22 SEPTEMBER – EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The paralytic carrying his bed is the subject of this day’s Gospel, and gives the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost its title. It has been thought by some that its having the number it bears has caused it to be inserted in the Missal immediately after the Ember Days of autumn. We will not, like the Liturgists of the Middle Ages, discuss the question as to whether we should consider it as having taken the place of the vacant Sunday which formerly used always to follow the ordination of the sacred ministers in the manner we have elsewhere described.

Manuscript Sacramentaries and Lectionaries of very ancient date give it the name, which was so much in use, of Dominica vacate. Whatever may be the conclusion arrived at, there is one interesting point for consideration — that the Mass of this day is the only one in which is broken the order of the lessons taken from Saint Paul, and which invariably form the subject of the Epistles from the sixth Sunday after Pentecost: the Letter to the Ephesians —which we have had already before us, and will be afterwards continued — is today interrupted, and in its stead we have some verses from the first Epistle to the Corinthians in which the Apostle gives thanks to God for the manifold gratuitous gifts granted, in Christ Jesus, to the Church. Now, the powers conferred by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands on the ministers of the Church are the most marvellous gift that is known on Earth, yes, in Heaven itself. The other portions of the Mass, too, are, as we will see further on, most appropriate to the prerogatives of the new Priesthood. So that the Liturgy of the present Sunday is doubly telling when it immediately follows the Ember Days of September. But this coincidence is far from being one of every year’s occurrence, at least as the Liturgy now stands. Nor can we dwell longer on these subjects without seeming to be going too far into archaeology and exceeding the limits we have marked out for ourselves.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians i. 4‒8

Brethren, I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God that is given to you in Christ Jesus, that in all things you are made rich in Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that nothing is wanting to you in any grace, waiting for the manifestation, of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who also will confirm you to the end without crime, in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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 Judgement 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. Separated as she is, at least, as to the vision of his divine charms, she would have been sighing all day long in this vale of tears had not the love which possesses her driven her to spend herself, unselfishly and unreservedly, for Him who is absolute Master of her whole heart. She, therefore, devotes herself to labour and suffering, to prayers and tears. But her devotedness, unlimited as it has been, has not made her hopes less ardent. A love without desires is not a virtue of the Church. She condemns it in her children as being an insult to the Spouse. So just and, at the same time, so intense were, and from the very first, these her aspirations, that Eternal Wisdom wished to spare his Bride by concealing from her the duration of her exile. The day and hour of His return is the one sole point on which, when questioned by His Apostles, Jesus refused to enlighten His Church (Matthew xxiv. 3, 36). That secret constituted one of the designs of God’s government of the world. But besides that, it was also a proof of the compassion and affection of the Man-God: the trial would have been too cruel, and it was better to leave the Church under the impression, which after all was a true one, that the end was near in God’s sight, with whom a thousand years are as one day (2 Peter iii. 8).

It is this which explains how it was that the Apostles, who were the interpreters of the Church’s aspirations, are continually recurring to the subjects of the near approach of our Lord’s coming. Saint Paul has just been telling us, and that twice over in the same breath, that the Christian is he who waits for the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the day of His Coming. In his Epistle to the Hebrews, he applies to the second Coming, the inflamed desires of the ancient Prophets for the first (Hebrews ii. 3), and says: “Yet a little, and a very little while, and He that is to come, will come, and will not delay” (Hebrews x. 37). The reason is that under the New Covenant, as under the Old, the Man-God is called, on account of His final manifestation, which is always being looked for, HE THAT IS COMING, HE THAT IS TO COME (Apocalypse i. 8). The cry, which is to close the world’s history, is to be the announcement of His arrival: Behold! the Bridegroom is COMING (Matthew xxv. 6). And Saint Peter, too, says: “Having the loins of your mind girt up, think of the glory of that day on which the Lord Jesus is to be revealed! Hope for it with a perfect hope!” (1 Peter i. 5, 7, 13). The Prince of the Apostles foresaw the contemptuous way in which future false teachers would scoff at this long expected, but always put-off, Coming. Where is His promise, or His Coming? For, since the fathers slept, all things continue so, from the beginning of the creation! (2 Peter iii. 3, 4).

Yes, he foresaw this, and forestalled their sarcasm by answering it in the words which his brother Paul (2 Peter iii. 15) had previously used (Romans ii. 4): “The Lord delays not His promise, as some imagine; out, bears patiently, for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with great violence. And the elements will be dissolved with heat. And the Earth, and the works that are in it, will be burnt up. Seeing, then, that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversations and godliness, waiting for, and hastening to, the coming of the day of the Lord, by which, the heavens being on fire, will be dissolved, and the elements will melt with the burning heat of fire? But we look for new heavens and new earth, according to His promise, in which heavens and earth, justice dwells. Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before Him, unspotted and blameless in peace (2 Peter iii. 9‒14)... Wherefore, brethren, knowing these things before, beware, lest, being led away by the error of the unwise, you fall from the steadfastness which is now yours (2 Peter iii. 17).

If in those last days danger is to be so great that the very powers of heaven will be moved (Matthew xxiv. 29) our Lord, as we are told in our Epistle, has providentially confirmed in us His testimony and our faith by continual manifestations of His power. And, as it were to confirm that other word of the same Epistle, that He will thus confirm to the end them that believe in Him — He is almost prodigal of prodigies in these our times, as though they were precursors of the End.

Miracles are forcing themselves on the world’s unwilling notice, and our modern facilities for propagating news are made to tell this glory of the Lord all over His earth! In the name of Jesus, in the name of one or other of His Saints, but especially in the name of His Immaculate Mother who is preparing the final triumph of the Church, the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, every misery of both body and soul is suddenly made to yield. So incontestable indeed, and so public, is the manifestation of supernatural power, that business-managers of all kinds, though they must out of regard for incredulity laugh at the facts, yet are they most serious in turning the occasion to their profit! Such very material agencies as railway companies have been but too glad to be obliged to put on extra trains to accommodate the faithful thousands, and carry them as quickly as they could, to the favoured sanctuaries where the holy Mother of God has appeared. It is not in Catholic countries only that the divine power has made itself felt. Quite recently, in the very centre of Mahometan infidelity — have we not read it in our papers how the city of the Sultans rejoiced at hearing of the marvels done by the Queen of Heaven within its own walls? The water of the miraculous fountain has been carried even into the city of Mecca where is the tomb of the founder of Islam, and into which, until but lately, it was death for any Christian to enter.

The infidel may talk as he please, about there being no God! (Psalm xiii. 1) If he hears not the divine testimony, it is because corruption or pride has more power over him than the light of reason — just as it was with the enemies of Jesus during His life upon the Earth. He is like to the asp of the Psalm (Psalm lvii. 5, 6) which makes itself deaf. It stops its ears that it may never hear the voice of the divine Enchanter who speaks that he may save. His life is one piece of madness (Psalm lvii. 5, 6) and folly (Psalm xiii. 1). He has done his best to draw down vengeance upon himself. Let us not be like him, but with the Apostle let us thank God for the rich profusion of Grace, which He has so mercifully poured out on us. Never were His gratuitous gifts more necessary than in these our miserable times. True, it is not a first promulgation that we stand in need of, but the efforts of Hell against it have become so violent that in order to withstand them there is need of a power from on high, equal, in some sense, to that we read of as granted in the beginning of the Church. Let us beseech our Lord to bless us with men, powerful in word and work. Let us, by the fervour of our fastings and prayers, obtain, from His divine Majesty, that the imposition of hands may produce, now more than ever, in them that are called to the Priesthood, its full result: that it may make them rich in all things, and especially in all utterance, and in all knowledge. May these days of ours, in which all principles are growing shadowy, find that the supernatural light, at least — the light of salvation — is kept up in full splendour and purity by the zeal of the Guides of the flock of Christ. May the compromises and flinchings of a generation in which all truth is being etiolated and minced, never lead our newly ordained Priests either themselves to shorten or permit any one else to curtail, the measure of the perfect man (Ephesians iv. 13) which was put into their hands in order that they might apply it to every Christian who is desirous of observing the Gospel! In spite of all threats, in spite of the noisy passions which are boisterous against any Priest who dares to preach the truth, let their voice be just what it should be, that is, an echo of the Word: let it, that is, possess he holy firmness and vibration of the Saints!

Gospel – Matthew ix. 1‒8

At that time, Jesus entering into a boat, passed over the water, and came into His own city. And behold, they brought to Him one sick of the palsy lying in a bed, and Jesus seeing their faith said to the man sick of the palsy, “Be of good heart, son, your sins are forgiven.” And behold some of the tribes said within themselves, “he blasphemes.” Jesus, seeing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? Is it easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say, arise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins (then He said he to the man sick of the palsy), “Arise, take up your bed and go into your house.” And he arose and went into his house. And the multitude seeing it feared and glorified God who had given such power to men.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

In the thirteenth century, in many Churches of the West, the Gospel for today was that in which our Lord speaks of the Scribes and Pharisees as seated on the chair of Moses (Matthew xxiii 1‒12). The Abbot Rupert, who gives us this detail in his book on the Divine Offices, shows how admirably this Gospel harmonised with the Offertory, which is the one we still have, and which alludes to Moses. “This Sunday’s Office,” says he, “eloquently points out to him who presides over the House of the Lord and has received charge of souls, the manner in which he should " comport himself in the high rank where the divine call has placed him. 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.” Our Lord, speaking of the Jewish doctors, said: “All whatever they will say to you, observe and do. But according to their works, do not: for they say, and do not” (Matthew xxiii. 3). Contrariwise to these unworthy guardians of the Law, they who are seated on the Chair of doctrine, “should teach, and act conformably to their teaching,” as the same Abbot Rupert adds, “or rather,” says he, “let them first do, what it is their duty to do, that they may afterwards teach with authority. Let them not seek after honours and titles, but make this their one object: to bear on themselves the sins of the people, and to merit to avert, from those who are confided to their care the wrath of God, as we are told in the Offertory, Moses did.”

The Gospel which speaks of the Scribes and Pharisees who were seated on the Chair of Moses has now been appointed for the Tuesday of the second week of Lent. But the one which is at present given for this Sunday equally directs our thoughts to the consideration of the superhuman powers of the Priesthood, which are the common boon of regenerated humanity. The Faithful, whose attention used formerly, on this Sunday, to be fixed on the right of Teaching, which is confided to the Pastors of the Church, are now invited to meditate upon the prerogative which these same men have — of forgiving sins and healing souls. As a conduct, in opposition with their teaching, would in no wise interfere with the authority of the sacred Chair from which, for the Church and in her name, they dispense the bread of doctrine to her children — so whatever unworthiness there may happen to be on the soul of a Priest, it does not in the least lessen the power of the Keys which he has had put into his hands, and which open Heaven, and shut Hell. For it is the Son of Man — it is Jesus —who, by the Priest, be he a saint or be he a sinner, rids of their sins His brethren and His creatures, whose miseries He has taken upon Himself and has atoned for their crimes by His Blood (Hebrews ii. 10‒18). The miracle of the cure of the Paralytic, which gave an occasion to Jesus of declaring His power of forgiving sins inasmuch as He was Son of Man, has always been especially dear to the Church. Besides the narration she gives us of it from Saint Matthew in today’s Gospel, she again, on the Ember Friday of Whitsuntide, relates it in the words of Saint Luke (Luke v. 17‒26).

The Catacomb frescoes which have been preserved to the present day equally attest the predilection for this subject with which she inspired the Christian artists of the first centuries. 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 teaching was equivalent to the irretrievably condemning to spiritual death an immense number of Christians who, unhappily, had fallen after their baptism, but who, according to Catholic dogma, might be restored to grace by the Sacrament of Penance. With what energy, then, would not our Mother the Church defend the treasure, we mean, 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. Like her divine Master, who had worked under the eyes of the Scribes and His contradictors, the Church, too, in proof of her consoling doctrine, had worked an undeniable and visible miracle in the presence of the false teachers. And yet she failed to convince them of the reality of the miracle of sanctification and grace invisibly wrought by her words of remission and pardon. 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: that other was the human race which, for ages, had been a victim to the palsy of sin. Our Lord had 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, your sins are forgiven you!” 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 on Earth of conversion and holiness, are in amazement and sing glory to God who gave such power to men.

Let us also give thanks to Jesus whose marvellous dower, which is the Blood He shed for His Bride, suffices to satisfy, through all ages, the claims of eternal justice. It was at Easter Time that we saw our Lord instituting the great Sacrament which thus, in one instant, restores the sinner to life and strength. But, how doubly wonderful does not its power seem when we see it working in these times of effeminacy and well-near universal ruin! Iniquity abounds, crimes are multiplied, and yet the life-restoring pool kept full by the sacred stream, which flows from the open Side of our crucified Lord, is ever absorbing and removing, as often as we permit it, and without leaving one single vestige of them, those mountains of sins, those hideous treasures of iniquity which had been amassed during long years by the united agency of the devil, the world and man’s own self.