THURSDAY OF SEXAGESIMA WEEK
The Liturgical Year
Ven. Dom Guéranger, O.S.B.
God promised Noah that He would
never more punish the earth with a deluge. But, in His justice, He has many
times visited the sins of men with a scourge which, in more senses than one, bears
a resemblance to a deluge: the invasion of enemies. We meet with these invasions
in every age; and each time we see the hand of God. We can trace the crimes
that each of them was sent to punish, and in each we find a manifest proof of
the infinite justice wherewith God governs the world.
It is not requisite that we should here
mention the long list of these revolutions, which we might almost say make up
the history of mankind, for in its every page we read of conquests, extinction
of races, destruction of nations, and violent amalgamations, which effaced the
traditions and character of the several peoples that were thus forced into union.
We will confine our considerations to the two great invasions, which the just
anger of God has permitted to come upon the world since the commencement of the
Christian era.
The Roman Empire had made itself as preeminent
in crime as it was in power. It conquered the world, and then corrupted it.
Idolatry and immorality were the civilization it gave to the nations which had
come under its sway. Christianity could save individuals in the great empire, but
the empire itself could not be made Christian. God let loose upon it the deluge
of barbarians. The stream of the wild invasion
rose to the very dome of the Capitol; the empire was engulfed. The ruthless ministers of
divine justice were conscious of their being chosen for this mission of vengeance,
and they gave themselves the name of ‘God’s scourge.’
When, later on, the Christian nations of
the east had lost the faith which they themselves had transmitted to the
western world; when they had disfigured the sacred symbol of faith by their, blasphemous
heresies; the anger of God sent upon them, from Arabia, the deluge of Mahometanism.
It swept away the Christian Churches, that had existed from the very times of
the apostles. Jerusalem, the favoured Jerusalem, on which Jesus had lavished
His tenderest love, even she became a victim to the infidel hordes. Antioch and
Alexandria, with their patriarchates, were plunged into the vilest slavery; and
at length Constantinople, that had so obstinately provoked the divine indignation,
was made the very capital of the Turkish empire.
And we, the western nations, if we return
not to the Lord our God, shall we be spared ‘Shall the flood-gates of heaven’s
vengeance, the torrent of fresh Vandals, ever be menacing to burst upon us, yet
never come ‘Where is the country of our own Europe, that has not corrupted its
way, as in the days of Noah? that has not made conventions against the Lord and
against His Christ? that has not clamoured out that old cry of revolt: Let us break
their bonds asunder, let us cast away their yoke from us. Well may we fear lest
the time is at hand, when, despite our haughty confidence in our means of defense,
Christ our Lord, to whom all nations have been given by the Father, shall rule us
with a rod of iron, and break us in pieces like a potter's vessel. Let us
propitiate the anger of our offended God, and follow the inspired counsel of
the royal prophet: Serve ye the Lord with fear; embrace the discipline of His Law;
lest, at any time, the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the just way.
We find the following beautiful words in the Ambrosian liturgy
for Septuagesima. They occur in the missal.
TRANSITORIUM
(Dominica in
Quinquagesima.)
Come, be converted unto me, saith
the Lord. Let us come weeping, and pour out our tears before God, for we have
been negligent, and because of us is the earth suffering. We have committed
iniquity, and because of us are the foundations of the world moved. Let us
hasten to avert the wrath of God; let us weep, and say: O thou, that takest
away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!
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