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The Easter Cycle
of prayer, or our haste and distraction in prayer. May God give us the grace to recognize the
habitual venial sins that have bound our soul to earth. That we may obtain this grace we pray in
the Offertory: “Perfect Thou my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps be not moved; incline
Thy ear and hear my words; show forth Thy wonderful mercies, Thou who savest them that
trust in Thee, O Lord.”
Prayer
Thou hast moved the earth, O Lord, and hast troubled it. Heal Thou the breaches thereof,
for it has been moved, that they may flee from before the bow, that Thy elect may be delivered.
(Tract.)
Deliver us from the bonds of venial sin. Amen.
Saturday
Today we listen with astonishment as the words pour forth from the mouth of the apostle
Paul telling of the wonderful fruit borne by the seed the Lord placed in his soul on the way to
Damascus. “But that [which fell] on the good ground are they who in a good and perfect heart,
hearing the word, keep it and bring forth fruit in patience” (Gospel). St. Paul received the word
of God into his heart, nourished it with grace, and brought forth fruit in patience.
“The sower went out to sow his seed” (Gospel). “Saul, as yet breathing out threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,” set out from Jerusalem to Damascus with
the intention of bringing the disciples back to Jerusalem in chains. His heart was fixed with
zeal for the Law and for the religion of his fathers, and in this heart God sowed the seed of
His word. “And suddenly a light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the
ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? Who said:
who art Thou, Lord? And He: I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick
against the goad. And he, trembling and astonished, said: Lord what wilt Thou have me to
do? And the Lord said to him: Arise and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what
thou must do” (Acts 9:1, 3–7). The seed has been sown. Saul received it willingly “Lord
what wilt Thou have me to do?” He does as he has been directed, and enters the city. He
remains there waiting patiently in his blindness, without eating or drinking. He prays and
abandons himself entirely to the direction of Ananias, who restores his vision and baptizes
him. He retires to solitude and to prayer that the seed may take root deeply in his soul. It
springs up vigorously, and Saul becomes Paul. From that moment on he is obsessed by one
idea: Christ, His Church, and the salvation of souls. “Forgetting the things that are behind”
(Phil 3:13), he now knows only Christ and Him crucified. “For to me, to live is Christ; and
to die is gain. . . . But I am straightened between two: having a desire to be dissolved and to
be with Christ, a thing by far the better” (Phil 1:21, 23).
A soul so fully occupied with Christ, so full of zeal for the salvation of souls and the welfare
of the Church, a soul that has broken with all that is not of Christ, is certainly good soil. We
need not wonder, then, that St. Paul’s life and labors were so marvelously fruitful and that he
bore suffering and trials with such heroism. Neither are we surprised that he so soon reached
such sublime heights of prayer and contemplation that he was “caught up to the third heaven”
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