Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Lenten Weekday (Total Consecration - Day 15) |
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Collect: Father of Mercy, hear the prayers of your repentant children who call on you in love. Enlighten our minds and sanctify our hearts. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Old Calendar: St. Gregory the Great, pope and doctor
"Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains." The hostility of the enemies of Jesus becomes increasingly clear, and the agitation around His person continues with greater intensity; but He awaits His "hour." Satan and the forces of evil will appear to triumph, but the real victory will come and it is God's victory.
According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII today is the feast of St. Gregory the Great. His feast has been transferred to September 3.
The Station today is at the church of St. Marcellus at the Corso. Legend claims that Pope St. Marcellus (308-309) was sentenced by Emperor Maxentius to look after the horses at the station of the Imperial mail on the Via Lata, where the Via del Corso now lies. He was freed by the people, and hidden in the house of the Roman lady Lucina (see also San Lorenzo in Lucina). He was rearrested, and imprisoned in the stables.
The Church dispenses Christ's forgiveness through the power of the keys: "whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven." Christ's pardon of us is limitless. Just as the small quantity of oil, increasing miraculously at the word of Elias, enabled the poor widow to pay all her debts, so the infinite merits of Christ enable us to expiate all our sins.
Love of God and of neighbor imposes on us constant self-denial and self-mastery. Only love working through mortification will enable us to ascend the "holy hill" and dwell in "God's tabernacle."
The Cathedral Daily Missal by Right Rev. Msgr. Rudolph G. Bandas
Things to Do: