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The Easter Cycle
Tuesday
Lawrence, the stational saint, directs our attention to the great martyr, Christ. “Hear, O God,
my prayer, and despise not my supplication; be attentive to me, and hear me. I am grieved in
my exercise; and I am troubled at the voice of the enemy, and at the tribulation of the sinner”
(Introit). There He hangs on the cross in an unspeakable agony, the “mediator of God and
men” (1 Tm 2:5). His blood cries out for mercy on sinners. “Let Thy anger cease, and be appeased
upon the wickedness of Thy people” (Epistle). The Church unites herself with the Lord,
praying and offering Himself for His people. “Be appeased,” she cries out to heaven, “upon the
wickedness of Thy people.” Now, in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Lord
has been appeased.
The Lord is praying for us. Moses, the Epistle continues to inform us, spent forty days on
the heights of Sinai. At the foot of the mountain the people who had just received the Ten
Commandments amid thunder and lightning, were making themselves an idol. They danced
about their idol and thus broke their covenant with Jahve. Descending the mountain, Moses
sees what has happened and in his anger he breaks the tables of stone on which the commandments
have been engraved. God will destroy this generation. “I see that this people
is stiff-necked; let Me alone that My wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may
destroy them.” God promised Moses that he would make him the father of “a great nation”
if He destroyed this people. But Moses besought God for mercy for his erring people. “Why,
O Lord, is Thy indignation enkindled against Thy people. . . . Let Thy anger cease, and be
appeased upon the wickedness of Thy people.” “And the Lord was appeased from doing the
evil which He had spoken against His people” (Epistle).
The liturgy recognizes in Moses a figure of Christ our Lord. We are the sinful people
of Israel. By our baptism the Lord led us out of Egypt and snatched us from the slavery
of Satan and sin. He received us into His kingdom, and blessed us with the benefits of
supernatural life as children of God. But we soon proved unfaithful to the things which
Christ had taught us by His word and example. We allowed our hearts to become attached
to the vain goods of this life, and we made for ourselves idols, which we adored and to
which we offered sacrifice. God became angry with us for this breach of loyalty. Then the
Son of God descended from the mountain (from heaven) to plead for His sinful people.
He prays to the Father: “Why O Lord, is Thy indignation enkindled against Thy people,
whom Thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty
hand? . . . Let Thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of Thy people.” Thus
He prayed in the first moment of His Incarnation when He entered into the world. Thus
He prayed without interruption during His earthly life; thus He prayed in the Garden of
Olives, at the pillar of the scourging, and as He was being rejected and condemned by the
judges of His nation. His prayer continued as He began His painful journey to Calvary;
it was not interrupted by His agony on the cross. Now, before the throne of His Father
in heaven, He repeats the same prayer unceasingly, “always living to make intercession
for us” (Heb 7:25). In the silence of the tabernacle He prays continually to His heavenly
Father, “Be appeased upon the wickedness of Thy people,” “Hear, O God, my prayer, and
despise not my supplication; be attentive to me, and hear me” (Introit).
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