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The Time After Pentecost
How much power and grace the Church has given us during the past year through her sacrifice
and her sacraments! She has done so much for us that we might die to the things of this world
and begin to live for the things that pertain to God.
“Turn all our hearts unto Thee, that being delivered from earthly desires, we may pass on to
heavenly desires” (Secreta). The Lord must accomplish this transformation. “For it is God
who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will” (Phil 2:13).
However, we and the Church may pray for the grace to be delivered from earthly desires.
“Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my prayer” (Offertory). In the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ prays with His Church and in us and with us; and when
we are united to Him in Holy Communion, He gives us the assurance, “Amen, I say to you,
whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done to
you” (Communion).
“The fashion of this world passeth away. Unless a man be disengaged from all creatures, he
cannot freely attend to divine things. Therefore there are so few people of interior life, because so
few know how to free themselves completely from the passing and created things of this world.
For this a great grace is required, which lifts the soul above created things, above itself. Unless
a man be elevated in spirit, and freed from attachment to all creatures, and wholly united to
God, whatever he knows and whatever he possesses is of little value. . . . Whatever is not God,
is nothing and must be looked upon as nothing” (Imitation of Christ, III, chap. 31).
Prayer
Arouse, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the wills of Thy faithful, that by more earnestly seeking the
fruit of the divine work, they may receive more abundantly the gifts of Thy loving kindness.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tuesday
“You shall call upon Me, and I will hear you; and I will bring back your captivity from all places”
(Introit). Our Lord and Savior is one day to return in power and glory. “For the hour cometh
wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have
done good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil,
unto the resurrection of judgment” ( Jn 5:28 f.). The evil shall rise to be judged and confined
to the eternal misery of hell. “The heavens shall pass away with great violence, . . . and the earth
and the works which are in it shall be burnt up” (2 Pt 3:10). The Day of Judgment will make
manifest the power of the Crucified.
The power of Christ will be manifested in the resurrection of the dead. The prophet Ezechiel
saw in a vision a field filled with the bones of the dead. But the Spirit of the Lord passed
over this field, and a voice said: “I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to grow over
you, and will cover you with skin; and I will give you spirit, and you shall live and you shall
know that I am the Lord. . . . Behold, I will open your graves and will bring you out of your
sepulchers, O My people; . . . and you shall live” (Ez 37:6 ff.). What the prophet saw in a
vision will come to pass at the Last Judgment. Christ the Lord will open the graves of the
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