Judica Sunday

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause

against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
(Psalm 43 ESV)

Laetare Sunday

Laetare is the ancient name for the fourth Sunday in Lent. It means rejoice.

The introit for Laetare Sunday:



Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. Psalm: I rejoiced when they said to me: "we shall go into God's House!"  The texts of the antiphon come from Isaiah 66:10-11 and Psalm 122:1.

I could listen to that all day....and maybe I will. ;-)

Luther on Romans 6

In chapter 6, St. Paul takes up the special work of faith, the struggle which the spirit wages against the flesh to kill off those sins and desires that remain after a person has been made just. He teaches us that faith doesn't so free us from sin that we can be idle, lazy and self-assured, as though there were no more sin in us. Sin is there, but, because of faith that struggles against it, God does not reckon sin as deserving damnation. Therefore we have in our own selves a lifetime of work cut out for us; we have to tame our body, kill its lusts, force its members to obey the spirit and not the lusts. We must do this so that we may conform to the death and resurrection of Christ and complete our Baptism, which signifies a death to sin and a new life of grace. Our aim is to be completely clean from sin and then to rise bodily with Christ and live forever. 

St. Paul says that we can accomplish all this because we are in grace and not in the law. He explains that to be "outside the law." is not the same as having no law and being able to do what you please. No, being "under the law" means living without grace, surrounded by the works of the law. Then surely sin reigns by means of the law, since no one is naturally well-disposed toward the law. That very condition, however, is the greatest sin. But grace makes the law lovable to us, so there is then no sin any more, and the law is no longer against us but one with us. 

This is true freedom from sin and from the law; St. Paul writes about this for the rest of the chapter. He says it is a freedom only to do good with eagerness and to live a good life without the coercion of the law. This freedom is, therefore, a spiritual freedom which does not suspend the law but which supplies what the law demands, namely eagerness and love. These silence the law so that it has no further cause to drive people on and make demands of them. It's as though you owed something to a moneylender and couldn't pay him. You could be rid of him in one of two ways: either he would take nothing from you and would tear up his account book, or a pious man would pay for you and give you what you needed to satisfy your debt. That's exactly how Christ freed us from the law. Therefore our freedom is not a wild, fleshy freedom that has no obligation to do anything. On the contrary, it is a freedom that does a great deal, indeed everything, yet is free of the law's demands and debts. 

- "Vorrede auff die Epistel S. Paul: an die Romer." in D. Martin Luther: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch 1545 aufs new zurericht, ed. Hans Volz and Heinz Blanke. Munich: Roger & Bernhard. 1972, vol. 2, pp. 2254-2268. This translation was made by Bro. Andrew Thornton, OSB, for the Saint Anselm College Humanities Program. ©1983 by Saint Anselm Abbey. 

Beauty in Sadness

The Penitent Mary Magdalene - Caravaggio c1595

Based on Luke 8:2 "and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,"

Source: Art and the Bible

God's People Sing

A beautiful hymn written over 518 years ago. Just as relevant now as then. Faith is passed down from generation to generation. Occasionally reformed, but it should never be reinvented.

Jesus, Refuge of the Weary

Jesus, refuge of the weary,

Blest redeemer, whom we love,

Fountain in life’s desert dreary,

Savior from the world above:

Often have your eyes, offended,

Gazed upon the sinner’s fall;

Yet upon the cross extended,

You have borne the pain of all.

Do we pass that cross unheeding,

Breathing no repentant vow,

Though we see you wounded, bleeding,

See your thorn encircled brow?

Yet your sinless death has brought us 

Life eternal, peace, and rest;

Only what your grace has taught us

Calms the sinner’s deep distress.

Jesus, may our hearts be burning

With more fervent love for you;

May our eyes be ever turning 

To behold your cross anew

Till in glory, parted never

From the blessed Savior’s side,

Graven in our hearts forever,

Dwell the cross, the Crucified.

By: Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498)

A Musical Interlude

Orthodox - conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted as right or true; established and approved

St. Cyprian of Carthage
250 AD
The Lapsed 15:1-3; 28

The Apostle likewise bears witness and says: ….”Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” [1 Cor 11:27]. But [the impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest…they do violence to his body and blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord more than when they denied him.

….Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who…confess their sins to the priests of God in a straight forward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience. God cannot be mocked or outwitted, nor can he be deceived by any clever cunning….Indeed, he but sins the more if, thinking that God is like man, he believes that he can escape the punishment of his crime by not openly admitting his crime….I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests are still pleasing before the Lord.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons
180 AD
Against Heresies 1:22

[The gnostic disciples of Marcus] have deluded many women…Their consciences have been branded as with a hot iron [cf. 1 Tim 4:1ff]. Some of these women make a public confession, but others are ashamed to do this, and in silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or hesitate between the two courses.

- From The Early Church Fathers on Confession

Prayers of God's People

ALMIGHTYE and everlastyng God, whiche hatest nothyng that thou haste made, and doest forgeve the sinnes of all them that be penitente; Creat and make in us newe and contrite heartes, that wee worthely lamentyng oure synnes, and knowlegyng our wretchednes, maye obtaine of thee, the God of all mercye, perfect remission and forgevenes; thorough Jesus Christ. 

-- The collect for the "Fyrst Day of Lent" from the Book of Common Prayer, 1549 - the first prayer book published in English.