: Jesus, in life and in death, I am thine! Amen! (Father Francis X. Weninger, S.J., Third Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.)

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