Original

The sung parts of the Mass on this Sunday inspire
us with the sentiments of childlike trust in the divine
Providence so well expressed in the PSALM Qui habitat.
The devil had tried to pervert the meaning of this sa
cred song. The Church causes the whole of it to be
sung in the Tract which precedes the Gospel. She
takes the most striking passages in it to proclaim,
in the Gradual, the services the angels at God s order
render to us, in the Introit, the formal promise of the
Lord to come to our aid whenever we call upon Him,
and finally, in the Offertory and the Communion,
the divine protection invested, for us, with all the cha
racteristics of maternal care.
In the Collect, the Lenten fast is set before us as an
element of purification, the first step in the performance
of good works aided by the grace of God. In the Secret,
we are urged to regard the offering of the holy Sacrifice
as an act which detaches us from deadly pleasures. In
the Postcommunion, this same Sacrifice is shown to us
as the act which purifies, restores, and saves the soul,
stifled by the old leaven of sin.