QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY
- Our Lady of Lourdes (1858). (Current, Traditional)
- St. Saturninus and Companions (304). Martyr, Priest. (Historical)
QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY is the third day preceding Ash Wednesday. That holy season is approaching when the Church denies herself her songs of joy in order the more forcibly to remind us, her children, that we are living in a Babylon of spiritual danger, and to excite us to regain that genuine Christian spirit which every thing in the world around us is striving to undermine. If we are obliged to take part in the amusements of the few days before Lent, let it be with a heart deeply imbued with the maxims of the Gospel. But, as a substitute for frivolous amusements and dangerous pleasures, the Church offers a feast surpassing all earthly enjoyments, and a means whereby we can make some amends to God for the insults offered to His divine majesty. The Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world is exposed upon our altars. On this His throne of mercy He receives the homage of those who come to adore Him and acknowledge Him for their King; He accepts the repentance of those who come to tell Him how grieved they are at having followed any other Master; and He offers Himself again to His Eternal Father as a propitiation for those sinners who yet treat His favors with indifference. It was the pious Cardinal Gabriel Paleotti, Archbishop of Bologna, who, in the sixteenth century, first originated the admirable devotion of the Forty Hours. His object in this solemn exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament was to offer to the Divine Majesty some compensation for the sins of man, and, at the very time when the world was busiest in deserving His anger, to appease it by the sight of His own Son, the Mediator between heaven and earth. Pope Benedict XIV granted many indulgences to all the faithful of the Papal States who, during these days, should visit Our Lord in this mystery of His love, and should pray for the pardon of sinners. This favor, at first so restricted, afterward was extended by Pope Clement XIII to the Universal Church. Thus the Forty Hours’ Devotion has spread throughout the whole world and become one of the most solemn expressions of Catholic piety.
REFLECTION: Let us then go apart, for at least one short hour, from the dissipation of earthly enjoyments, and, kneeling in the presence of our Jesus, merit the grace to keep our hearts innocent and detached.
ed. note: This doesn’t seem to be happening anymore right before Lent as proposed (at least by surveying parishes generally), but the reader is invited to see what was going on in Mother Church at the end of the 19th century and turn of the 20th century.
ST. SEVERINUS (SATURNINUS)
ST. SEVERINUS, of a noble family in Burgundy, was educated in the Catholic faith, at a time when the Arian heresy reigned in that country. He forsook the world in his youth, and dedicated himself to God in the monastery of Agaunum, which then only consisted of scattered cells, till the Catholic king Sigismund built there the great abbey of St. Maurice. St. Severinus was the holy abbot of that place, and had governed his community many years in the exercise of penance and charity, when, in 504, Clovis, the first Christian king of France, lying ill of a fever, which his physicians had for two years ineffectually endeavored to remove, sent his chamberlain to conduct the Saint to court; for it was said that the sick from all parts recovered their health by his prayers. St. Severinus took leave of his monks, telling them he should never see them more in this world. On his journey he healed Eulalius, bishop of Nevers, who had been for some time deaf and dumb, also a leper, at the gates of Paris; and coming to the palace he immediately restored the king to perfect health, by putting on him his own cloak. The king, in gratitude, distributed large alms to the poor, and released all his prisoners. St. Severinus, returning toward Agaunum, stopped at Château-Landon, in Gatinois, where two priests served God in a solitary chapel, among whom he was admitted, at his request, as a stranger, and was soon greatly admired by them for his sanctity. He foresaw his death, which happened shortly after, in 50%. The place is now an abbey of reformed canons regular of St. Austin. The Huguenots scattered the greatest part of his relics when they plundered this church.
REFLECTION: God loads with His favor those who delight in exercising mercy. “According to thy ability be merciful; if thou hast much, give abundantly; if thou hast little, take care even so to bestow willingly a little.”
WORD OF THE DAY
INDULGENCE. “The remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned, which the follower of Christ with the proper dispositions and under certain determined conditions acquires through the intervention of the Church, which, as minister of the redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints” (Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution on Indulgences).
As originally understood, an indulgence was a mitigation of the severe canonical penances imposed on the faithful for grave sins. The term “indulgence” remained, however, even after these extreme penalties were discontinued. Yet until the Second Vatican Council, the norm for determining the effectiveness of an indulgenced practice was its relationship to the ancient canonical penances, as seen in the numbers, so many years or so many days, attached to every official listing of partial indulgences.
All this was changed by Pope Paul VI. From now on the measure of how efficacious an indulgenced work is depends on two things: the supernatural charity with which the indulgenced task is done, and the perfection of the task itself.
Another innovation is that partial and plenary indulgences can always be applied to the dead by way of suffrage, asking God to remit their sufferings if they are still in purgatory.
Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)
This article, FEBRUARY 11, 2024 – ST. SEVERINUS, ABBOT OF AGAUNUM. & QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY – THE FORTY HOURS’ DEVOTION. is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/february-11-2024-st-severinus-abbot-of-agaunum-quinquagesima-sunday-the-forty-hours-devotion/
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