MONDAY IN PASSION WEEK. THE Station, at Rome, is in the Church of Saint Chrysogonus, one of the most celebrated Martyrs of the Church of Rome. His name is inserted in the Canon of the Mass. introire in civitatem itinere diei unius et clamavit, et dixit: Adhuc quadraginta dies et Ninive subvertetur. Et crediderunt viri Ninivitæ in Deum et prædicaverunt jejunium, et vestiti sunt saccis a majore usque ad minorem. Et pervenit verbum ad regem Ninive: et surrexit de solio suo, et abjecit vestimentum suum a se, et indutus est sacco, et sedit in cinere. Et clamavit, et dixit in Ninive ex ore regis, et principum ejus, dicens: Homines, et jumenta, et boves, et pecora non gustent quidquam nec pascantur, et aquam non bibant. Et operiantur saccis homines, et jumenta, et clament ad Dominum in fortitudine, et convertatur vir a via sua mala, et ab iniquitate, quæ est in manibus eorum. Quis scit si convertatur, et ignoscat Deus et revertatur a furore iræ suæ, et non peribimus? Et vidit Deus opera eorum, quia conversi sunt de via sua mala et misertus est populo suo Dominus Deus noster. journey and he cried and said: Yet forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed. And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. And the word came to the king of Ninive: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive, from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, oxen sheep, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water. And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and forgive and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish? And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way and the Lord our God had mercy on his people. nor The Church's intention in this day's lesson, is to encourage us to earnestness and perseverance in our penance. Here we have an idolatrous city, a haughty and debauched capital, whose crimes have merited the anger of heaven. God threatens it with his vengeance: yet forty days, and Ninive and its inhabitants shall be destroyed. How came it, that the threat was not carried into effect? What was it that caused Ninive to be spared? Its people returned to the God they had left; they sued for mercy; they humbled themselves, and fasted; and the Church concludes the Prophet's account by these touching words of her own: And the Lord our God had mercy on his people." They were Gentiles, but they became his people, because they did penance at the preaching of the Prophet. God had made a covenant with one only nation, the Jews; but he rejected not the Gentiles, as often as they renounced their false Gods, confessed his holy name, and desired to serve him. We are here taught the efficacy of corporal mortification; when united with spiritual penance, that is, with the repentance of the heart, it has power to appease God's anger. How highly, then, should we not prize the holy exercises of penance put upon us by the Church, during this holy Season! Let us also learn to dread that false spirituality, which tells us that exterior mortification is of little value: such doctrine is the result of rationalism and cowardice. This passage from the Prophet Jonas is also intended for the Catechumens, whose baptism is so close at hand. It teaches them to have confidence in this merciful God of the Christians, whose threats are so terrible, but who, notwithstanding, turns from his threats to forgive the repentant sinner. These Catechumens, who had hitherto lived in the Ninive of paganism, were here taught that God, even before sending his Son into the world, invited all men to become his people. Seeing the immense obstacles their Gentile ancestors had to surmount in order to receive and persevere in the grace offered them, they would bless God their Saviour, for having, by his Incarnation, his Sacrifice, his Sacraments, and his Church, facilitated salvation for us who live under the New Testament. True, he was the source of salvation to all preceding generations: but with what incomparable richness is he the source of ours? The Public Penitents, too, had their instruction in this Epistle. What an encouragement for them to hope for pardon! God had shown mercy to Ninive, sinful as it was, and sentenced to destruction: he would, therefore, accept their repentance and penance, he would stay his justice, and show them mercy and pardon. GOSPEL. Sequentia sancti Evangelii Sequel of the holy Gospel secundum Joannem. Cap. VII. In illo tempore: Miserunt principes et Pharisæi, ministros, ut apprehenderent Jesum. Dixit ergo eis Jesus Adhuc modicum tempus vobiscum sum et vado ad eum qui me misit. Quæretis me, et non invenietis et ubi ego sum VOS non potestis venire. Dixerunt ergo Judæi ad semetipsos: Quo hic iturus est, quia non inveniemus eum? Numquid in dispersionem Gentium iturus est, et docturus Gentes? Quis est hic sermo, quem dixit: Quæretis me, et non invenietis et ubi sum ego, vos non potestis venire? In novissimo autem die magno festivitatis stabat Jesus, et clamabat dicens: Si quis sitit, veniat ad me, et bibat. Qui credit in me, sicut dicit Scriptura, flumina de ventre ejus fluent aquæ vivæ. Hoc autem dixit de Spiritu, quem accepturi erant credentes in eum. according to John. Ch. VII. At that time: The rulers and Pharisees sent ministers to apprehend Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them: Yet a little while I am with you: and then I go to him that sent me. You shall seek me, and shall not find me : and where I am, thither you cannot come. The Jews, therefore, said among themselves: Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? What is this saying that he hath said: You shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, you cannot come? And on the last and great day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him. The enemies of Jesus sought to stone him to death, as we were told in yesterday's Gospel; to-day they are bent on making him a prisoner, and send soldiers to seize him. This time, Jesus does not hide himself; but how awful are the words he speaks: I go to Him that sent me : you shall seek me, and shall not find me! The sinner, then, who has long abused the grace of God, may have his ingratitude and contempt punished in this just, but terrific way, that he shall not be able to find the Jesus he has despised: he shall seek, and shall not find. Antiochus, when humbled under the hand of God, prayed, yet obtained not mercy.1 After the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, whilst the Church was casting her roots in the world, the Jews, who had crucified the Just One, were seeking the Messias in each of the many impostors, who were then rising up in Judea, and fomenting rebellions, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Surrounded on all sides by the Roman legions, with their temple and palaces a prey to flames, they sent up their cries to heaven, and besought the God of their fathers to send, as he had promised, the Deliverer! It never occurred to them, that this Deliverer had shown himself to their fathers, to many even of themselves; that they had put him to death, and that the Apostles had already carried his name to the ends of the earth. They went on looking for him, even to the very day when the deicide city fell, burying beneath its ruins them that the sword had spared. Had they been asked, what it was they were awaiting, they would have replied, that they were expecting their Messias! He had come, and gone. You shall seek me, and shall not find me! Let them, too, think of these terrible words of Jesus, who intend to neglect the graces offered them during this Easter. Let us pray, let us make intercession for them, lest they fall into that 1 II. Mach. ix. 13. |
