FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER
The Liturgical Year
Ven. Dom Guéranger,
O.S.B.
Yet four days,
and our Risen Jesus, whose company has been so dear and precious to us, will
have disappeared from the earth. This fifth Sunday after Easter seems to
prepare us for the separation. In a week's time, we shall begin the long series
of Sundays which are to pass before he returns to judge the world. This is a
grief to the Christian; for he knows that he will not see his Savior until
after this life, and he feels something of the sorrow the Apostles had at the
Last Supper, when
Jesus said to
them: Yet a little while,
and ye shall not see me.
But, after his Resurrection, what must not
these privileged men have felt, when they perceived, as we do, that this
beloved Master was soon to leave them? They had, so to speak, been living with
Jesus glorified; they had experienced the effects of his divine condescension
and intimacy; they had received from his lips every instruction they needed for
the fulfilling his will, that is, for the founding, on earth, the Church he had
chosen as his Spouse. These happy forty days are fast drawing to a close. The
Apostles will then be deprived of Jesus' visible presence, even to the end of
their lives.
We, too, shall feel something of their
sadness, if we have kept ourselves united to our holy mother the Church. From
the very first day, when she recommenced, for our sakes, the Ecclesiastical
Year, during which all the Mysteries of our Redemption, from the Birth of our
Emmanuel even to his triumphant Ascension into heaven, were to be celebrated,
have not we, also, been living in company with her Jesus, our Redeemer? And now
that he is about to close the sweet intercourse which these Seasons and Feasts
have kept up between himself and us, are not our feelings very much like those
of the Apostles?
But there is one creature on earth, whom
Jesus is leaving, and whose feelings, at the approaching separation, we cannot
attempt to describe. Never had there been a heart so submissive to the will of
her Creator; but, at the same time, there never was any Creature so severely
tried as she had been. Jesus would have his Mother's love still increase; he therefore
subjects her to the separation from himself. Moreover, he wishes her to
co-operate in the formation of the Church, for he has decreed that the great
work shall not be achieved without her. In all this, Jesus shows how tenderly
he loves his Blessed Mother: he wishes her merit to be so great, that he may
justly give her the brightest possible crown, when the day of her own Ascension
into heaven comes.
The heart of this incomparable Queen is
not, indeed, to be again transfixed with a sword of sorrow it is to be consumed
by a love so intense that no language could describe it. Under the sweet, yet
wearing, fire of this love, Mary is at length to give way, just as fruit falls
from the tree, when its ripeness is complete, and the tree has nothing more to give
it. But, during these last hours of Jesus' presence, what must not such a
Mother have felt, who has had but forty days to enjoy the sight and the
caresses of her glorified and divine Son? It is Mary's last trial and when her
Jesus tells her of his wish that she should remain in exile, she is ready with
her favorite answer: Behold the Handmaid
of the Lord! Be it done to me according to thy Word! Her whole
life has been spent in doing God's will; it was this that made her so great in
his eyes, and so dear to his heart. A holy servant of God, who lived in the
17th century, and was favored with the most sublime revelations, tells us, that
it was left to Mary's choice, either to accompany her divine Son to heaven, or
to remain some years longer upon the earth to assist the infant Church; and
that she chose to defer her entrance into eternal bliss, in order to labor, as
long as it was God's good pleasure, in the great work which was so closely
connected with the glory of her Son, and so essential to the salvation of us
her adopted children.
If this generous devotedness raised the
co-operatrix of our salvation to the highest degree of sanctity, by giving
completeness to her mission on earth, we may be sure that Jesus' love for his
Mother was increased by the new proof she thus gave him of her uniformity with
every wish of his sacred Heart. He repaid her, as he well knew how to do, for
this heroic self-sacrifice, this prompt submission to his having designed her
to be, here on earth, as the Church calls her, Queen of the Apostles, and a sharer in their labours of
planting the Church.
During these, his last few hours on earth,
our Lord's affection for his Apostles and Disciples seemed to be redoubled. For
several of them, the separation was to be a long one. The Beloved Disciple,
John, was not to enjoy the company of his divine Master till more than fifty
years had elapsed. It was to be thirty before the Cross would carry Peter to
Him who had entrusted to his keeping the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Magdalene, the fervent Magdalene, would have to wait the same length of time.
But no one murmured at the divine appointment; they all felt how just it was,
that Jesus, now that he had so fully established the faith of his Resurrection,
should enter into his glory.
On the very day of his Resurrection, our
Saviour bade the Disciples go into Galilee, for that there he would meet them.
As we have already seen, they obeyed the order, and seven among them were
favored by Jesus' appearing to them on the banks of the Lake Genesareth: it is
the eighth of the manifestations mentioned in the Gospel. The ninth, also, took
place in Galilee. Our Lord loved Galilee: it gave him the greater number of his
Disciples, it was Mary and Joseph's country, and it was there that he himself
passed so many years of his hidden life. Its people were simpler and better
than those of Judea, and this was another attraction. St. Matthew tells us,
that the most public of all Jesus' manifestations, after his Resurrection, the
tenth in reality, and the ninth mentioned by the Evangelists, took place on a
hill in this same district.
According to St. Bonaventure, and the
learned and pious Denis the Carthusian, this hill was Mount Tabor, the same
that was honored by the mystery of the Transfiguration. Upwards of five hundred
of Jesus' Disciples were assembled there, as we learn from St. Paul: they were
mostly inhabitants of Galilee, had believed in our Lord during his three years'
public life, and merited to be witnesses of this new triumph of the Nazarene.
Jesus showed himself to them, and gave them such certitude with regard to his
resurrection, that the Apostle appeals to their testimony in support of this
fundamental mystery of our Faith.
Further than this, we know of no other
manifestations made by our Saviour after his Resurrection. We know that he gave
order to his Disciples to repair to Jerusalem, where they were to see him once
more before his Ascension. Let us, during these few days, follow the Disciples
to Jerusalem. Faithless city! how often has not Jesus sought to gather together
her children, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and she would
not! He is about to re-enter her walls;
but she is not to know it. He will not show himself to her, but only to those
that love him; and after this he will depart in silence, never to return until
he comes to judge them that have not known the time of their visitation.
FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER
Double -
White vestments
Missa 'Vocem'
INTROITUS - Psalm 48: 20
Vocem jucunditátis
annuntiáte, et audiátur, allelúia: annuntiáte usque ad extremum terræ:
liberávit Dóminus pópulum suum, alleluia, allelúia. Psalm 65: 1-2 Jubiláte Deo,
omnis terra, psalmum dícite nómini ejus: date glóriam laudi ejus. V. Glória
Patri.
INTROIT
Declare it with the voice
of joy, and make it known, alleluia: declare it even to the ends of the earth:
The Lord hath delivered His people, alleluia, alleluia. Ps. Shout with joy to God, all the
earth, sing ye a psalm to His name: give glory to His praise. V. Glory be to the Father.
COLLECT
O God, from whom all good
things do proceed, grant unto Thy humble servants, that by Thy holy
inspiration, we may think those things that are right, and under Thy guidance
may perform the same. Through our Lord.
EPISTLE - James 1:
22-27
Dearly beloved, be ye
doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man
be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding
his own countenance in a glass: for he beheld himself and went his way, and
presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he that hath looked into
perfect law of liberty and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful
hearer but a doer of the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed. And if
any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving
his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Religion pure and undefiled before
God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their
tribulation and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world.
The holy Apostle, whose instructions these
are, had received them from our Risen Jesus: hence the authoritative tone
wherewith he speaks. Our Saviour, as we have already seen, honored him with a
special visit: it proves that he was particularly dear to his divine Master, to
whom he was related by the tie of consanguinity on his Mother's side, whose
name was Mary. This holy woman went, on Easter morning, to the Sepulchre, in
company with her sister, Salome, and Magdalene. St. James the Less is indeed
the Apostle of Paschal Time, wherein every thing speaks to us of the New Life
we should lead with our Risen Lord. He is the apostle of good works, for it is
from him that we have received this fundamental maxim of Christianity, that
though Faith be the first essential of a Christian, yet without works, it is a
dead Faith, and will not save us. He also lays great stress on our being
attentive to the truths we have been taught, and on our guarding against that
culpable forgetfulness, which plays such havoc with thoughtless souls. Many of
those who have, this year, received the grace of the Easter mystery, will not
persevere; and the reason is, that they will allow the world to take up all
their time and thoughts, whereas they should use the world as though they did
not use it. Let us never forget, that we must now walk in newness of life, in
imitation of our Risen Jesus, who dieth now no more.
GOSPEL - John 16:
23-30
At that time Jesus saith
to His disciples: Amen, amen, I say to you: If you ask the Father any thing in
My name, He will give it you. Hitherto you have not asked any thing in My name:
Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things I have
spoken to you in proverbs. The hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in
proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father. In that day you shall ask in
My name: and I say not to you that I will ask the Father for you: for the
Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I
came out from God. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world:
again I leave the world and I go to the Father. His disciples say to Him:
Behold now Thou speakest plainly and speakest no proverb. Now we know that Thou
knowest all things and Thou needest not that any man should ask Thee: by this
we believe That Thou camest forth from God.
When, at his Last Supper, our Saviour thus
warned his Apostles of his having soon to leave them, they were far from
knowing him thoroughly. True, they knew that he came forth from God; but their
faith was weak, and they soon lost it. Now that they are enjoying his company
after his Resurrection, now that they have received such light from his
instructions, they know him better. He no longer speaks to them in proverbs; he
teaches them everything they required to know in order to their becoming the
teachers of the whole world. It is now they might truly say to him: We believe
that thou earnest forth from God! So much the more, then, do they understand
what they are going to lose by his leaving them. Our Lord begins now to reap
the fruit of the word he has sown in their hearts: oh! How patiently has he not
waited for it! If he praised them for their faith, when they were with him on
the night of the Last Supper; he may surely do so now that they have seen him
in the splendor of his Resurrection, and have been receiving such teaching from
his lips. He said to them, at the Last Supper: The Father loveth you, because
ye have loved Me; how much more must not the Father love them now, when their
love for Jesus is so much increased? Let us be consoled by these words. Before
Easter, our love of Jesus was weak, and we were tepid in his service; but now
that we have been enlightened and nourished by his Mysteries, we may well hope
that the Father loves us, for we love Jesus better, far better, than we did
before. This dear Redeemer urges us to ask the Father, in his name, for
everything we need. Our first want is perseverance in the spirit of Eastertide;
let it be our most earnest prayer; let it be our intention now that we are
assisting at the holy Sacrifice, which is soon to bring Jesus upon our Altar.
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