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The Easter Cycle
enjoy the esteem of others? Why are you so desirous of honor and of the empty glamour and
show of the world? Why are you so careless of sin and so insistent on your own will and your
own ambitions? The householder comes out to call us again today. Today we again renew our
contract with God. From this day forward we shall serve more faithfully and more zealously
Him into whose vineyard we have been called.
At the Offertory of the Mass we place on the paten our will and the promise of a more faithful
service. “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my
deliverer” (Introit). “It is good to give praise to the Lord, and to sing to Thy name, O Most
High” (Offertory). But our praise must be not merely a lip service. Our life, our works, and our
service must also be worthy of Him. We should seek nothing for ourselves, but everything for
Him. With this disposition we begin the Holy Sacrifice today.
The reward, the penny promised us, is given in Holy Communion. “He that eateth My flesh
and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up in the last day” ( Jn 6:55).
We shall be awakened to the perfect life in heaven. This is the reward we seek by our labor in the
vineyard of the Lord. “Many are called, but few chosen” (Gospel). Only a few are found worthy
of their vocation. I am determined to be among those few, cost what it will.
Prayer
May Thy faithful people, O God, be strengthened by Thy gifts; that in receiving them, they may
seek after them the more, and in seeking them, may receive them forever. Through Christ our
Lord. Amen. (Postcommunion.)
Thursday
We stand now on the threshold of Easter. Our eyes contemplate the mystery of Christ’s passion
and resurrection, of the darkness of Good Friday and the brilliance of Easter morning. In the suffering
and the triumph of St. Lawrence we acknowledge with the liturgy the dominion of Christ.
We pray in the Introit: “The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed
me; and in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice from His holy temple.”
“The sorrows of death surrounded me.” These words apply to Christ in His suffering. We accompany
Him on His sorrowful journey to the Mount of Olives. We are to witness the terrible
agony that caused Him to break out in a bloody sweat. “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice
pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Mt 26:39). We accompany Him
also to the hall of judgment and stand with Him before the Sanhedrin. We are present, too,
when He is dragged before Pilate, the pagan judge. We contemplate His terrible suffering at
the pillar, and see Him crowned with thorns and derided by the Roman soldiers. With heavy
hearts we follow His bloody footprints on the way of the cross, and share His agony as He hangs
in torture for three hours on the cross. “The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrows of
hell encompassed me.”
“In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice,” Christ cried out in His
struggle. Thou art “a helper in due time, in tribulation; . . . for Thou hast not forsaken them
that seek Thee” (Gradual). On Easter morning He will rise in glory. He has won the reward of
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