Liturgical
Notes
Rotten
fruits of Vatican II
Low
Sunday / Quasimodo Sunday
Name dropping...
Since 1970 Low Sunday has been officially known as the Second Sunday of
Easter.
The name in albis was dropped in the 1969 revision of the Roman Missal,
which called this Sunday the Second Sunday of Easter. In the third edition of
this Missal, promulgated in 2000 but published only in 2002, the Sunday took
what is now its official name: "Second Sunday of Easter or of Divine Mercy."
BTW: The so called ‘Divine Mercy,’ the "Save-yourself-without-effort"
false devotion is condemned. See link below.
Pius XII put the writings of Sr. Faustina on the Index of Prohibited
Books. That meant that he considered that their content would lead Catholics
astray or in the wrong direction!
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THE OCTAVE OF THE PASCH
LOW SUNDAY
Very Ven. Abbot Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B.
4 April 1805 – 30 January
1875
COMMENTARY FOR TODAY'S MASS
Taken
from
The Liturgical year by Abbot Dom Guéranger
This Sunday, commonly called with us,
Low Sunday, has two names assigned to it in the Liturgy:
Quasimodo, from the first word of the
Introit; and Sunday in albis (or, more explicitly, in albis deposita,) because on
this day the neophytes assisted at the Church services attired in their
ordinary dress. In the Middle-Ages, it was called Close-Pasch, no doubt in
allusion to its being the last day of the Easter Octave. Such is the solemnity
of this Sunday, that not only is it of a Double rite, but no Feast, however
great, can ever be kept upon it.
At Rome, the Station is in the basilica of Saint Pancras, on the
Aurelian Way. Ancient writers have not mentioned the reason of this Church
being chosen for today’s assembly of the faithful. It may, perhaps, have been
on account of the Saint’s being only fourteen years old when put to death: a
circumstance which gave the young Martyr a sort of right to have the neophytes
round him, now that they were returning to their every day life.
Our neophytes closed the Octave of the Resurrection yesterday. They were
before us in receiving the admirable mystery; their solemnity would finish earlier
than ours. This, then, is the eighth day for us who kept the Pasch on the
Sunday, and did not anticipate it on the vigil. It reminds us of all the glory
and joy of that Feast of feasts, which united the whole of Christendom in one
common feeling of triumph. It is the day of light, which takes the place of the
Jewish Sabbath. Henceforth, the first day of the week is to be kept holy. Twice
has the Son of God honoured it with the manifestation of His almighty power. The
Pasch, therefore, is always to be celebrated on the Sunday; and thus, every Sunday
becomes a sort of Paschal Feast, as we have already explained in the Mystery of
Easter.
Our risen Jesus gave an additional proof that He wished the Sunday to
be, henceforth, the privileged day. He reserved the second visit He intended to
pay to all His disciples for this the eighth day since His Resurrection. During
the previous days, He has left Thomas a prey to doubt; but, today He shows Himself
to this Apostle, as well as to the others, and obliges him, by irresistible
evidence, to lay aside his incredulity. Thus does our Saviour again honour the
Sunday. The Holy Ghost will come down from heaven upon this same day of the
week, making it the commencement of the Christian Church: Pentecost will
complete the glory of this favoured day.
Jesus’ apparition to the eleven, and the victory He gains over the incredulous
Thomas,—these are the special subjects the Church brings before us today. By
this apparition, which is the seventh since His Resurrection, our Saviour wins
the perfect faith of His disciples. It is impossible not to recognize God, in
the patience, the majesty, and the charity of Him who shows Himself to them.
Here again, our human thoughts are disconcerted; we should have thought this
delay excessive; it would have seemed to us, that our Lord ought to have, at
once, either removed the sinful doubt from Thomas’s mind, or punished him for
his disbelief. But no: Jesus is infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness. In His
wisdom, He makes this tardy acknowledgement of Thomas become a new argument of
the truth of the Resurrection; in His goodness, He brings the heart of the
incredulous disciple to repentance, humility, and love, yea, to a fervent and
solemn retraction of all his disbelief. We will not here attempt to describe
this admirable scene, which holy Church is about to bring before us. We will
select, for our today’s instruction, the important lesson given by Jesus to His
disciple, and through him to us all. It is the leading instruction of the
Sunday, the Octave of the Pasch, and it behooves us not to pass it by, for,
more than any other, it tells us the leading characteristic of a Christian, shows
us the cause of our being so listless in God’s service, and points out to us
the remedy for our spiritual ailments.
Jesus says to Thomas: ‘because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed:
blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed!’ Such is the great
truth, spoken by the lips of the God-Man: it is a most important counsel, given,
not only to Thomas, but to all who would serve God and secure their salvation. What
is it that Jesus asks of His disciple? Has He not heard him make profession
that now, at last, he firmly believes? After all, was there any great fault in
Thomas’s insisting on having experimental evidence before believing in so
extraordinary a miracle as the Resurrection? Was be obliged to trust to the testimony
of Peter and the others, under penalty of offending his divine Master? Did he
not evince his prudence, by withholding his assent until he had additional
proofs of the truth of what his brethren told him? Yes, Thomas was, a circumspect
and prudent man, and one that was slow to believe what O had heard; he was
worthy to be taken as a model by those Christians, who reason and sit in judgment
upon matters of faith. And yet, listen to the reproach made him by Jesus. It is
merciful, and withal so severe! Jesus has so far condescended to the weakness
of His disciple, as to accept the condition, on which alone he declares that he
will believe: now that the disciple stands trembling before his risen Lord, and
exclaims, in the earnestness of faith: ‘My Lord! and my God!’ oh! see how Jesus chides him! This stubbornness, this incredulity,
deserves a punishment: the punishment is, to have these words said to him: ‘Thomas! thou hast believed,
because thou hast seen!’
Incredulity of St Thomas by Giorgio Vasari
Then, was Thomas obliged to believe before
having seen? Yes, undoubtedly. Not only Thomas, but all the Apostles were in
duty bound to believe the Resurrection of Jesus, even before He showed Himself
to them. Had they not lived three years with Him? Had they not seen Him prove
Himself to be the Messias and the Son of God by the most undeniable miracles? Had
he not foretold them that He would rise again on the third day? As to the humiliations
and cruelties of His Passion, had He not told them, a short time previous to
it, that He was to be seized by the Jews in Jerusalem, and be delivered to the
Gentiles? that He was to be scourged, spit upon, and put to death?‘
After all this, they ought to have believed in His triumphant Resurrection,
the very first moment they heard of His Body having disappeared. As soon as John
had entered the sepulchre, and seen the winding sheet, he at once ceased to
doubt; he believed. But it is seldom that man is so honest as this; he
hesitates, and God must make still further advances, if He would have us give
our faith! Jesus condescended even to this: He made further advances. He showed
Himself to Magdalene and her companions, who were not incredulous, but only
carried away by natural feeling, though the feeling was one of love for their Master.
When the Apostles heard their account of what had happened, they treated them
as women whose imagination had got the better of their judgment. Jesus had to
come in person: He showed Himself to these obstinate men, whose pride made them
forget all that He had said and done, sufficient indeed to make them believe in
His Resurrection. Yes, it was pride, for faith has no other obstacle than this.
If man were humble, he would have faith enough to move mountains.
To return to our Apostle. Thomas had
heard Magdalene, and he despised her testimony; he had heard Peter, and he
objected to his authority; he had heard the rest of his fellow-Apostles and the
two disciples of Emmaus, and no, he would not give up his own opinion. How many
there are among us, who are like him in this! We never think of doubting what
is told us by a truthful and disinterested witness, unless the subject touch
upon the supernatural; and then, we have a hundred difficulties. It is one of
the sad consequences left in us by original sin. Like Thomas, we would see the thing
ourselves: and. that alone is enough to keep us from the fullness of the truth.
We comfort ourselves with the reflection that, after all, we are disciples of Christ;
as did Thomas, who kept in union with his brother-Apostles, only he shared not
their happiness. He saw their happiness, but he considered it to be a weakness
of mind, and was glad that he was free from it!
How like this is to our modern rationalistic Catholic! He believes, but
it is because his reason almost forces him to believe; he believes with his
mind, rather than from his heart. His faith
is a scientific deduction, and not a generous longing after God and supernatural truth. Hence, how cold and powerless is this faith! how cramped and ashamed! how afraid of believing too much! Unlike the generous unstinted faith of the
saints, it is satisfied with fragments of truth, with what the Scripture
terms diminished truths! It seems ashamed of itself. It speaks in a whisper, lest it should be criticized; and when it does venture to make itself heard, it adopts a phrase ology, which may take off the sound of the divine. As to those miracles which it wishes had never taken place, and which it would have advised God not to work, they are a forbidden subject. The very mention of a miracle,
particularly if it have happened in our own times, puts it into a
state of nervousness. The lives of the Saints, their heroic
virtues, their sublime sacrifices, it has a
repugnance to the whole thing! It talks gravely about those
who are not of the true religion being unjustly
dealt with by the Church in Catholic countries; it
asserts that the same liberty ought to be granted to error
as to truth; it has very serious doubts whether the
world has been a great loser by the secularization of society.
Now, it was for the instruction of
persons of this class, that our Lord spoke those words to Thomas: ‘Blessed are they who have not seen,
and Have believed.’ Thomas sinned in not having the readiness of mind to
believe. Like him, we also are in danger of sinning, unless our faith have a
certain expansiveness, which makes us see everything with the eye of faith, and
gives our faith that progress which God recompenses with a superabundance of
light and joy. Yes, having once become members of the Church, it is our duty to
look upon all things from a supernatural point of view. There is no danger of
going too far, for we have the teachings of an infallible authority to guide
us. ‘The just man liveth by faith.’ Faith is his daily bread. His mere natural
life becomes transformed for good and all, if only he be faithful to his
Baptism. Could we suppose, that the Church, after all her instructions to her
neophytes, and after all those sacred rites of their Baptism which are so
expressive of the supernatural life, would be satisfied to see them straightway
adopt that dangerous system, which drives faith into a nook of the heart and
understanding and conduct, leaving all the rest to natural principles or
instinct? O, it could not be so. Let us, therefore, imitate St. Thomas in his
confession, and acknowledge that, hitherto, our faith has not been perfect. Let
us go to our Jesus, and say to Him: ‘Thou art my Lord and my God! But, alas! I have many times thought and acted as though Thou wert my
Lord and my god in some things, and not in others. Henceforth, I will believe
without seeing; for I would be of the number of those, whom Thou callest
blessed!’
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