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Newsletter: Easter 2022
Lent through Holy Week
“The Mystery of Lent”
from Dom Gueranger’s “The Liturgical Year”
We may be sure that a season so sacred as this of Lent is rich in mysteries. The Church has made it a time of recollection and penance, in preparation for the greatest of all her feasts; she would, therefore, bring into it everything that could excite the faith of her children, and encourage them to go through the arduous work of atonement for their sins. During Septuagesima, we had the number “seventy”, which reminds us of those seventy years of captivity in Babylon, after which God’s chosen people, being purified from idolatry, was to return to Jerusalem and celebrate the Pasch. It is the number “forty” that the Church now brings before us: a number, as St. Jerome observes, which denotes punishment and affliction.
Let us remember the forty days and forty nights of the deluge sent by God in His anger, when He repented that He had made man, and destroyed the whole human race with the exception of one family. Let us consider how the Hebrew people, in punishment for their ingratitude, wandered forty years in the desert, before they were permitted to enter the promised land. Let us listen to our God commanding the Prophet Ezechiel to lie forty days on his right side, as a figure of the siege which was to bring destruction on Jerusalem.
There are two persons in the old Testament who represent the two manifestations of God: Moses, who typifies the Law; and Elias, who is the figure of the Prophets. Both of these are permitted to approach God: the first on Sinai, the second on Horeb; but both of them have to prepare for the great favour by an expiatory fast of forty days.
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“Now is the time in which the souls of all men should be stirred with greater fervor towards spiritual perfection, and inspired with greater confidence: now when the return of that day on which we were redeemed invites us once more to the fulfillment of all our sacred duties, so that purified in body and soul we may celebrate the supreme Mystery of the Passion of Our Lord…Accordingly, with great solicitude have these divine means been given us, so that these forty days of reflection may assist us to restore the purity of our souls, and so that during them we may, by good works, make satisfaction for our past sins, and by devout mortification, purge ourselves of them…Enter then with pious devotion upon these holy days of Lent; and prepare for yourselves the works of mercy, that you may merit the Divine Mercy.”
-St. Leo the Great
-St. Leo the Great
Forgotten Customs of Septuagesima
by Matthew Plese, February 10, 2022 – from https://onepeterfive.com/forgotten-customs-of-septuagesima/
Brethren: Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize. So run that you may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things. And they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air. But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway (1 Cor. 9:24-27 as taken from the Epistle on Septuagesima Sunday).
Septuagesima is the ancient period of time observed for two and a half weeks before the start of Lent. Celebrated on the Third Sunday before the First Sunday in Lent, Septuagesima is both the name of this third Sunday before Lent’s beginning as well as the season itself that runs from this day up until Ash Wednesday. The season of Septuagesima comprises the Sundays of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. The Fourth Council of Orleans in 541 AD documents the existence of this season.
This time, informally called “Pre-Lent,” is a time for us to focus on the need for a Savior. It is a time to prepare a Lenten prayer schedule so that we can determine which extra devotions and Masses we will go to in Lent. It is a time to begin weaning ourselves from food so that we may more easily observe the strictest fast during Lent.
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Important and Trustworthy Clarity
Beloved, I just now watched Raymond Arroyo’s interview with Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke on The World Over, aired January 20, 2022. To my mind, there is no higher and more authoritative voice of Canon Law and authentic Catholic teaching in the Church today than this holy son of the Church. Regarding the future of the Latin Mass and several recent restrictions that have come from the Vatican and from various cardinals and bishops of the Church, Cardinal Burke gives us what is to me, “healing clarity” – simply to know what is correct and what our response is to be to the confusion in the Church today.
God bless you all with our prayers for a blessed, holy, courageous and steadfast adherence to “THE Faith once delivered to the saints” (cf. Jude 3-4; see below for St. Jude’s complete letter).
Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B.
Letter of St. Jude to the first century believers in our Lord Jesus Christ (bolded emphasis mine):
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A God-given opportunity
Beloved, Monday’s email from LifeSiteNews contained this article: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/he-gave-me-everything-pro-life-hero-hailed-by-his-44-disabled-adopted-children/.
It’s title is:
‘He gave me everything’: Pro-life hero hailed by his 44 disabled, adopted children
What a wonderful way and encouragement it would be for us to help this dear saint of a man to continue to feed and help these unwanted children. You can do so here: https://www.lifefunder.com/jesusmenino through an end-of-year gift or blessed gift of the New Year – either way you will be saving the lives of those whom very few would care for or about. What a cherished opportunity to support such a God-blessed cause in the midst of this ever-increasing evil world.
God bless you, reward you, and grant you a most blessed and holy New Year.
Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B. and Sisters
Newsletter: Christmas 2021
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Fourth Sunday of Advent
 From THE LITURGICAL YEARBook 1, Advent LORETO PUBLISHING Dom Guéranger OSB First Translation: 1867 |
(If this Sunday should fall on December 24, it is omitted, and in its place is said the Office of Christmas Eve, which is not provided here.)
WE have now entered into the week which immediately precedes the birth of the Messias. That long-desired coming might be even tomorrow; and at furthest, that is, when Advent is as long as it can be, the beautiful feast is only seven days from us. So that the Church now counts the hours; she watches day and night, and since December 17 her Offices have assumed an unusual solemnity. At Lauds, she varies the antiphons each day; and at Vespers, in order to express the impatience of her desires for her Jesus, she makes use of the most vehement exclamations to the Messias, in which she each day gives Him a magnificent title, borrowed from the language of the prophets.
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Third Sunday of
 From THE LITURGICAL YEARBook 1, Advent LORETO PUBLISHING Dom Guéranger OSB First Translation: 1867 |
TODAY, again, the Church is full of joy, and the joy is greater than it was. It is true that her Lord has not come; but she feels that He is nearer than before, and therefore she thinks it just to lessen somewhat the austerity of this penitential season by the innocent cheerfulness of her sacred rites. And first, this Sunday has had the name of Gaudete given to it, from the first word of the Introit; it also is honored with those impressive exceptions which belong to the fourth Sunday of Lent, called Lætare. The organ is played at the Mass; the vestments are rose-color [optional]; the deacon resumes the dalmatic, and the subdeacon the tunic; and in cathedral churches the bishop assists with the precious miter. How touching are all these usages, and how admirable this condescension of the Church, wherewith she so beautifully blends together the unalterable strictness of the dogmas of faith and the graceful poetry of the formulæ of her liturgy! Let us enter into her spirit, and be glad on this third Sunday of her Advent, because our Lord is now so near unto us. Tomorrow we will resume our attitude of. servants mourning for the absence of their Lord and waiting for Him; for every delay, however short, is painful and makes love sad.
Second Sunday of
 From THE LITURGICAL YEAR,Book 1, Advent LORETO PUBLISHING Dom Guéranger OSB First Translation: 1867 |
THE Office of this Sunday is filled, from beginning to end, with the sentiments of hope and joy, with which the soul should be animated at the glad tidings of the speedy coming of Him Who is her Saviour and Spouse. The interior coming, that which is effected in the soul, is the almost exclusive object of the Church’s prayers for this day: let us therefore open our hearts, let us prepare our lamps, and await in gladness that cry, which will be heard in the midnight: ‘Glory be to God! Peace unto men!’