Saturday, September 28, 2013
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 22nd September
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
22 September 2013
“... that you lack no grace, while awaiting
the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I Cor. 1: 7
Dom Prosper Gueranger in his book on the
liturgy, The Liturgical Life Vol. 11, tells us that
today’s readings contain a most important truth of
the Second Coming of Christ. This truth filled the
early Church with both hopeful joy and fearful
anxiety: “The last coming of the Son of Man is
no longer far off! The approach of that final
event, which is to put the Church in full
possession of her divine Spouse, redoubles her
hopes; but the last judgment, which is also to
pronounce the eternal perdition of so great a
number of her children, mingles fear with her
desire; and these two sentiments of hers will
henceforth be continually brought forward in
the holy liturgy. It is evident that expectation
has been, so to say, an essential characteristic of
her existence... This explains how it is that the
apostles, the interpreters of the Church’s
aspirations, are continually recurring to the
subject of the near approach of our Lord’s
coming. St. Paul has just been telling us, and
that twice over in the same breath, that the
Christian is who waiteth for the manifestation of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the day of His
coming... ‘The Lord delayeth not His promise,
as some imagine; but dealeth patiently, for your
sake, not willing that any should perish, but that
all should return to penance. But the day of the
Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens
shall pass away with great violence; and the
elements shall be melted with heat; and the
earth, and the works which are in it, shall be
burnt up...’” Gueranger, p. 396-8 This is why St.
Paul in today’s Epistle (I Cor. 1:4-7) wants us
always to be ready: “... that you lack no grace,
while awaiting the appearance of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” I Cor. 1: 7 This is also why the Church
includes in today’s Gospel (Mt. 9:1-8) Jesus’
miraculous cure of the paralytic whose bodily
paralysis reveals the more important sickness of
his soul: “Take courage, son, thy sins are
forgiven thee.” Mt. 9:2 Only with the forgiveness
of sins could the members of the early Church ever
hope for eternal salvation at the Second Coming of
Jesus.
“...he made an evening sacrifice to the Lord.”
These words of today’s Offertory Antiphon
show how the preceding Epistle corresponds to the
Gospel (Mt. 9:1-8). The Scribes and Pharisees have
become evil in their role as the teachers of the
Mosaic Law and have not taught the people
truthfully. Quoting the Abbot Rupert, Dom
Gueranger comments on their false teachings: “Let
him not imitate those men, who unworthily sat
on the chair of Moses; but let him follow the
example of Moses himself, who in the Offertory
and its verses, presents the heads of the Church
with such a model of perfection. Pastors of souls
ought, on no account to be ignorant of the
reason why they are placed higher than other
men: it is not so much that they may govern
others, as that they may serve them.’” (Rupert,
Div. Off., xii. 18) Although they were his
successors, the Scribes and Pharisees lack the true
spirit of Moses. This is why they reject Jesus and
refuse to see how His miraculous cure of the
paralytic is a sign that He is God and can forgive
sins.
“Thy sins are forgiven thee...” Mt. 9: 2
on the forgiveness of sins in the Sunday following
the Ember Days of September because this was the
time for the ordination of priests who are the
ministers of reconciliation. Only the hard-hearted
Pharisees could find fault with Jesus in the tender
account of this miracle in which He cures a
paralytic: “And behold, they brought to him a
paralytic lying on a pallet. And Jesus, seeing their
faith, said to the paralytic, ‘Take courage, son;
thy sins are forgiven thee.’ And behold, some of
the Scribes said within themselves, ‘This man
blasphemes.’ And Jesus, knowing their thoughts,
said, ‘Why do you harbour evil thoughts in your
hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Thy sins are
forgiven thee,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But
that you may know that the Son of Man has the
power on earth to forgive sins’ Mt. 9:2-3 (In St.
Luke’s Gospel (cf. Lk.5:18-26), the paralytic is let
down from the rooftop by his four friends.) In his
commentary on this passage, Dom Gueranger says:
“From the very beginning of Christianity,
heretics had risen up denying that the Church
had the power, which her divine Head gave her,
of remitting sin. Such false teachings would
irretrievably condemn to spiritual death an
immense number of Christians, who, unhappily,
had fallen after their Baptism, but who,
The Church placed today’s Gospel
according to Catholic dogma, might be restored
to grace by the sacrament of Penance. With
what energy, then would our mother Church
defend the remedy which gives life to her
children! She uttered her anathemas upon, and
drove from her communion, those Pharisees of
the new law, who, like their Jewish predecessors,
refused to acknowledge the infinite mercy and
universality of the great mystery of the
Redemption....The outward cure of the paralytic
was both the image and the proof of the cure of
his soul, which previously had been in a state of
moral paralysis; but he himself represented
another sufferer, viz., the human race, which for
ages had been victim to the palsy of sin. Our
Lord had already left the earth, when the faith
of the apostles achieved this, their first prodigy,
of bringing to the Church the world grown old
in its infirmity. Finding that the human race was
docile to the teaching of the divine messengers,
and was already an imitator of their faith, the
Church spoke as a mother, and said: ‘Be of
good heart, son! Thy sins are forgiven thee!’ At
once, to the astonishment of the philosophers
and sceptics, and to the confusion of hell, the
world rose up from its long and deep
humiliation; and, to prove how thoroughly his
strength had been restored to him, he was seen
carrying on his shoulders, by the labour of
penance and the mastery over his passions, the
bed of his old exhaustion and feebleness, on
which pride, lust, and covetousness had so long
held him. From that time forward, complying
with the word of Jesus, which was also said to
him by the Church, he has been going on
towards his house, which is heaven, where
eternal joy awaits him! And the angels,
beholding such a spectacle of conversion and
holiness (cf. Lk. 5:26), are in amazement, and
sing glory to God, who gave such power to
men.” Gueranger, p. 404-5 How grateful we
should be to God for forgiving our sins!
“...that you lack no grace, while awaiting the
appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Cor. 4:7
Fr. Gabriel of St. Magdalen, OCD in his
book of meditations, Divine Intimacy, sums up the
great blessings which come from Jesus Christ:
“Yes, every grace, every gift comes to us from
Jesus, and through them our person and our life
are sanctified. By means of sanctifying grace,
He sanctifies our soul; through the infused
virtues, He sanctifies our faculties; and by actual
grace, He sanctifies our activity, enabling us to
act supernaturally. Yet even this does not satisfy
his liberality: He is not content with setting us
on the road to God, supernaturalized by grace
and the virtues, but He wishes to substitute His
divine way of acting for our human way;
therefore, He enriches us with the gifts of the
Holy Spirit, which make us capable of being
moved by God Himself. All this is the gift of
Jesus to us, the fruit of His Passion....It seems as
if Jesus, the true Son of God, is not jealous of
His divinity or His prerogatives, but seeks every
possible means to make us share by grace what
He possesses by nature. How true it is that the
characteristic of love is to give oneself and to
place those one loves on a plane of equality with
oneself!” Fr. Gabriel, p. 944-5 How true are the
words of St. Paul in today’s Epistle: “... that you
lack no grace, while awaiting the appearance of
our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Cor. 1: 7
“The Little Number of Those Who
Are Saved” Part III
by St. Leonard of Port Maurice
The Teaching of the Fathers of the Church
“It is not vain curiosity but salutary
precaution to proclaim from the height of the pulpit
certain truths which serve wonderfully to contain the
indolence of libertines, who are always talking about
the mercy of God and about how easy it is to convert,
who live plunged in all sorts of sins and are soundly
sleeping on the road to hell. To disillusion them and
waken them from their torpor, today let us examine
this great question: Is the number of Christians who
are saved greater than the number of Christians who
are damned?
“Pious souls, you may leave; this sermon is
not for you. Its sole purpose is to contain the pride of
libertines who cast the holy fear of God out of their
heart and join forces with the devil who, according to
the sentiment of Eusebius, damns souls by reassuring
them. To resolve this doubt, let us put the Fathers of
the Church, both Greek and Latin, on one side; on
the other, the most learned theologians and erudite
historians; and let us put the Bible in the middle for
all to see. Now listen not to what I will say to you
– for I have already told you that I do not want to
speak for myself or decide on the matter – but listen
to what these great minds have to tell you, they who
are beacons in the Church of God to give light to
others so that they will not miss the road to heaven.
In this manner, guided by the triple light of faith,
authority and reason, we will be able to resolve this
grave matter with certainty.
“Note well that there is no question
here of the human race taken as a whole, nor of all
Catholics taken without distinction, but only of
Catholic adults, who have free choice and are thus
capable of cooperating in the great matter of their
salvation. First let us consult the theologians
recognized as examining things most carefully and as
not exaggerating in their teaching: let us listen to two
learned cardinals, Cajetan and Bellarmine. They
teach that the greater number of Christian adults
are damned, and if I had the time to point out the
reasons upon which they base themselves, you would
be convinced of it yourselves. But I will limit myself
here to quoting Suarez. After consulting all the
theologians and making a diligent study of the
matter, he wrote, "The most common sentiment
which is held is that, among Christians, there are more
damned souls than predestined souls."
Latin Fathers to that of the theologians, and you will
find that almost all of them say the same thing. This
is the sentiment of Saint Theodore, Saint Basil, Saint
Ephrem, and Saint John Chrysostom. What is more,
according to Baronius it was a common opinion
among the Greek Fathers that this truth was
expressly revealed to Saint Simeon Stylites and that
after this revelation, it was to secure his salvation
that he decided to live standing on top of a pillar for
forty years, exposed to the weather, a model of
penance and holiness for everyone. Now let us
consult the Latin Fathers. You will hear Saint
Gregory saying clearly, "Many attain to faith, but
few to the heavenly kingdom." Saint Anselm
declares, "There are few who are saved." Saint
Augustine states even more clearly, "Therefore, few
are saved in comparison to those who are damned."
The most terrifying, however, is Saint Jerome. At the
end of his life, in the presence of his disciples, he
spoke these dreadful words: "Out of one hundred
thousand people whose lives have always been bad,
you will find barely one who is worthy of indulgence."
(To be continued next week)
“Add the authority of the Greek and