Dom Prosper Gueranger |
The following is taken from Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year. (Unfortunately, this particular passage is not available at the link given. I have it here thanks to a post from last year over at The New Liturgical Movement. I have added in the scripture references.)
---------
Yesterday,
the world was busy in its pleasures, and the very children of God were taking a
joyous farewell to mirth: but this morning, all is changed. The solemn
announcement, spoken of by the prophet, has been proclaimed in Sion: the solemn
fast of Lent, the season of expiation, the approach of the great anniversaries
of our Redemption. Let us, then, rouse ourselves, and prepare for the spiritual
combat.
But
in this battling of the spirit against the flesh we need good armor. Our holy
mother the Church knows how much we need it; and therefore does she summon us
to enter into the house of God, that she may arm us for the holy contest. What
this armor is we know from St. Paul, who thus describes it; 'Have your loins
girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice. And your feet
shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. In all things, taking the
shield and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God' (Eph. vi. 14-17). The very prince
of the apostles, too, addresses these solemn words to us: 'Christ having
suffered in the flesh, be ye also armed with the same thought' (1 Pet. iv. 1.). We are
entering, today, upon a long campaign of the warfare spoken of by the apostles:
forty days of battle, forty days of penance. We shall not turn cowards, if our
souls can but be impressed with the conviction, that the battle and the penance
must be gone through. Let us listen to the eloquence of the solemn rite which
opens our Lent. Let us go whither our mother leads us, that is, to the scene of
the fall.
The
enemies we have to fight with, are of two kinds: internal, and external. The
first are our passions; the second are the devils. Both were brought on us by
pride, and man's pride began when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him
his sin, but He punished him. The punishment was death, and this was the form
of the divine sentence: 'Thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return' (Gen. iii. 19.). Oh
that we had remembered this! The recollection of what we are and what we are to
be, would have checked that haughty rebellion, which has so often led us to
break the law of God. And if, for the time to come, we would preserve in
loyalty to Him, we must humble ourselves, accept the sentence, and look on this
present life as a path to the grave. The path may be long or short; but to the
tomb it must lead us. Remembering this, we shall see all things in their true
light. We shall love that God, who has deigned to set His heart on us
notwithstanding our being creatures of death: we shall hate, with deepest
contrition, the insolence and ingratitude, wherewith we have spent so many of
our few days of life, that is, in sinning against our heavenly Father: and we
shall be not only willing, but eager, to go through these days of penance,
which He so mercifully gives us for making reparation to His offended justice.
This
was the motive the Church had in enriching her liturgy with the solemn rite, at
which we are to assist this morning. When, upwards a thousand years ago, she
decreed the anticipation of the lenten fast by the last four days of
Quinquagesima week, she instituted this impressive ceremony of signing the
forehead of her children with ashes, while saying to them those awful words,
wherewith God sentenced us to death: 'Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and
into dust thou shalt return!' But the making use of ashes as a symbol of
humiliation and penance, is of a much earlier date than the institution to which
we allude. We find frequent mention of it in the Old Testament. Job, though a
Gentile, sprinkled his flesh with ashes, that, thus humbled, he might
propitiate the divine mercy (Job. xvi. 16): and this was two thousand years before the coming
of our Savior. The royal prophet tells us of himself, that he mingled ashes
with his bread, because of the divine anger and indignation (Ps. ci. 10,11). Many such examples
are to be met with in the sacred Scriptures; but so obvious is the analogy
between the sinner who thus signifies his grief, and the object whereby he
signifies it, that we read such instances without surprise. When fallen man
would humble himself before the divine justice, which has sentenced his body to
return to dust, how could he more aptly express his contrite acceptance of the
sentence, than by sprinkling himself, or his food, with ashes, which is the
dust of wood consumed by fire? This earnest acknowledgment of his being himself
but dust and ashes, is an act of humility, and humility ever gives him
confidence in that God, who resists the proud and pardons the humble.
No comments:
Post a Comment