9781644135945

The Easter Cycle
First Sunday of Lent
The Mass
Today we gather with the faithful of the early Church in the Lateran basilica, the church of the
Savior in Rome. In the apse of the basilica we see the venerable mosaic of the divine Savior. We
gather at His feet, conscious of His presence and of our union in spirit with Him. At His side
for the ensuing forty days we shall practice self-denial and penance. From the heavens above
us we hear the consoling promise of the Father, “He shall cry to Me, and I will hear him. I will
deliver him and I will glorify him” (Introit). Thus, full of confidence, we send up our cry for
mercy, Kyrie eleison, and unite our prayers to those of the Church.
The path which we are to follow during Lent is one of self-denial, of voluntary mortification,
and of patient acceptance of crosses, sufferings, and humiliations. It is a time of grace, a time
of salvation. We die, and yet we live (Epistle). The more we die to ourselves during Lent,
the more surely shall we live to God. We should begin Lent full of confidence, for God’s
help and grace are at our disposal (Gradual and Tract). When nature becomes incapable of
further sacrifice, grace supports it. Thus we are invited by the Gospel to undertake a fast of
forty days with our Lord. He who so triumphantly overcame Satan and all his temptations,
fights and conquers in us also. He makes us strong and invincible. We shall conquer even
as He conquered, but we must undertake the struggle of Lent if we would rise at Easter.
At the Offertory we bring our good resolutions to the altar and resolve to tread the path of
suffering with our Master. These resolutions we lay on the paten as the priest offers up the
host, and thus enter into the closest sacrificial union with our blessed Savior. We wish to
be made a sacrificial victim with Him.
At the Consecration of the Mass, He will come among us and become our sacrificial gift to
the Father. He becomes our own possession, and we take Him in our hands to offer Him up
as our sacrifice to the heavenly Father. We offer His merits, His forty days of fast in the desert,
His self-denial, His suffering, and His death. He represents us and the whole Church; but with
Him we offer ourselves also as a sacrificial gift. Henceforth we shall live, not for ourselves, but
as men dedicated to God. We have dedicated ourselves to Him; we have become victims with
Him; we are now dead to sin and the world.
At the sacrificial banquet of Holy Communion we receive grace and salvation in return for
what we offered at the Consecration. “He will overshadow thee with His shoulders, and under
His wings thou shalt trust. His truth shall compass thee with a shield” (Tract). The mighty hero,
Christ Himself in the Eucharist, will be our protection and shield against Satan and his attacks,
against the world and sin. Should we not, then, enter Lent with courage and hope? The Holy
Eucharist which we have received gives us the assurance that we shall rise again to an eternally
blessed life for the enjoyment of perfect happiness (Postcommunion).
Full of gratitude for what we have received from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we breathe
forth our thanks, Deo gratias. Armed with the blessing of Christ through the hands of His priest,
we withdraw to our homes to take up alone the battle of the spirit against the flesh. The spirit of
the world still lives in us, and we must fight against it. Christ the conqueror lives in us, and we
must not waver. “He hath given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (Tract).
219