9781644135945

The Easter Cycle
under me soldiers; and I say to this: Go, and he goeth; and to another: Come, and he cometh;
and to my servant: Do this, and he doeth it.” Such confidence moves the Lord, who answers the
prayer of the centurion, “Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee. And the servant
was healed at the same hour.” “And all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you
shall receive” (Mt 21:22).
The sacred liturgy sees in the Roman centurion of the Gospel the stational saint, St. George.
He comes today to the Lord and implores for his sick servant; that is, for the congregation
which is present in his house. He comes with the love and the solicitude of the centurion
of the Gospel and makes a plea for us, his congregation. We have confidence that his plea
will be answered.
Joined with the holy martyr, George, let us sing the Offertory chant: “To Thee, O Lord,
have I lifted up my soul; in Thee, O my God, I put my trust.” St. George gave his life’s blood
for the Lord; we also give up everything in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and offer ourselves
a holocaust to the Lord. Dead to sin, dead to the world and worldliness, dead to self-love and
self-seeking, we tread the way of the martyr, the path of self-denial and of the holy love of God
and Christ. We live only for the sake of God’s holy will and His good pleasure, not for ourselves
or for any creature for its own sake.
The liturgy exhorts us urgently today to prayer of petition. We are urged to pray for ourselves,
as Ezechias did, and for others, as the centurion of the Gospel did. “Ask and it shall be
given you,” reads that great command of the order of grace. The one, then, who does not ask,
does not receive. He who asks for little, receives little; who asks for much, receives much. “He
hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich [who do not ask] He hath sent empty
away” (Lk 1:53). “All [adults] who are saved, are saved because they have prayed. And all who
are damned, are damned because they have not prayed” (St. Alphonsus Liguori). Prayer is the
ordinary means of obtaining grace from God.
In the days of faith and devotion, Christians frequently prayed the seven penitential psalms
and the way of the cross, and daily assisted at Mass and performed other special works of penance
during Lent. We also should pray more during Lent than is our wont.
In the celebration of Mass we enter with heart and soul into the prayers which the priest
from Ash Wednesday on daily recites for the intercession of the saints (A cunctis) and for the
living and dead (Omnipotens sempiterne Deus).
Prayer
O God, who art offended by sin and appeased by penance, graciously regard the prayers of Thy
people making supplication to Thee, and turn aside the scourge of Thy anger, which we deserve
for our sins. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Friday after Ash Wednesday
The liturgy today leads us into the house of the “two men of mercy,” the holy martyrs John and
Paul. They had distributed their large possessions to the poor, so that they could follow the way
to heaven without impediment. On account of their charity “the Lord hath heard them and
hath had mercy on them” (Introit). From the example of these two saints of effective brotherly
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