21st Sunday After Pentecost

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

The remaining Sundays are the last of the Church’s cycle; but their proximity with its final termination varies each Year, according as Easter was early or late. This their movable character does away with anything like harmony between the composition of their Masses and the Lessons of the Night Office, all of which, dating from August, have been appointed and fixed for each subsequent week. This we have already explained to our Readers. (see beginning of this volume) Still, the instruction, which the Faithful ought to derive from the sacred Liturgy, would be incomplete, and the spirit of the Church, during these last weeks of her Year, would not be sufficiently understood by her children, unless they were to remember that the two months of October and November are filled, the first, with readings from the book of the Maccabees, whose example inspirits us for the final combats—and the second, with lessons from the Prophets, proclaiming to us the judgments of God.

MASS

Durandus, Bishop of Mende, in his Rational, tells us that this, and the following Sundays till Advent, bear closely on the Gospel of the Marriage Feast, of which they are really but a further development. “Whereas,” says he, speaking of this twenty-first Sunday, “this Marriage has no more powerful opponent than the envy of Satan—the Church speaks to us today on our combat with him, and on the armor wherewith we must be clad, in order to go through this terrible battle, as we shall see by the Epistle. And because sackcloth and ashes are the instruments of penance, therefore does the Church borrow, for the Introit, the words of Mardochai, who prayed for God’s mercy in sackcloth and ashes.” (Duran, Ration. 6:138)

These reflections of Durandus are quite true; but if the thought of her having soon to be united with her divine Spouse is uppermost in the Church’s mind, yet it is by forgetting her own happiness, and turning all her thoughts to mankind, whose salvation has been entrusted to her care by her Lord, that she will best prove herself to be truly his Bride, during the miseries of those last days. As we have already said, the near approach of the general judgment and the terrible state of the world during the period immediately preceding that final consummation of time is the very soul of the Liturgy during these last Sundays of the Church’s Year. As regards the present Sunday, the portion of the Mass which used formerly to attract the attention of our catholic forefathers was the Offertory, (Job 1) taken from the book of Job, with its telling exclamations, and its emphatic repetitions. We may in all truth say that this Offertory contains the ruling idea, which runs through this twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost.

Reduced like Job on the dung-hill to the extremity of wretchedness, the world has nothing to trust to but to God’s mercy. The holy men who are still living in it, imitating in the name of all mankind the sentiment of the just man of Idumea, honor God by a patience and resignation, which do but add power and intensity to their supplications. They begin by making their own the sublime prayer made, by Mardochai, for his people, who were doomed to extermination. The world is condemned to a similar ruin. (Esther 13:9-11)

INTROIT

All things, O Lord, are in thy power, and no one can resist thy will: for thou madest all things, heaven and earth, and all things that are contained within the compass of the heavens: thou art Lord of all.

Ps. Blessed are the undefiled in the way: who walk in the law of the Lord. Glory, &c. All things.

The Church shows us very clearly, in the Collect, that although she is quite ready to go through the roughest times, yet she prefers peace; because that furnishes her with undisturbed freedom for paying to her God the united homage of religion and good works. The closing petition made by Mardochai, in the prayer, whose commencement forms our Introit, was that God would bestow on his people the liberty necessary for that occupation on which the world’s well-being ever depends—we mean, the occupation of giving praise to God. These were Mardochai’s grand words: May we live, and praise thy name, O Lord! and shut not thou the mouths of them that sing to thee!

COLLECT

Preserve thy family, O Lord, we beseech thee, by thy constant mercy: that, under thy protection, it may be freed from all adversities and be devoted to thy name in the practice of good works. Through, etc.

The other Collects, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

EPISTLE

Lesson of the Epistle of St. Paul, the Apostle, to the Ephesians 6:10-17

Brethren: Be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of his power. Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having 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 the high places: or heavenly places. That is to say, in the air, the lowest of the celestial regions; in which God permits these wicked spirits or fallen angels to wander. In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God).

The early beginnings of man’s union with his God are, generally speaking, deliciously calm. Divine Wisdom, once he has led his chosen creature, by hard laborious work, to the purification of his mind and senses allows him (when the sacred alliance is duly concluded) to rest on his sacred breast, and thoroughly attaches the devoted one to Himself, by delights which are an ante-dated heaven, making the soul despise every earthly pleasure. It seems as though the welcome law of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 24:5) were always in force, namely, that no battle and no anxiety must ever break in upon the first season of the glorious Union. But this exemption from the general taxation is never of long duration; for combat is the normal state of every man here below. (Job 7:1)

The Most High is pleased as seeing a battle well fought by his Christian soldiers. There is no name so frequently applied to Him by the Prophets as that of the God of Hosts. His divine Son, who is the Spouse, shows himself here, on this earth of ours, as the Lord who is mighty in battle. (Psalm 23:8) In the mysterious nuptial Canticle of the forty-fourth Psalm, he lets us see him as Most Powerful Prince, girding on his grand Sword, (Psalm 44:4) and making his way, with his sharp arrows, through the very heart and very thick of his enemies, (Psalm 44:6) in order to reach, in fair valiance and beautiful victory the Bride he has chosen as his own. (Psalm 44:5) She too, just like him—she, the Bride, whose beauty he has vouchsafed to love, (Psalm 44:12) and wills her to share in all his own glories (Psalm 44:10) —yes, she too advances towards him, in the glittering armor of a warrior, surrounded by choirs (Song of Solomon 4:4, 7:1) singing the magnificent exploits of the Spouse, and she herself terrible as an army set in array. (Song of Solomon 6:9) The armor of the brave is on her arms and breast; her noble bearing reminds one of the tower of David with its thousand bucklers. (Song of Solomon 4:4)

United to her divine Lord, warriors the most valiant stand about her; they merit that privilege by their well-proved sword and their skill in war; each one of them has his sword quite ready, because of the night surprises, which the enemy may use against this most dear Church. (Song of Solomon 3:7-8) For until the dawn of the eternal day, when the shadows of this present life are put to flight (Song of Solomon 4:6) by the light of the Lamb, (Apocalypse 21:23) who will then have vanquished all his enemies—yes, until that day, power is in the hands of the rulers of the world of this darkness, says St. Paul, in today’s Epistle; and it is against them that we must take to ourselves the armor of God, which he there describes; we must wear it all, if we would be able to resist, in the evil day.

The evil days, spoken of by the Apostle last Sunday, (Ephesians 5:16) are frequent in the life of every individual, as likewise in the world’s history. But for every man, and for the world at large, there is one evil day, evil beyond all the others: it is the last day, the day of judgment, the day of exceeding bitterness, (Libera Me) as the Church calls it, on account of the woe and misery which are to fill it. We talk of so many years as passing away, and of centuries succeeding each other; but all these are neither more nor less than preparations hurrying on the world to the Last Day. Happy they who, on that Day, shall fight the good fight, (2 Timothy 4:7) and win victory! or who, as our Apostle expresses it, shall stand, while all around them is ruin, yea, stand, in all things, perfect! They shall not be hurt by the second death; (Apocalypse 2:11) wreathed with the crown of justice, (2 Timothy 4:8) they shall reign with God, (Apocalypse 20:6) on his throne, together with his Son. (Apocalypse 3:21)

The war is an easy one, when we have this Man-God for our Leader. All he asks of us is what the Apostle thus words: Be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of his power! It is leaning on her Beloved that the beautiful Church is to go up from the desert; and thus supported, she is actually to be flowing with delights, (Song of Solomon 8:5) even in those most sad days. The faithful soul is out of herself with love when she remembers that the armor she wears is the armor of God, that is, the very armor of her Spouse. It is quite thrilling to hear the Prophets describing this Jesus, this Leader, of ours, accoutred for battle, and with all the pieces we too are to wear: he girds himself with the girdle of faith; (Isaiah 11:5) then he puts the helmet of salvation on his beautiful head; (Isaiah 59:17) then, the breast-plate of justice; (Wisdom 5:19) then, the shield of invincible equity; (Wisdom 5:20) and finally, a magnificently tempered sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. (Apocalypse 2:16) We should almost think we were here having a list of our own arms; well, yes, but they are his, first; and the Gospel shows him to us as entering, Himself, on the great battle, that he might show us how to use these same divine arms, which he puts upon each of us, if we will be his soldiers.

This armor consists of many parts, because of its varied uses and effects; and yet, whether offensive or defensive, all of them have one common name—and that name—is Faith. Our Epistle makes us say so. And our Jesus, our Leader, taught it us, when to the triple temptation brought against him by the devil on the mount of Quarantania, he made answer to each temptation by a text from the sacred Scriptures. (Matthew 4:1-11) The victory which overcometh the world is our Faith, says St. John. (1 John 5:4) When St. Paul, at the close of his career, reviews the combats he had fought through life, he sums up all in his telling word: I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7) The life of Paul, in that, should be life of every Christian, for he says to us: Fight the good fight of faith! (1 Timothy 6:12) It is Faith which, in spite of those fearful odds enumerated in today’s Epistle as being against us—it is Faith that ensures the victory to men of good will. If in the warfare we must go through we were to reckon the chances of our enemies by their overwhelming forces and advantages, it is quite certain that we should have little hope of winning the day; for it is not with men like ourselves, it is not, as the Apostle puts it, with flesh and blood, that we have to wrestle, but with enemies we can never grapple with, who are in the high places of the air around us and are, therefore, invisible, and most skilled and powerful and wonderfully up in all the sad secrets of our poor fallen nature, and turning the whole weight of their advantages to trick man and ruin him, out of hatred for God. These wicked spirits were originally created, that, in the purity of their unmixed spiritual nature, they should be a reflex of the divine splendor of their Maker; and now, having rebelled by pride, they exhibit that execrable prodigy of angelic intelligences spending all their powers in doing evil to man, and in hating truth.

How, then, are we—who, by our very nature, are darkness and misery—to wrestle with these spiritual principalities and powers, who devote all their wisdom and rage to produce darkness, so as to turn the whole earth into a world of darkness? “By our becoming Light,” answers St. John Chrysostom. (Chrysostom, Homily 22) The light, it is true, is not to shine upon us in its own direct brightness until the great day of the revelation of the sons of God; (Romans 8:19) but meanwhile, we have a divine subsidy which supplements sight; that subsidy is—the Revealed Word. (2 Peter 1:19) Baptism did not open our eyes so as to see God, but it opened our ears so as to give us to hear him, when he speaks to us; now he speaks to us by the Scriptures and by his Church; and our Faith gives us, regarding Truth thus Revealed, a certainty as great as though we saw it with the eyes of either body or soul or both. By this child-like docility, the just man walks on in peace, with the simplicity of the Gospel within him. Better than breastplate or helmet, the shield of faith protects us, and from every sort of injury; it blunts the fiery darts of the world, it repels the fury of our own passions, it makes us far-seeing enough to escape the most artful snares of the most wicked ones. Is not the word of God good for every emergency? and we may have it as often and as much as we please. Satan has a horror of the Christian who, though he may be weak in other respects, is strong in this divine word. He has a greater fear of that man than he has of all your schools of philosophy and all its professors; he has got accustomed to the torture of such a man’s crushing him beneath his feet and with a rapidity (Romans 16:20) which is akin to what our Lord tells us he himself witnessed: I saw Satan, like lightning, falling from heaven: (Luke 10:18) it was on the great battle day (Apocalypse 12:7) when he was hurled from paradise by that one word MICHAEL—exquisite word, which was given to the triumphant Archangel to be his everlasting noble name! and he himself, by that word of God, and by that victory for God, was made our model and our defender. We have already explained to our readers why it is that these closing weeks of the Church’s Year are so full of the grand Archangel St. Michael.

In the Gradual and its Versicle, the Church tells her Lord how he has ever been the refuge of his people: his goodness, like his power, were before all ages, because he is God from all eternity. May he, therefore, now protect his faithful servants who, reduced to a scanty number, as Israel was of old, are preparing the last exodus of the Church, which is leaving this world turned infidel, and is hastening to the true land of promise.

GRADUAL

Lord! thou hast been our refuge from generation unto generation.

℣. Before the mountains were made, or the earth and the world were formed: thou art God, for ever and ever.

Alleluia, alleluia.

℣. When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people. Alleluia.

GOSPEL

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to St. Matthew 18:23-35

At that time: Jesus spoke to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. Talents: A talent was seven hundred and fifty ounces of silver, which at the rate of five shillings to the ounce is a hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten shillings sterling. But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: Pay what thou owest. And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt. Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee? And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.

“O thou just Judge of vengeance (on man), grant us the gift of forgiveness, before the Day of reckoning cometh!” Such is the petition that comes from the heart of holy Mother Church as she thinks on what may have befallen those countless children of hers, who have been victims of death during this as every other year; it is, moreover, the supplication that should be made by every living soul, after hearing the Gospel just read to us. The Sequence, Dies iræ, from which these words are taken, is not only a sublime prayer for the Dead; it is, likewise, and especially at this close of the Ecclesiastical Year, an appropriate expression for all of us who are still living. Our thoughts and our expectations are naturally turned towards our own deaths. We almost seem forgotten and overlooked in this evening of the world’s existence, but it not so, for we know from sacred Scripture that we shall join those who have already slept the last sleep, and shall be taken, together with them, to meet our divine Judge. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-16)

Let us hearken to some more of our Mother’s words, in that same magnificent Sequence; this is their meaning: “How great will be our fear when the Judge is about to come and rigorously examine all our works! —The trumpet’s wondrous sound will pierce the graves of every land and summon us all before the throne!” — Death will stand amazed, and nature too, when the “creature shall rise again, to go and answer Him that is to judge! —The written Book shall be brought forth, wherein all is contained for which the world is to be tried. —So when the Judge shall sit on his throne, every hidden secret shall be revealed, nothing shall remain unpunished! —What shall I, poor wretch, then say? Who ask to be my patron, when the just man himself shall scarce be safe? —O King of dreaded majesty! who savest gratuitously them that are, save me, O fount of love! —Do thou remember, loving Jesu! that I was cause of thy life on earth! Lose me not, on that Day!” Undoubtedly, such a prayer as this has every best chance of being graciously heard, addressed as it is to Him, who has nothing so much at heart as our salvation, and who, for procuring it, gave himself up to fatigue and suffering and death on the Cross: but we should be inexcusable, and deserve condemnation twice over, were we to neglect to profit of the advice he himself gives us, whereby to avert from us the perils of “that day of tears, when guilty man shall rise from the dust and go to be judged!” (Dies Irae) Let us, then, meditate on the parable of our Gospel, whose sole object is to teach us a sure way of settling, at once, our accounts with the divine King.

We are all of us, in fact, that negligent servant, that insolvent debtor, whose master might, in all justice, sell him, with all he has, and hand him over to the torturers. The debt contracted with God, by the sins we have committed, is of that nature as to deserve endless tortures; it supposes an eternal hell, in which the guilty one will ever be paying, without ever cancelling his debt. Infinite praise, then, and thanks to the divine Creditor who, being moved to pity by the entreaties of the unhappy man, who asks for time and he will pay all—yes, this good God grants him far beyond what he prays for—he, there and then, forgives him the debt. He puts but this condition on the pardon, as is evident from the sequel—he insists, and most justly, that he should go and do, in like manner, towards his fellow-servants, who may perhaps owe something to him. After being so generously forgiven by his Lord and King, after having his infinite debt so gratuitously cancelled, how can he possibly turn a deaf ear to the very same prayer which won pardon for himself, now that a fellow-servant makes it to him? is it to be believed that he will refuse all pity towards one whose only offense is that he asks him for time, and he will pay all?

“It is quite true,” says St. Augustine, “that every man has his fellow-man a debtor—for who is the man, that he has had no one to offend him? but at the same time, who is the man that is not debtor to God, for all of us have sinned? Man, therefore, is both debtor to God, and creditor to his fellow-man. It is for this reason that God has laid down this rule for thy conduct—that thou must treat thy debtor as He treats his … We pray every day; every day, we send up the same petition to the divine throne; every day, we prostrate ourselves before God and say to him: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive them that are debtors to us. (Matthew 6:12) Of what debts speakest thou? Is it, of all thy debts? or of one or two only? Thou wilt say: Of all. Do thou, therefore, forgive thy debtor, for it is the rule laid upon thee, it is the condition accepted by thee.” (Augustine, Sermon 83)

“It is a greater thing,” says St. John Chrysostom, “to forgive our neighbor the trespasses he has committed against us, than to condone him a sum of money; for by forgiving him his sins, we imitate God.” (St Chrysostom, On Ephesians, Homily 17:1) And after all, what is the injury committed by one man against another man, if compared with the offense committed by man against God? Alas! we have all got the habit of that second; even the just man knows its misery seven times (Proverbs 24:16) over and, as the text probably means, seven times a day; so that it comes ruffling our whole day long. Let this, at least, be our parallel habit—that we contract a facility in being merciful towards our fellow-men, since we, every night, have the assurance given us, that we shall be pardoned all our miseries, on the condition of our owning them. It is an excellent practice not to go to bed without putting ourselves in the dispositions of a little child, who can rest his head on God’s bosom, and there fall asleep; but if we thus feel it a happy necessity to find in the heart of our heavenly Father (Matthew 6:9) forgetfulness of our day’s faults, yea, more an infinitely tender love for us his poor tottering children—how can we, at that very time, dare to be storing up in our minds old grudges and scores against our neighbors, our brethren, who are also his children? Even supposing that we had been treated by them with outrageous injustice or insult, could these their faults bear any comparison with our offenses against that good God whose born enemies we were, and whom we have caused to be put to an ignominious death? Whatsoever may be the circumstances attending the unkindness shown us, we may and should invariably practice the rule given us by the Apostle: Be ye kind one to another! merciful! forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you, in Christ! Be ye imitators of God, as most dear children! (Ephesians 4:32, 5:1) What! thou callest God thy Father, and dost thou remember an injury that has been done thee? “That,” says St. John Chrysostom, “is not the way a son of God acts in! The work of a son of God is this—to pardon one’s enemies, to pray for them that crucify him, to shed his blood for them that hate him. Would you know the conduct of one who is worthy to be a son of God? he takes his enemies, and his ingrates, and his robbers, and his insulters, and his traitors, and makes them his brethren and sharers of all his wealth!” (Chrysostom, On Ephesians, Homily 14:3)

We here give, in its entirety, the celebrated Offertory of Job, with its Verses. The observations we made at the beginning of Mass will enable us to enter into the spirit of this liturgical piece. As Amalarius says, the Anthem, which has been retained, gives us the words of the historian, who simply relates the facts, one after the other, without any remarks; but in the Verses, we have Job himself speaking, his body all humbled, and his soul full of sorrow: the repetition of the same words, their interruptions, their refrain, their broken phrases, vividly represent his panting for breath, and intense suffering. (Amalarius, De Eccl. Off., Book 3, c. 39)

OFFERTORY

There was a man, whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God: and Satan asked to tempt him; and power was given him by the Lord over his possessions, and over his flesh: and he destroyed all his substance, and his sons: and he wounded his flesh with a grievous ulcer.

℣. I. Oh! that my sins were weighed in a balance! Oh! that my sins, whereby I have deserved wrath—whereby I have deserved wrath—were weighed in a balance! and the calamity—the calamity that I suffer—it would appear heavier!

There was a man.

℣. II. For, what is—for, what is—for, what is my strength, that I can hold out? or, what is my end, that I should keep patience?

There was a man.

℣. III. Is my strength the strength of stones? Or, is my flesh of brass?—or, is my flesh of brass?

There was a man.

℣. IV. For,—for,—for, mine eye shall not return to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things,—to see good things!

There was a man.

The salvation of the world, and that of each individual man, is virtually, ever in the august Sacrifice, whose power restores man, by appeasing God. With a confidence that fails not, let us use it as the most efficacious recourse that can be made to the divine mercy.

SECRET

Mercifully receive, O Lord, these offerings, by which thou art pleased to be appeased; and restore us to salvation, by thy powerful goodness. Through, etc.

The other Secrets, as in the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

An unflagging hope ever accompanies the admirable patience of holy Church. Persecutions, be they ever so fierce or long, never interrupt her prayer; for as the Communion expresses it, she keeps in her heart a faithful recollection of the word of salvation that was given her by God.

Now that we have been nourished by the food of immortality, let us live on it with all evidence of a soul that is made pure.

COMMUNION

My soul hath looked to be saved by thee, and hath relied on thy word: when wilt thou judge them that persecute me? The wicked ones have persecuted me: help me, O Lord my God!

POSTCOMMUNION

Having received the food of immortality, we beseech thee, O Lord, that what we have taken with our mouths, we may receive with a pure mind. Through, etc.

The other Postcommunions, as in the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.

VESPERS

The psalms, capitulum, hymn, and versicle as in the beginning of the volume.

ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT

Thou wicked servant! I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: shouldst not thou, then, have had compassion also on thy fellow-servant, even as I had compassion on thee? Alleluia.

LET US PRAY

Preserve thy family, O Lord, we beseech thee, by thy constant mercy: that, under thy protection, it may be freed from all adversities, and be devoted to thy name in the practice of good works. Through, etc.