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BOOK OF ANSWERS
to Questions in

My LENTEN MISSAL

The questions are found at end of

each Afass in A1y Lenten Aiissal



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BOOK OF ANSWERS
TO

QUESTIONS

IN

MY LENTEN MISSAL

t

Rev. Joseph F. Steelman

Director

CONFRATERNITY of the PRECIOUS RLOOI1
at the JHonastery

5300 Fort Hamilton Parkway

Hrool.li n, New York



4 BOOK OF ANSWERS

FOREWORD
YE humbly present this “Book of Answers”

YA/ to the questions at the end of each Mass
in “My Lenten Missal.” Each set of questions is
grouped under the title, “Today’s Mass applied
to daily life.” Hence, the Answers apply the

revealed word of God, and the teachings of
God's Church to the everyday problems of in-

terior and social justice.

“If you can answer this question, the prize is

yours.” Quiz programs on the radio are a source

of profit to those who give the correct answer.
This catechism method has been employed in
Christian pedagogy ever since Jesus Himself

was “found in the temple, sitting in the midst

of the doctors . . . asking them questions ” Quite

obviously, they were unable to answer, since

St. Luke continues, “and all that heard Him
were astonished at His wisdom and His an-
swers” (Luke 2-47).

Someone has referred, quite practically, to this
“Book of Answers” as a “Cate-quiz-em.” The
questions may be found in “My Lenten Missal.”
The answers are contained herein. Each Ques-
tion wakes us up to the treasures of God’s truth
in the daily Mass which only too often slip by us.

Nihil obstat. Arthur J. Scanlan, S. T. D., Censor Librorum January 25, 1941

Imprimatur. Francis J. Spellman, D D., Archbishop of New York

Copyright 1941 by Confraternity of the Precious Blood Printed and 8ound in U S A.



FOREWORD 5

The Missal is intended not only for our inspira-

tion, but also for our instruction

.

“Edocti sacris mysteriis,” “taught by the

Sacred Mysteries was the daily teaching guide

in the first ages of Christianity, as St. Ambrose

testifies. Such was the Church’s approach, not

only in instructing the Faithful, but also in pre-

paring converts . For many years, prior to the
present generation, a prejudice existed that the

Missal was suitable only to the exceptionally

well-trained Catholic. In these days of widespread

Missal popularity, we have been brought to real-
ize that it is both a form of prayer and also a

method of instruction. One of New York’s fre-
quently mentioned doctors, now dead, became a
Catholic through a layman’s explanation of the

teachings contained in the Missal.

“Lex orandi est lex credendi,” “the law of
praying is the law of believing/' is only another

way of saying that our people will be misled
unless they are Missal-led. This “Book of An-

swers” is really a miniature review, day by day,

of all revealed Theology, of all Christian phi-

losophy; and Christian doctrine, said Cardinal

Newman, is the real source of Christian devotion
and devotions. Only Christianity has a livable

code, because it has a believable Creed.

We humbly trust, and fervently pray, that this
“Book of Answers” may be of some little service
to the Priests in the Pulpit, to the teacher in the

class-room, to the family-head at the family



6 BOOK OF ANSWERS

table, to the instructor of converts, to the student

at his desk, to the Catholic-actionist in his daily

contacts with his neighbor, to directors and mem-
bers of the confraternity of Christian Doctrine,

to the religious on his knees in daily meditation.

The help I received in preparing this “Book
of Answers* * makes me realize how relatively
little I did. Sickness is often a “felix culpa

”
a

happy fault. It prevented me from finishing this
work in sufficient time before the opening of this

year’s Lent. Hence, I hopefully called upon our

esteemed friends in the Passionist Community.

Nor was my hope in vain. Readily did they en-
thuse over this opportunity to put their fourth

vow into action, viz., the vow of doing all in
their power to spread devotion to the Sacred

Passion of Christ, of which “My Lenten Missal”
is such an exponent. Frankly do I confess that

this “Book of Answers” would have been as

sickly as I was at the time, were it not for their

theological, philosophical and liturgical assis-

tance. It has been said that “he who receives a

benefit with gratitude, repays the first instal-

ment on his debt ” I ask all the readers and

users of this “Book of Answers,” therefore, to

help me in continued gratitude to the Passionist
Fathers, by prayerful recommendation of their

members to the High Priest, Jesus Himself,
“auspice Maria.” The able-minded and gener-

ous-hearted Passionist Father and friend, chiefly

responsible for this help, humbly insisted that I



FOREWORD % 7
refrain from mentioning his name. He will have
the consolation of learning that a sample gift

copy of “My Lenten Missal” and this “Book of
Answers” is being sent to every Bishop, to every

priest, to every religious institution and convent

in the United States and Canada, Ireland, the

British Isles and Australia.

As a final word, may I conclude with this word
from the Word of God in the Holy Scripture,
that this “Book of Answers” will “be applied to
daily life,” “and seeing, they understood of the

word that had been spoken to them concerning
this Child, and all that heard, wondered . . . but
Mary kept all these words, pondering them in
her heart.” With Mary, may we “ponder” them
in our lives.

Feast of Mary's Espousals

January 23rd, 1941



8 0 BOOK OF ANSWERS
ASH WEDNESDAY—BLESSING of ASHES

(1) Page 70. By reminding us of the “multitude”
of God’s “tender mercies” and that His “Mercy is
kind.”

(2) Page 71. Remission of their sins, health of
body and safety of soul.

(3) Page 71. Because unless we realize we are in-
deed but ashes and that unto ashes we must return
we cannot deserve to obtain through God’s Mercy,
pardon for our sins and the rewards promised to the
truly penitent.

(4) Page 71. That they may obtain of God a spirit
of true sorrow for sin and the fulfillment of those
things which they lawfully desire and for which,
therefore, they may duly pray.

(5) Page 71. God granted them the blessed “heal-
ing” of forgiveness, turning “away from His fierce
anger.”

(6) Page 71. Because fasting is an important form
of self-denial and without self-denial self-control
cannot be achieved.

(7) Page 71. Because it is an especially dramatic
reminder of the nothingness, from which, by God’s
Power, we were drawn and into which, except by
God’s Mercy, we should return.

(8) Page 71. Sum up the Explanation before Mass,
in your own words.

The MASS for ASH WEDNESDAY
(1) Page 75. The believing sinner knows that God

indeed loves all things which He has made, looks
with gracious favor upon those who repent and merci-
fully hears, spares and heals those who cry to Him.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 9

(2 ) Page 75. With becoming piety and persevering
devotion.

(3) Page 75. For true conversion

,

i.e. of heart

,

some of the authentic signs of which He indicates,
e.g. fasting and other forms of self-denial, prayer,
devotional exercises, etc.

( 4 ) Page 75. To the individual He promises gra-
cious, tender and rich mercies and to nations tempo-
ral prosperity and a modest pride of place among
other nations.

( 5 ) Page 75. Merely outward penance is motivated
by a desire for human approval and respectability .
Such also becomes its worthless and passing reward.
True penance, on the contrary, is directed to God

,

Who rewards it with abundant and everlasting heav-
enly treasures.

(6) Page 75. By the impressive contrast which the
Divine Teacher makes between the fleeting, uncertain,
insecurely held treasures of earth and the abiding,
eternally possessed treasures of Heaven .

(7) Page 75. Our joy is where our heart is. Our
heart is where our treasure is. But earthly treasures
prove finally valueless. Only heavenly, i.e. divine
treasures are, in the last analysis, capable of satisfy-
ing the infinite capacities of our hearts.

(8) Page 75. Of treasures, that sooner or later
will become as ashes.

( 10 ) Page 75. Serious reflection on the “law of
the Lord,” i.e., “things that are of God” (Mt. 16, 23)
cannot but be productive of spiritual “fruit in due
season.”

(11) Page 75. Sum up the Explanation before Mass,
in your own words.



10 BOOK OF ANSWERS

THURSDAY after ASH WEDNESDAY
(1) Page 79. Sin offends God and so brings down

upon the sinner God’s just Wrath. Penance appeases
God and so inclines Him mercifully to hear the prayers
of the truly repentant.

(2) Page 79. Isaias brought a message from God
to Ezechias which we ought, with profit, to hear as
addressed also to us, viz: that we ought to set the
house of our soul in order for we also shall “die and
not live.” Hence the necessity of reforming one’s
life before it is too late.

(3) Page 79. Because Ezechias “wept with great
weeping” and the Lord compassionately heard his
prayer and “saw his tears.”

(4) Page 79. When lamenting that even the chosen
“children of the Kingdom” will be cast out because
of their lack of faith, Jesus indicates that additional
graces intended for Israel will be given to others

from “east and west,” because of their faith.

(5) Page 79. The petition of the centurion is espe-
cially characterized by his deep humility: “Lord, I am
not worthy”, and by his extraordinary confidence,
which won even the admiration of Christ for “Jesus,
hearing this marvelled.”

(6) Page 80. Because of his humility and his faith.

(7) Page 80. Before God every human person irre-
spective of his race or nation is eternally precious.

Jesus has shed His Precious Blood for every indi-
vidual soul. Godless science and politics, on the
contrary, sometimes set up the “Collectivity,” whether
of blood or of the so-called “Proletariat” as virtually

an idol to be worshipped. To such blasphemously
false deities, even the most sacred rights of the indi-
vidual person are ruthlessly sacrificed. Indeed the
person has no rights, nor even any independent



MY LENTEN MISSAL 11

existence. Thus, whilst God regards each and every
human being as His child, the Godless state, spawned
by a pseudo-science of blood or of economics, looks
upon individuals only as cogs in a machine.

( 8 ) Page 80. Wars, depressions and other like
calamities must be thought of by the Christian as
“well-deserved punishments” of the sins of men.
Having been duly chastened by these terrible instru-
ments of God’s Wrath, they ought to seek relief,
where true relief is only to be found, i.e., in God’s
Mercy.

(9) Page 80. Sum up the Explanation before Mass,
in your own words.

FRIDAY alter ASH WEDNESDAY

(1) Page 84. Fasting from food or any other sort
of corporal mortification, must be accompanied by
true purification of the soul. Otherwise it lacks the
blessing of God, Who expects to be worshipped “in
spirit and in truth.”

(2) Page 84. God referred to a merely external
observance of bodily austerities as “wicked doings.”
For If such observance does not inspire true charity
untd all in word and deed, it is hypocrisy.

(3) Page 84. The Jewish people, whom God calls
“My people,” unjustly complain that God has noticed
and rewarded neither their fastings nor their prayers.

(4) Page 84. God replies that the apparently meri-
torious deeds of penance and the apparently God-
directed petitions of His people were, in reality,
devoid of any true spirituality. He proves this indict-
ment of His people by emphasizing their self-seeking
and their wicked callousness to the wants of others.



12 BOOK OF ANSWERS

( 5 ) Page 84. The Corporal Works of Mercy, such
as feeding the hungry, harboring the homeless, cloth-
ing the naked, will, He promises, be abundantly
rewarded. To those who practice such blessed deeds,
God promises health of mind and body and His Own
all-enveloping and merciful protection . He assures
them, moreover, that He will be quick

,

graciously to

hear their prayers.

( 6 ) Page 84. A child ought to resemble his father.
But Our Father Who is in Heaven is kind and gene-
rous even to His enemies, providing for them, at least
the cheering warmth and light of His sun and the
refreshment of His rains. Hence, we ought, in holy
imitation of Him to love and to do good to and
especially to pray for those who hate and persecute
and calumniate us.

( 7 ) Page 85. Yes! For, as St. Jerome says: “It is
not the appearance of virtue but the underlying motive
that will receive reward from God,” Who is “the
searcher of hearts.”

(8) Page 85. Natural philanthropy differs from
Christian charity chiefly in three ways, viz: by its
motives

,
its scope and its sanctions. It is the love of

man for his own sake and that is why it is styled

:

“philanthropy
."

It is restricted usually to a class or

race. It rarely, if ever, befriends man in his pro-
founder, spiritual needs. It finds its sole reward in a
comforting sense of well-doing and the approbation
of one’s fellows. Christian Charity, on the contrary,
is the love of man for God's Sake. It embraces all,
regardless of class or race, in imitation of God’s love
and Providence. It is concerned not with the needs of
man's body only, nor even merely of his mind but
also with the deeper requirements of impoverished

souls. It is rewarded not by any sort of smug self-
satisfaction nor by the praises of men but by the
Heavenly Father, Who “seeth in secret.”



MY LENTEN MISSAL 13

(9) Page 85. Holy Communion establishes the
true community, making those who receive It worthily
and devoutly to be “of one mind and one heart
Hence its first social effect is peace amongst the
communicants, who shall have had poured out upon
them the spirit of God’s love.

(10) Page 85. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

SATURDAY after ASH WEDNESDAY
(1) Page 89. For the healing of our souls and

bodies.

(2) Page 89. Interior sin fastens our thoughts and
desires to mere creatures. Such a “chain,” unless
broken, will drag us inevitably to evil words and
evil deeds

,
i.e., words “which profiteth not” and deeds

which are the “stretching out of the fingers” to
wickedness.

(3) Page 89. Hunger may be either of body or of
mind. Mind-hunger is a want of knowledge. The want
of the knowledge of God and the things of God begets
a dangerous mind — hunger and a sore affliction.
It can and ought to be alleviated by those spiritual
works of mercy which are called: instructing the
ignorant and comforting the afflicted.

(4) Page 89. Even those in the state of grace
suffer from the darkness of original sin; while those
in the state of mortal sin are in a state of complete
blackout. Only by cooperation with God’s grace in
the performance of any good work will our way be
lighted up.

(5) Page 89. The Missal helps us to glorify God
by instructing us in God’s Holy Will and by providing
us with the means to do God’s Will and not our own.
For the Missal is not a manual of mere private devo-



14 BOOK OF ANSWERS

tion. It is the standard text for the public worship of
God and intended to serve the spiritual needs of all.

( 6 ) Page 89. One who conscientiously uses the
Missal and so “prays the Mass” with the Church,
will shortly and surely discover the fountains of au-
thentic joy, which is “in the Lord.” The Church can
make Her own, the words of the Psalmist and ad-
dress them to us, whilst giving us her Missal: “Taste
and see that the Lord is sweet” (Ps. 33, 9).

(7) Page 89. By bestowing upon them abundantly
spiritual and even temporal prosperity in the measure
which He foresees will be to their ultimate profit.

(8) Page 89. Jesus becomes our Pilot by calming
the angry storms of passion and temptation that can
fatally upset the fragile vessel of our souls. He be-
comes our Master by restoring our faint hearts to
confidence, since He commands every situation, even
the most distressing. He becomes our Physician

,
for

if we “touch but the hem of His Garment,” i.e. if
we keep in living contact with Him through the
Church, we shall be “made whole,” i.e. we shall be
cured of every spiritual ill.

(9) Page 89. Jesus becomes our all-important aid
by becoming our heavenly Nourishment, strengthen-
ing our supernatural life as the children of God and
so helping us towards Life Eternal, in the House of
our Father.

(10) Page 89. The desire of God’s Gifts is a con-
dition of their reception since God will not force His
favors upon us. Hence indifference to them will
result in our own utter poverty.

(11) Page 89. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 15

FIRST SUNDAY of LENT
(1) Page 94. The yearly observance of Lent is a

means for our purification by abstinence and similar
penitential works, which are accepted by God as
atonement for our sins.

(2) Page 94. Because Lent is a season of special
grace, established as such by the authority of God’s
Church. Moreover the extraordinary fervor of those
who “keep Lent” devoutly wins for them God’s
special Mercies.

(3) Page 94. In contrast to the true Christian life,
present-day living is too frequently a mad seeking
after pleasure and place. Instead of “knowledge, in
the word of truth and the power of God,” today men
are too often content with pseudo-sciences and
Godless philosophies. Instead “of justice on the
right hand and on the left,” there is Justice neither
on the Right of unregulated Capitalism nor on the
Left of brutal Totalitarianism. Today, indeed, men
have everything and really possess nothing of ever-
lasting value, whilst Christians, though they have
nothing yet possess all things.

(4) Page 94. God guarantees that no evil will
befall us, for He has given His Angels charge over
us and He is Himself our Protector and Refuge.
Furthermore, He promises to hear those who call
upon Him and to *how them the way of salvation.

(5) Page 94. The example of Christ’s life inspires
good deeds in everyday Christian life. Through our
example as members of the Mystical Christ, others
not of His Fold will be led to seek Him.

(6) Page 94. The evil of the flesh consists in
serving the body as the “be-all” and the “end-all”
of human existence to the exclusion of man’s soul-
needs; “Not in bread alone doth man live but in



16 BOOK OF ANSWERS

every word that proceedeth from the Mouth of God.”
The evil of pride is indicated when one is presump-
tuous enough to expect unnecessary miracles instead
of using ordinary human prudence; “thou shalt not
tempt the Lord, thy God.” The evil of greed is the
selfish grasping for material gains, “the glory of the
world,” at the too, too costly price of treachery to
God and neighbor: “the Lord, thy God, shalt thou
adore and Him only shalt thou serve.”

(7) Page 94. Jesus dramatically reminds us in
His answer to Satan that we have profounder spiritual
requirements which “bread,” i.e. merely material
things cannot satisfy.

(8) Page 94. No!!

(9) Page 95. Certainly we must always choose to
serve God, for He only deserves our allegiance.

(10) Page 95. Christ’s fidelity to His Divine
Mission of atonement: — the satisfaction of God’s
Justice and of our redemption earned for Him the
encouraging ministry of angels, who when “the devil
left Him” came and served Him.

(11) Page 95. We are advised also to perform
the indispensable penance, viz: to refrain from all
harmful and therefore ultimately “sinful pleasures.”
For a Christian ought always to be prudently moderate
even in the use of things, lawful in themselves.

(12) Page 95. We are recommended frequently
and fervently to receive Holy Communion, which,
strengthening us, will enable us to change “our old

life” and bring us to saving union with the Divine Life.

(13) Page 95. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 17

MONDAY—FIRST WEEK ol LENT
(1) Page 99. Many indeed and very rich and

exquisitely intimate will be the rewards bestowed
by the shepherding Love of the Good Shepherd upon
the converted sinner.

(2) Page 99. In the Epistle God presents Himself
to our human imaginations under the comforting
symbol (analogy) of the Shepherd. The Merciful
Christ loved also so to describe Himself. In the

Gospel Christ portrays Himself in the role of the
inexorably just Judge, separating His sheep and
apportioning to each the just recompense of his deeds,
whether for weal or for woe.

(3) Page 99. “Shepherding our neighbor” through
the corporal works of mercy often entails the blessed
sacrifice of much that we cherish, in order to share
generously what we have, with those who are f,the
have-nots

”
e.g. our food, our clothing, our time, even

our very homes. This surely is ideal se//-denial.

(4) Page 99. The motive of Love will prompt the
true Christian to utter devotion and heroic service.
For what may we deny to Him, Who is our “Good
Shepherd; (He) giveth His Life for (us) His sheep”
(John, 10, 11). Who will set limits to the response of
Christian love to the limitless love of Christ? The
motive of fear of God’s inexorable Justice serves for
many as “the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs, 1, 7.
Ps. 110, 10). For such fear, properly and duly inspiring
the Christian conduct, is filial fear, i.e., of offending

God, Who is our Father and thus meriting the just
chastisements which sin forces from His Father’s
Heart.

(5) Page 99. Feeding the hungry, giving refresh-
ment to the thirsty, sheltering the stranger, clothing
the naked, visiting the sick, comforting the afflicted.



18 BOOK OF ANSWERS

( 6 ) Page 99. The chief motive for the spiritual
and corporal works of mercy is or ought to be our
realization of Christ’s mystic identification with even
the least of His brethren. What we do to these, we
do to Him ! What we selfishly refuse them, we refuse
Him!

(7) Page 99. Man needs shepherding. His wan-
dering mind needs instruction; his fickle will needs
strengthening and guiding lest he stray into poisonous
pastures. The Lord is a Shepherd indeed, enlightening
our minds by His “Heavenly Discipline” and leading

*

our wills into the “Green Pastures” of true holiness
and authentic happiness. Man’s social obligations are
impressively told us by Our Lord, Who reminds us
of our duties to our neighbor, with whom Christ has
mystically identified Himself.

(8) Page 100. Jesus refers to Himself as a
Shepherd and to us as sheep in order graphically to
tell us of His loving guidance and of our constant and
dire needs. Thus He addresses our human imagina-
tions with skillful condescension, hoping thus to
reach our minds and hearts.

(9) Page 100. The very first words of the Epistle,
“Thus saith the Lord,” imply the need of a true
religious creed. For our creed is our acceptance of
God’s Infallible Word. It is our affirmative response
to everything which the Lord sayeth. “Faith (a creed)
without works is dead” (James 2, 26) and so profit-
less. In the Gospel Jesus insists that we shall be
finally judged on the basis of our performance of
good deeds. Indeed our failure to do good, will wring
even from the lips of the Merciful Christ that terrible
sentence of utter condemnation: “Depart from Me.”

(10) Page 100. In dramatic dialogue between
Christ, the Judge, and the saved, whose reward is
Heaven, “the Kingdom prepared for the blessed of
the Father from the foundation of the world” ; between



MY LENTEN MISSAL 19

Christ and the damned whose punishment is Hell,
“the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil
and his angels.”

(11) Page 100. The first step in our conversion
to God is to listen to the Lord obediently when He
speaks to us. This is to give to Him the ear of faith.
“Thus saith the Lord”! Our second step must be to
practice our faith loyally by good deeds.

(12) Page 100. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

TUESDAY—FIRST WEEK of TENT
(1) Page 103. No!! For the Lord must be sought

“while He may be found” and called upon “while
He is near.” Lent is a time, above all others, when
God is readily to be found and is near indeed to us,
so as graciously to hear our prayerful and penitential
whispering.

(2) Page 103. God compares His Word to the
refreshing and invigorating rain and snow which
make the soul fertile and fruitful. So is God’s Word
which, going forth shall not “return to Him void”
but shall produce in us fruits of righteousness and
true holiness.

(3) Page 103. The wicked and unjust must change
his thoughts and his ways to conform them to those
of God. Only then will God “have mercy upon him.”
Only then, therefore, can he reap the blessed fruits
of true repentance.

(4) Page 103. Our souls are true temples, wherein
the Lord God desires to dwell. If we sincerely
reciprocate His desire, we shall see Him wheresoever
He may be found. But as our holy Faith teaches, He
has mystically identified Himself with the poor and
the needy. Hence our compassion for them, our



20 BOOK OF ANSWERS

sympathetic experience of their sufferings and our
earnest desire to help them may truly be said to fill
the temple of our souls with the desire for God.

(5) Page 103. Because they profaned the sacred
temple of God and made that holy place which had
been “called a house of prayer into a den of thieves.”

( 6 ) Page 103. Jesus is always compassionate to
those who come to Him, the Divine Physician, and
confidently beg His Mercy. Our Lord admired the
children because, responsive to the impulses of God’s
wonderful Grace, with a wisdom beyond their years
and indeed beyond even the most mature, merely
human wisdom, they recognized Him and sang His
praise: “Hosanna to the Son of David.” So the Grace
of God “perfected praise out of the mouths of infants
and of sucklings,” as the Psalmist had foretold
(Ps. 8, 3).

(7) Page 103. We learn profoundly to reverence
even the material temple, the very Church building
in which we approach the sacraments from the evi-
dent displeasure and even just anger which the
unseemly conduct of the merchants in the Temple
provoked in Our Lord. We learn also publicly to
worship God, i.e., by true, liturgical prayer in Church
from Our Lord’s evident delight in the publicly sung
praises of the children.

(8) Page 104. God is our refuge always; towards
Him our prayer will rise as fragrant incense, driving
away all harm.

(9) Page 104. We are obliged painstakingly and
loyally to avoid any sort of activity or traffic which
would render impossible our union with God in the
secret sanctuary of our soul, which is God’s true
temple.

(10) Page 104. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 21

WEDNESDAY—FIRST WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 109. Moses and Elias, obedient to the

inspiration of God, prepared their souls to receive
from God the assurance of His good pleasure and of
their intimate union with Him. We, obedient to the
instruction of God’s Church, ought fervently to pre-
pare our souls to give to God renewed assurance of
our deep loyalty by the renewal of our baptismal vows
and to receive from Him the rewarding smile of a
Father, “Who is well pleased” in us (Matt. 3, 17).

(2) Page 109. Fittingly to prepare his soul for so
signal a favour as the reception of the Command-
ments of God, Moses retreated into the mountains,
leaving mundane cares and even the administration
of the affairs of his people to Aaron and to Hur, his
trusted lieutenants. So we, to prepare our souls for
confession ought to retreat from distracting thoughts
and troublesome worldly anxieties to enter into the
solitude of our own hearts. Nor did Moses rush back
to his ordinary affairs after having experienced God’s
loving kindness and merciful condescension. Neither
then should we. Having obtained God’s forgiveness
in Confession, we ought at least to pause long enough
to say to Him, meaningfully and from the depths of
our cloistered hearts: Thank You!

(3) Page 109. Elias typifies the needs of every
pilgrimaging soul. We, even as he, have “a long way
to go” For we must mount beyond the stars to the
ultimate Horeb, which is Heaven! So we also, even
as he, require heaven-sent nourishment. And Jesus
in the Eucharist is “the true Bread which is come
down from Heaven and of which if any man eat he
will not taste death forever but have everlasting life”
(John, 6).

(4) Page 109. “Whosoever shall do the Will of My
Father that is in Heaven, he is My brother and sister
and mother.” This is really a magnificent tribute to



22 BOOK OF ANSWERS

Mary! For Mary is Christ’s Mother not only accord-
ing to the flesh, by the overshadowing of the Holy
Spirit; but she is related to Him also and even more
profoundly by her absolute utter submission to the
Heavenly Father’s Will. She styled herself indeed
simply, “the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1, 38).
No mere creature was ever dearer to God than Mary.
For no one ever obeyed His Law with her matchless
fidelity.

( 5 ) Page 109. Jesus calls them “an evil and
adulterous generation.”

( 6 ) Page 109. “The men of Ninive” and “the
queen of the south” — gentiles — condemned the
scandalous Jews, who were unstirred to repentance
even by the eloquence of Jonas and dared to ignore
the wisdom of Solomon, the wisest of men. So we,
the chosen People of the New Covenant will merit
and will receive the just judgment of condemnation
of non-Catholics if we who are instructed by Jesus,
“greater than Jonas and greater than Solomon,” do
not produce fruits worthy of so incomparably great
a Master.

( 7 ) Page 109. Because the punishment due to
frequently repeated and unrepented sin is deliver-
ance finally to wicked and tormenting devils.

( 8 ) Page 109. To examine our consciences salu-
tarily we need the illuminating grace of God to dispel
the darkness of self-deception and we need God’s
sustaining grace to strengthen our wills “prone to
evil from the days of our youth.”

( 9 ) Page 109. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 23

THURSDAY—FIRST WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 113. God will protect individuals “under

the shadow of His Wings” on condition that He can
discover in them “the things that are equitable,”
i.e., obedience to His wise and just law. Nations will
deserve God’s Protection only if publicly and in a
spirit of reverential fear they are submissive and loyal
to Him. To such nations, if such there be, God will
send an “Angel to encamp round about them and
deliver them.”

(2) Page 113. God sharply rebuked such shirking
of responsibility by reminding the Jews that He owns
all souls and that all souls therefore are immediately
subject to Him. Retribution will be inevitably reaped
by the sinner for “the soul that sinneth, the same
shall die.”

( 3 ) Page 113. Obligations of Justice and Charity
are graphically specified. God insists especially upon
our obligation to “walk in (His) commandments” and
to practice complete justice and compassionate charity
towards our neighbor.

( 4 ) Page 113. Because only the sinner himself is
finally responsible for his sins.

( 5 ) Page 113. By His commendation of the woman
of Canaan who petitioned Him to help her daughter,
“grievously troubled by a devil” and His gracious
fulfillment of her request.

( 6 ) Page 113. By His merciful reply to the urgent
pleading of the Woman of Canaan, who was a Gentile
and whom Jesus at first seems almost cruelly to
have repulsed.

( 7 ) Page 113. For example she petitioned humbly,
even publicly acknowledging that her daughter was
“grievously troubled by a devil.” She begged three
times and even after a seeming rebuff. This surely



24 BOOK OF ANSWERS

is perseverance in prayer. She addressed Christ:
“Lord, Thou Son of David” and she “adored Him.”
Thus she manifested that faith which won Christ’s
commendation: — “O woman, great is thy faith.”

( 8 ) Page 113. Jesus sometimes tests faith by
seeming to be deaf even to earnest supplication. He
“answered her not a word.” He may even put faith
to a more drastic test, answering prayer only to repulse
the petitioner: “It is not good to take the bread of the
children and to cast it to the dogs.” Finally Jesus
generously rewards the truly humble and persevering
petitioner, saying: — “be it done to thee as thou wilt.”

(9) Page 113. Having by alert maternal providence
discovered the sin of her child, a good mother will
immediately have recourse to humble, confident and
persevering prayer. Her child’s soul-needs should be
her first concern.

(10) Page 113. To test the quality of our faith.

(11) Page 114. The Eucharist is described by
Christ Himself as truly His “Flesh for the life of the
world” and having received the Eucharist, the priest,
instructed by Christ’s Church, prays for temporalfavors
and eternal graces.

(12) Page 114. Because love is stimulated by
knowledge. Thus Christians through a better under-
standing of the truths of Faith more ardently “love
the Gift they receive so often.”

(13) Page 114. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

FRIDAY—FIRST WEEK ol LENT
(1) Page 118. God pleads for the sinner’s conver-

sion implicitly by paternally reminding him of the
rewards of true repentance : “living he shall live and
shall not die” and even by promising to cross out of



MY LENTEN MISSAL 25

the Book of Life the record of his sins: “I will not
remember all his iniquities.” God warns against a
just man’s perversion by impressively, even caustic-
ally reminding him that such perversion will be truly
suicidal. “For when the just turneth away from his
justice and committeth iniquity, he shall die therein ”

( 2 ) Page 118. Full, generous pardon and eternal
life.

(3) Page 118. God says: “I will not remember all
his (i.e. the repentant sinner’s) iniquities that he
hath done” and “all his (i.e. the perverted just man’s)
justices shall not be remembered.”

(4) Page 118. As from the pool, called Probatica,
there came healed and reinvigorated bodies, so from
the pool called the Baptismal Font there come forth
healed and regenerated souls.

(5) Page 118. As through the Five Porches those
sick and sore afflicted of body entered the healing
pool of Probatica, so through the Five Portals of Our
Lord’s holy Wounds, we may find entrance to His
Sacred Heart, Which is truly describable as a Pool

,

indeed a vast Ocean of Divine Love. Having obtained
entrance by loving faith, we, who are sick of soul

,

shall infallibly find refreshment and peace. For Jesus
says: “Come to Me all you that labor and are
heavily burdened and I will refresh you” (Matt. 11,
28), and “My Peace I give unto you” (John 14, 27).

(6) Page 118. The patient endurance of the thirty-
eight year sickness and the patient’s vivid hope in
God’s ineffable Mercy ought surely to teach us that
suffering, long and patiently borne, as a penance for
our own and for others’ sins, will win for us God’s
special favor.

(7) Page 118. Would indeed that all of the world’s
sick, blind, lame and withered of body and of soul
were symbolized by “the multitude of the sick”



26 BOOK OF ANSWERS

around the Pool called Probatica!! Then they would
be indeed within reach of the refreshing Pool of
Divine Love, which is the Heart of Christ.

(8) Page 119. Jesus first cured the body of the sick
man; then awakened in him a desire for spiritual
healing. For “afterwards Jesus findeth him in the
temple.” Whereupon He said to him: “Behold thou
art made whole; sin no more, lest some worse thing
happen to thee.” Thus, by solemn injunction and
ominous warning, Christ brought to greater perfec-
tion the spiritual restoration of the man. In imitation
of Jesus, the true Christian is concerned to supply not
only his neighbor’s spiritual needs but also, and by
way of prudent social contact

,
to alleviate his bodily

and temporal wants. Because the Christian knows,
for example, that piously to preach high and lofty
spirituality to a starving and desperate audience is
likely to be profitless.

( 9 ) Page 119. This verse is taken from the sixth
Psalm. Speaking through the inspired Psalmist, who
was His Prototype, Christ prays to His Heavenly
Father to put all His enemies, i.e., all unrepentant
sinners “speedily to shame.” This will be accom-
plished at the Last Judgment, where even the secret
sins of the unrepentant, who may, perhaps, have had
reputation and respectability before men, will be
made known.

(10) Page 119. The “light of the grace” of the “God
of Mercy” through Jesus Christ, our Lord. For Jesus
said: “He that seeth Me, seeth My Father also”
(John 14, 9) and “I am the Truth” (John 14, 6).

( 11 ) Page 119. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 27

SATURDAY—FIRST WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 128. The Lord promised His “chosen

people” to give them “a land flowing with milk and
honey,” i.e., prosperous and even to make them
“higher than all nations.”

( 2 ) Page 128. They must fulfill God’s “command-
ments and precepts,” notably by sharing even the
“sanctified” goods of their household with the Levite
and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow.
They must “keep and fulfill them (God’s Precepts)
with all (their) heart and all (their) soul.”

( 3 ) Page 128. The New Testament Contract of our
Baptismal vows requires us to “renounce Satan and
all his works and all his pomps” and to “keep our
baptism so as to be without blame, to observe the
Commandments of God.” It promises us as an
inheritance “that when Our Lord shall come to His
nuptials,” we shall “meet Him together with all the
saints in the heavenly court and live forever and
ever.” (The Ceremony of Baptism).

(4 ) Page 128. An imprisoned mind! and certainly
not “a free mind”

!

( 5 ) Page 128. He promised them world domination!

(6) Page 128. It reminds us of the spiritual and
supernatural advantages of humility in prosperity and
security in depression, neither of which can be
achieved or maintained without a stout measure of
self-control. Depression no less than Prosperity can
and ought to be regarded by the believing Christian
as instrumentalities of God’s Providence for our
ultimate well-being.

( 7 ) Page 128. In order that the Glory of the God
of Israel stretch beyond her boundaries and be known
even by the Gentiles.



28 BOOK OF ANSWERS

( 8 ) Page 128. The Justice of God punishes our
sins. The Mercy of God delivers us from them for
the glory of His Name.

( 9 ) Page 128. That so the Gentiles might learn that
‘‘there is no God beside” the God of Israel. The
Chosen People here set an example that we ought
devoutly to follow.

(10) Page 129. Because only God’s “inspiration”
can initiate a salutary and meritorious action and
only His “continual help” can enable us finally to
accomplish it.

( 11 ) Page 129. We must confess ruefully that
sometimes we do not, and therefore bring about dire
consequences to our own souls.

( 12 ) Page 129. Because all the Christian’s duties
are herewith outlined. He must refrain even from
“the appearance of evil” and “ever follow that which
is good towards each other and towards all men,”
ceaselessly praying and ever rejoicing “in all things
(giving) thanks.” he must be divinely sanctified “in
all things” so as to be “preserved blameless.”

( 13 ) Page 129. The recollection of the Vision of
Thabor served to sustain those, who having looked
upon Jesus A#ien “His Face did shine as the sun and
His Garments became white as snow,” had on
Calvary to look upon Him “Whom they had pierced”
(John, 19, 37., Zach., 12, 10) and to behold Him;
thorn-crowned, disfigured by spittle and dirt and ugly
wounds and clotted blood and to see the Garment of
His Humanity so horribly mangled as aptly to be
described by the Psalmist in his forevision of Calvary
in the words which he put upon the lips of the Son
of Man: “I am a worm and no man” (Ps., 21, 7).

( 14 ) Page 129. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 29

SECOND SUNDAY of CENT
(1) Page 132. Because His “mercies . . . are from

the beginning of the world” and the Mercy of God is
offered to penitent sinners.

(2) Page 132. Humble prayer is rewarded by the
defense of our bodies against adversity and the
cleansing of our minds of evil thoughts.

(3) Page 132. The Will of God extends to the soul
by demanding its “sanctification,” and to the body
by requiring the observance of a lofty code of sex-
morals, in reverence towards our bodies as a “vessel
(to be held) in sanctification and honor” and not
defiled “by the passion of lust.” Finally God sets up
high standards of business and professional ethics,
allowing “no man (to) overreach or to deceive his
brother in business.”

(4) Page 133. The Church wishes all of her child-
ren “to go up into a high mountain apart” from dis-
tractions, cares and dissipating amusements. She
wishes all to mount, on the wings of holy meditation,
the Mount not now of Thabor but especially of
Calvary, where, like Mary, we ought to have eyes
“for no one but only Jesus,” our Crucified Savior.

(5) Page 133. When the clouds of doubt over-
shadowing us, darken and confuse our minds, tempt-
ing us to question even the very Personality of Jesus
we must recall the Father’s testimony to Christ’s
Identity: “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am
well-pleased. Hear ye Him” He will solve your
doubts and answer your questions and lift from your
souls the overshadowing clouds of doubt.

( 6 ) Page 133. Because only pious meditation can
persuade us practically of their absolute lovableness.

(7) Page 133. The Mass is the source of our present
“devotion” and our future “salvation” because it is



30 BOOK OF ANSWERS

the Contemporary Calvary in which is liturgically
re-enacted the sacred Drama of the Crucifixion,
whence all our good flows.

(8) Page 133. The Sacraments renew and “refresh”
us so that we can lead such a “manner of life” that
makes us “pleasing to” God.

(9) Page 133. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

MONDAY- SECOND WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 137. By fervent and frequent assistance

at Holy Mass and other Lenten Devotions. “In the
churches, I will bless the Lord.”

(2) Page 137. Negatively we are required to “mor-
tify the flesh” i.e. to deny the appetites of our bodies
by abstinence from food and drink, so that positively
we may achieve the purpose of all spiritual striving,
which is the perfect observance of God's Law by
“abstaining from sin” and cultivating true virtue.

(3) Page 137. Daniel humbly and penitently con-
fessed the sins of his people: “we have sinned” and
then petitioned God for His “Own Sake” to “be
appeased” and thus to turn away His Wrath and
indignation.

(4) Page 137. Graphically!

(5) Page 137. Christianity is the religion of the
Father “above,” since Christians address Him: “Our
Father, Who art in Heaven” (Matt., 6, 9) Christ, the
Only Begotten of the Father and since the Divine
Founder of Christianity is “from above” and is “not
of this world.” Materialism, on the contrary, is
horizoned by space and time. It is the worship of the
“here and now,” of that which is “from beneath”
and merely “of this world.” So the world usurps the
place of the transcendent, living God.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 31

(6 ) Page 137. Jesus says: “If you believe not that
I am He, you shall die in your sins.” He tells us,
therefore, God’s dire sanction against the sin of
formal heresy or apostasy.

( 7 ) Page 137. Christ’s dominant motive is loving
submission to His Father’s Will. He says: “I do
always the things that please Him.”

(8) Page 137. We must “believe” that Jesus is
“the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt., 16, 16),
as Simon bar-Jona, under the inspiration of the
Father’s revealing Grace, humbly confessed.

( 9 ) Page 137. The sinner ought from Our Lord’s
Words to learn that the rejection of presently offered
grace may be eternally fatal. For if Christ the
Redeemer “goes,” the sinner will “die in his sins.”

( 10) Page 137. The one reward of daily Mass is
surely God’s predilection and protection.

(11) Page 137. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

TUESDAY—SECOND WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 141. Our minds receive Divine Instruc-

tions in order that we may learn our duties. Our wills
are strengthened by the ever available help of God’s
Grace.

( 2 ) Page 142. The widow’s poverty typifies our
nothingness. Indeed we can give God nothing. For
all that we have and all that we are, we are debtors
to Him. Humbly returning to Him the good things
with which He has so generously endowed us, we
receive from Him imperishable reward, typified by
“the pot of meal that did not waste and the cruse of
oil that diminished not.” All that we need do is to
act with holy speed “according to the word of the
Lord” as the widow “went and did according to the
word of Elias.”



32 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(3) Page 142. The sympathy of the widow is indi-
cated by the immediacy of her response to Elias’
request. Her confidence is proved by the fact that
even before Elias had promised her a reward, she
did his bidding. Moreover she made Elias his “little
hearth cake of meal,” evidently confident that God
would on His part, fulfill the astonishing promise,
which He made by the lips of His holy prophet. Her
obedience is even more obviously manifested, for “she
went and did according to the word of Elias.”

( 4 ) Page 142. Jesus solemnly warns those who are
guilty of stupid and sinful boasting and self-praise:
“Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled”

( 5 ) Page 142. Hypocrisy, carried out with the ex-
quisite finesse of the scribes and pharisees, finally
achieves its ultimate and ultimately disastrous effect:
it deceives even the hypocrite himself, who, thereupon
with calm self-assurance and pitifully uncritical self-
confidence forgets that “One (only) is Master” ! and
that the truly great are those who serve and not those
who arrogantly command. For “he that is greatest
among you shall be your servant” Example is pro-
verbially the best of teachers. But the example of
hypocritical teachers who “say and do not” is disillu-
sioningly misleading. Such teachers, in so far as they
have authority of God, must indeed be obeyed.
“Whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do.”
But their example is scandalous. The Lord warns us:
“According to their works, do ye no//”

(6) Page 142. Those who “have sitten on the chair”
of Peter, no less than the sometimes wicked incum-
bents of “the chair of Moses,” are human and weak
and, therefore, they can sin. To the Popes, however,
Christ guarantees His abiding Spirit to direct them
when they teach officially. To them, Peter’s successors
and Christ’s Vicars are addressed the reassuring
words: “The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, Whom the



MY LENTEN MISSAL 33

Father will send in My Name, He will teach you all
things” (John, 14, 26). The Pedagogue of the ultimate
teachers of Christ’s Church therefore is the Infallible
God!!

(7) Page 142. We must learn from the Example of
Christ, “Who emptied Himself, taking the form of a
servant” (Phil., 2, 7) that it is better to serve than to
command. Indeed “to serve is finally to command.”
Truly Christlike greatness belongs to him who is “the
servant of all” (I Cor., 9, 19). Christ’s Vicar, the Pope,

of all his many and splendid titles prefers this one:
“the servant of the servants of God.”

( 8 ) Page 142. Humble service!

(9) Page 142. Because he knew well that the Mass
is the renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross, whence
all our supernatural good stems. He regarded It
indeed as the “sacred Banquet, in which Christ is
received, the memory of His Passion renewed, the
mind filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory
given to us” (Ilnd Vespers, Feast of Corpus Christi).

(10) Page 142. Obedience to God’s Commandments
makes us less unworthy of the Gifts of God and is,
therefore, the best way remotely to dispose our souls
for their worthy reception.

(11) Page 142. Because only God is a Physician
capable of healing the soul's weaknesses and so dis-
pose the soul truly to rejoice in His Blessing .

(12) Page 142. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

WEDNESDAY-SECOND WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 146. In the words of the royal and in-

spired Poet with holy anxiety

!

(2) Page 147. Because only by God's merciful
Grace can physical penances be productive of spiritual
and supernatural good.



34 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(3) Page 147. Mardochai acknowledges God to be
the “Lord, Almighty King,” in Whose “power” are
“all things, Who hast made heaven and earth and all
things that are under the cope of heaven,” and from
Whom alone His people can expect “mercy,” for “He
has redeemed” us for Himself, that we “may live
and praise” His Name.

(4) Page 147. Baptism.

(5) Page 147. In our time when stupidly superficial
/>sei/c?o-scientists make themselves and others believe
that Evolution (magic word!) explains our origin, it is
profitable to remind ourselves, in Mardochai’s majes-
tic prayer that we are not merely evolved by imper-
sonal Nature but created by the Personal God.

(6) Page 147. If in Lent we mourn with Mary, His
Mother, the “Mater Dolorosa” who by His Cross
ever keeps her station (Sequence: Feast of Seven
Sorrows of Mary, Sept. 15th), we shall deserve with
her to experience the thrilling joy of His Glorious
Resurrection at Easter’s Dawn.

(7) Page 147. In the solitude of Christian contem-
plation, Christ forewarns His disciples that they must
share His Destiny, Who went “up to Jerusalem,
where the Son of Man shall be betrayed to the Chief
priests and the scribes and they shall condemn Him
to death and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to be
mocked and scourged and crucified” He reassures
the Christian mystic that He will also share with him
the glory of His Resurrection. For “on the third day,”
fixed in the Councils of Eternity, i.e. on the Last Day
“he will rise again.”

(8) Page 147. “You know not what you ask.”

(9) Page 147. He expects a Christian to drink with
Him “the chalice which (He) drinks,” i.e. to share
with Him His Anguish and, like Him, to be the ser-
vant and minister of all. Like the Son of Man, the



MY LENTEN MISSAL 35

Christian is come “not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His Life, a redemption for many.”

(10) Page 147. The Offertory teaches the efficacy
of confident and persevering prayers in the words of
the Psalmist: “none of them that wait on Thee, (that
pray) shall be confounded,” i.e. shall be unheard
and unanswered.

(11) Page 147. By the “holy commerce” of the
divine and spotless Sacrifice Which is the exchange
between God and man. God “breaks the chains of
our sins” and desires, in return, only our humble
and prayerful gratitude. Thus are we “attached to
God” by the union of prayer and detached from sin
by the liberating efficacy of His Sacrifice.

(12) Page 147. The attraction of the Grace of
Christ, Who from the Cross ever repeats His divine
Boast: “For I, when I shall be lifted up from the
earth, shall draw all things to Myself” (John, 12, 32).

(13) Page 147. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

THURSDAY—SECOND WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 151. Enemies of soul and body against

which St. John warns us: “Brethren, Love not the
world, for all that is in the world is the concupiscence
of the flesh (Lust, Gluttony, Sloth), the concupiscence
of the eyes (Greed) and the pride of life” (Vainglory,
Envy, Anger).

(2) Page 152. Repeated sin leads to moral blind-
ness by darkening the sinner’s conscience, making
him unresponsive to the normally efficacious illumina-
tion of God’s Grace. Christ is indeed “the true Light

,

Which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this
world” (John, 1, 9). But alas! “the Light shineth
(often) in darkness and the darkness did not com-
prehend It.” (ibid. 1, 5).



36 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(3) Page 152. Because “his heart departeth from
the Lord” and so he is “cursed” of the Lord God,
doomed to spiritual sterility, bringing forth no “fruits
of Justice” (II Cor., 9, 10) but only the profitless weeds,
that with him finally “will be gathered into bundles
to burn” (Phil. I, 11., Matt., 13, 30).

(4) Page 152. The man who lives for God and
Eternity, trusting “in the Lord” is “blessed” indeed
and “like a tree planted by the waters” is nourished
constantly by the efficacious moisture of God’s Grace.
Thus he need not fear “when the heat (of passion
and the world’s subtle or blatant attractiveness or
even the world’s persecution) cometh.” For like the
green-leafed tree, he “shall bring forth fruit,” con-
stantly, “even in the time of drought

,”
i.e. of spiritual

dryness and desolation.

(5) Page 152. The sinner’s soul is dried up “like
tamaris (a weed) in the desert.” Even the apparently
good works of the soul in mortal sin are profitless
unto life everlasting for he dwells “in the desert in
a salt land” of utter spiritual barrenness. The just
man, on the contrary, brings forth abundantly spiri-
tual “fruit in due season.”

( 6 ) Page 152. Our wills are motivated on the one
hand by the fear of God’s Curse and Chastisements,
and on the other by the blessed hope of celestial
rewards.

(7) Page 152. Between them “there is fixed a great
chaos.” For the sinner in eternity is “buried in Hell”
whilst the just man is “carried by the angels into
Abraham’s bosom,” i.e. into Heaven.

( 8 ) Page 152. Dives, “who was clothed in purple
and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day,”
deluded himself into believing that he was self-
sufficient and did not need, therefore, the continuing
beneficence of God, the comforting hope of eternity



MY LENTEN MISSAL 37

and the blessed opportunity of almsgiving. Dives*
wretched end (for “he was buried in Hell!”) is, the
too, too easily achieved portion of those who have
eyes only for themselves and who live, therefore, in
disregard of God and neighbor and eternity.

( 9 ) Page 152. What Moses, the Lawgiver and the
Prophets were to the Jews of the Old Dispensation,
Jesus, and the Church, the divinely appointed and
infallible spokesman of Christ, are to us of the New
Dispensation. If we hear not our “Moses” (Christ)
and our Prophets (the Church) then, like the unhappy
Jews of old, we shall not be convinced even by
miracles, not even if one “rises again from the dead.’*

(10) Page 1 52 . The efficacy of the prayer of Moses,
turning aside the just Wrath and justly deserved
chastisement of God, was based on Moses’ confidence
in God’s unfailing Mercy. But we have even more
impressive evidence of God’s Mercy. Our God is
“rich in mercy” (Ephesians, 2, 4), indeed, since
“Christ died for us”! (Romans, 5, 9).

(11) Page 152. Because we must “mass” our sac-
rifices with His Mass

f
our crosses with His Cross,

our mortifications with His Crucifixion. Only thus will
they be acceptable to the Father for Jesus is the
Only-Begotten of the Father, “in Whom (He) is well
pleased” (Matt., 3, 17). Uniting ourselves and our
works with Him, Who is Our Head, our works be-
come His Works. Therefore “we have access” (Eph.,
2, 18) through Jesus to the Father’s Throne and through
our Head we may present our deeds to the Father
acceptably.

( 12 ) Page 152. Because a Christian ought not to
be an “unprofitable servant” (Matt., 25, 30). Christ
has “appointed (us) that (we) should go and should
bring forth fruit” (John 15, 16). We must heed St.
Paul’s admonitions: “Receive not the grace of God



38 BOOK OF ANSWERS

in vain ... (II Cor. 6, 1 ) Stir up the grace of God which
is in you” (Tim. 1, 6).

(13) Page 152. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

FRIDAY-SECOND WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 158. The life of faith here is implied in

the tranquil assurance of the Psalmist that there is
indeed an hereafter: “I will appear before Thy sight
in justice.” Hope is beautifully expressed in the
Psalmist’s enthusiastic anticipation of the complete
satisfaction of the deepest and most ardent desires
of his soul: “I shall be satisfied when Thy Glory
shall appear.”

(2) Page 158. By serving as an apt instrument of
spiritual purification. Thus purified, the soul will “see
God” by vivid faith in the Glory of the Risen Christ.
“Blessed” therefore, indeed, “are the pure of heart
for they shall see God” (Matt. 5, 8).

(3) Page 158. To increase our faith: “Lord, in-
crease Thou my faith” (Luke 17, 5) and to stimulate
us to the zealous performance of good works for
“Faith without works is dead” (James 2, 26). These
purposes the Liturgy accomplishes by proposing to
our minds impressive motives for faith and good works.

(4) Page 158. Creatures, animate ( tyrannical gov-
ernments, parents, lovers, etc.) or even inanimate
(money, estates, bad books, intoxicating liquors, drugs,
etc.) sometimes sue man’s will for such complete
submission and surrender that he, in order to remain
loyal to his true Lord and Master, God, must say:
“Shalt thou be our King or shall we be subject to
thy dominion?” We ought never to imitate Joseph’s
brethren by refusing utter allegiance to Him, Who is
Our Brother and of Whom, Joseph was a type, Christ



MY LENTEN MISSAL 39

Jesus, Our Lord, and so say with the perfidious Jews
of His Day: “Away with Him . . . we have no king but
Caesar” (John 19, 15).

(5) Page 158. By narrating to them his dream, in
which, symbolically, he was represented as their
superior, to whom they ought humbly to submit.

(6) Page 158. Today, as always, enemies continue
to plot the destruction of the Church, which is the
Mystical Body of Jesus; and the silencing also of
His messengers, our priests. They say, even as did
Joseph’s brethren: “Come, let us kill them and cast
(them) into some old pit” . . . Thus “we shall have
(their) inheritance.” The wicked attempts which have
been made even in our own day, in Russia, Spain,
Mexico, Germany, etc., are the cruel repetitions of
an old, old story indeed, Caesar’s attempted usurpa-
tion of “the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22, 21).

(7) Page 158. Yes! However we ought always to
imitate the ingenious charity of Our Savior, Who
prayed from the Cross: “Father forgive them, for
they know not what they do” (Luke 23, 34).

(8) Page 158. The Lord of the Vineyard will take
from the unprofitable servant “the Kingdom of God.”
Indeed Christ is the stone of “scandal and stumbling
block” to many (Rom. 14, 13). And “whosoever shall
fall on this stone shall be broken (and) on whomso-
ever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder.” For
Christ is He, Who can say to all: “He that is not
with Me is against Me” (Matt. 12, 30). Cold neu-
trality towards Christ, therefore, is impossible.

(9) Page 158. God always rewards our correspond-
ence with actual grace by an increase of sanctifying
grace and an uninterrupted continuation of new and
efficacious actual graces so that “the effects of” His
Sacrifice will “ever remain in us.”



40 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(10) Page 158. Worldliness means the slavish and
unchristian copying of even the sinful fashions and
modes of behavior of “the passing generation” from
which we ought constantly to pray: “Lord, preserve
us and keep us.”

( 11 ) Page 158. So that strengthened in “body” and
“defended always by the protection of (His) power,”
we may persevere “in good works.”

(12) Page 158. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

SATURDAY-SECOND WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 165. The restoration of the Baptismal robe

of the repentant sinner is symbolized in the text of
the Gospel: “Bring forth quickly the first robe, and
put it on him.” The reception of the Eucharist is
symbolized in the text: “Bring hither the fatted calf
and kill it and let us eat and make merry ” For Christ
is indeed “the fatted calf

”
mystically killed in the

Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass, of Which the re-
pentant sinner is invited to “eat” and at this sacred
Banqueting he ought truly to “make merry,” since
Christ is the Divine Food, “having in Itself all manner
of delight.”

(2) Page 165. The Divine Law is “unspotted,” i.e.
not mixed with error as is human law. It converts
“souls” and does not merely regiment conduct. It is
easily learned by the “little ones

”
(Matt. 11, 25),

i.e., the truly humble and simple of heart and not
the possession, therefore, only of those who are wise
with the wisdom of legal love.

»(3) Page 165. That new (supernatural) life may
(“more abundantly”) flow into the soul.

(4) Page 165. Because “it is good to give praise to
the Lord” not only “in the morning” and “in the
night,” but indeed at all times.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 41

( 5 ) Page 165. Because a superfluity “of material
substance” is a temptation and furnishes the means
for sinful prodigality and “riotous living.”

( 6 ) Page 165. Confession: “Father, I have sinned
against Heaven and before thee.” Contrition: “I am
not now worthy to be called thy son.” Satisfaction:
“Make me as one of thy hired servants.”

(7 ) Page 165. Because, as St. Peter advises us, we
must “be sober and watch, for (our) adversary, the
devil goeth about like a roaring lion seeking whom
he may devour” (I Pet. 5, 8). We must, therefore,
never “sleep in (the) death” of indifference, luke-
warmness and impenitence

,

but ought always pray
that our “eyes,” the eyes of our soul, be ever “en-
lightened” by the illuminating grace of God.

( 8 ) Page 166. One can discover the answer to this
searching question only by rigorous examination of
one’s own conscience.

( 9 ) Page 166. By His “heavenly protection.”

(10) Page 166. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

THIRD SiNDAY of LENT
(1) Page 170. Because without the Missal it is usu-

ally more difficult to keep the eyes of our souls ever
towards the Lord and especially to take our proper
part in the Divine Liturgy, which is the Public Prayer
of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and
ought, therefore, always to be our prayer. The use
of the Missal is the best way to “pray the Mass,”
as Pius X urged us.

( 2 ) Page 170. The unbaptized “sit in darkness and
in the shadow of death” (Luke 1, 79). In Baptism,
however, we receive the burning light of faith , sym-



42 BOOK OF ANSWERS

bolized by the candle lighted during the ceremony
so that we can “walk as children of the light” who
“were heretofore in darkness.” Thus the baptized
ought indeed bring forth “the fruit of the light” which
“is in all goodness, and justice, and truth.”

(3) Page 170. The example of the Loving Christ
Himself! the motive

:

our supernatural status as the

most dear children of God ; the grace , its all-sufficing
source is in Christ Who hath delivered Himself for
us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God.

( 4 ) Page 170. “Let it not he so much as named
among you, as becometh saints.”

(5) Page 170. On condition that we (,hear the word
of God and keep it.”

(6) Page 170. Jesus warns us that a “stronger
than us, (the devil) will come (upon us) and over-
come (us) and take away all our armor wherein we,
(foolishly) trusted.” Such inadequate armor would be,
e.g., the self-deluding and presumptuous belief that
past virtues guarantee future fidelity and fervor.

(7) Page 170. Because repeated sin finally delivers
the soul to the domination of Satan and his cohorts.

(8) Page 170. Yes! But only on condition that, in
such circumstances, we fail to observe God’s Com-
mandments. For if, even under stress and strain of
great difficulty, we live, heroically according to God’s
Law, we shall experience the “great joy which no
man (can) take away from us,” of a difficult duty
well done.

( 9 ) Page 170. The pacifying convictions first, that
“the justices of the Lord are right” and secondly
that “His judgments are sweeter than honey and
the honeycomb.”

( 10 ) Page 170. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 43

MONDAY-THIRD WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 176. The Word of God being infallibly

true, and God Himself, being Almighty, if we have
Him on our side, we are securely buttressed indeed,
and need not fear what anyone, not even all the world
of men, the Powers of Hell, can do against us.

(2) Page 176. Abstinence from sin, which is “a
dangerous excess,” indeed, whether of the flesh or
of the mind. Without such abstinence from sin, absti-
nence from food is surely futile and quite profitless.

(3) Page 176. Howsoever “rich” anyone may be
in mere natural and secular riches, he is nevertheless
i{ but a leper,” diseased with the disease of original

sin. The duties after Baptism, thus symbolically set
forth, are firstly, that the baptized having been made
truly “clean,” he ought never to forget to return
thanks to God, the First Author of so great a boon,
and then publicly to profess his divinely bestowed
faith in the true God, like Whom “there is no other
God in all the earth.”

(4) Page 176. Naaman was self-willed in his re-
fusal to wash himself in the channels of Israel. He
was finally persuaded by his servants to comply. Our
self-will, also, can effectively block the Mercy of God
from healing the leprosy of our souls in the channels
of the Sacraments, to which God’s servant, the Church,
directs us, especially in the Sacrament of Penance,
so often galling to our self-esteem.

(5) Page 176. Such stupid and sinful belittling and
unawareness of God’s Presence deprives us of the
richer manifestations of God’s condescending kind-
ness, even as the conduct of the Nazarenes toward
The Nazarene, Who, being of “His Own country” re-
fused to accept Him, had, as consequence His refusal
to work amongst them “the great things (which were)
done in Capharnaum.”



BOOK OF ANSWERS

(6 ) Page 176. By “passing through the midst of
them (and going) His Way.”

( 7) Page 176. Because to dictate to God is obvi-
ously a gross lack of humility and reverence which is
His due and our duty. God “resisteth the proud and
giveth (His) Grace to the humble” (James 4, 6;
I Peter 5, 5).

( 8 ) Page 176. The qualities which are most con-
spicuous in this prayer of the Psalmist are: 1st, that

holy urgency which is the sign of fervor; 2nd, perse-
verance

,
indicated by his eager repetition and humil-

ity for the Psalmist knows that God could indeed
“despise (his) supplication” without injustice.

( 9 ) Page 176. By delivering us from the worst of
all bondages, lithe captivity” of sin. Not only does
Heaven rejoice “over one sinner that doth penance”

—

(Luke 15, 7) and so is liberated from sin’s imprison-
ment by Jesus, the Liberator, but the sinner himself,
thus freed, rejoices “with exceeding great joy”

(Matt. 2, 10).

(10) Page 176. Sin is, after all, the common source
and ultimate cause of all “dangers” that afflict or
“threaten” humanity: wars, depressions, famine, sick-
ness, social injustices, death! Redemption

,
“through

Our Lord,” is mankind’s “only hope.”

(11) Page 176. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

TUESDAY—THIRD WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 180. Because only “the prayer of the just

man (i.e., one who is truly devoted to and actively
promotes God’s Interests ), availeth much

”

before the

God Who “loves justice and hates wickedness.”

( 2 ) Page 180. Because of ourselves, we “have
nothing” in the house of our soul. Yet, by the re-



MY LENTEN MISSAL 45

demptive Might of Christ, the “little of our nothing-
ness” is increased beyond human reckoning. Of
ourselves, we are spiritual bankrupts . In Christ, we
are spiritual billionaires. By the riches of His Precious
Blood, we can pay back our great debt to the Father,
superabundantly and with interest, infinitely com-
pounded. Otherwise, our debt to God would never
be paid.

(3) Page 180. In “the treasury of the Church,” we
have rich and ample means to discharge our debt.
To the Church, Christ has given “the power of the
keys,” so that if she looses the debt of our sins, they

are cancelled before God.

( 4 ) Page 180. Because if we voluntarily and un-
necessarily associate with bad company, we run the
risk that they “shall have dominion over” us. Many
have learned to their tragic sorrow that an evil com-
panion, who, upon first acquaintance

,
seemed a friend

and a source of pleasure and a provider of “good
times,” eventually becomes a domineering tyrant.

(5) Page 180. God is never outdone in generosity.
When He, therefore, commands Peter to “forgive
his (erring) brother . . . not till seven times but till
seventy times seven times,” He implies that He, the
God of Mercy, will be not less but infinitely more
generous than He instructs us to be.

( 6 ) Page 180. Whether God shortens or lengthens
our days He gives us time to prepare for eternity by
declaring, i.e., praising “the works of the Lord” and
so glorifying Him.

(7) Page 181. The Eucharist produces in us “the
effects of our redemption,” leading “us to the gifts
of salvation” (life to God) and restraining “us from
human excesses” (death to sin).

( 8 ) Page 181. The effects of the Ransom that Christ
paid may economically be summarized in the pattern



46 BOOK OF ANSWERS

of true Christian living, as so frequently outlined by
the great Fathers of the Church and beautifully ex-
pressed in St. Paul’s often quoted words: “I live
now, not I, but Christ liveth in me” “I die daily”. .

.

(for) “with Christ I am nailed to the Cross ... I live
(indeed) now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

( 9 ) Page 181. Repeatedly!

(10) Page 181. “Nothing defiled shall enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven.” Hence the chief requisite
for entrance therein is purification from every
“blemish,” whether by penance in this life or pur-
gatory in the life beyond the grave. Positively to be
fit for entrance into Heaven, however, we must
“work” the work “of Justice,” i.e., we must cultivate
the Christian virtues.

( 12 ) Page 181. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

WEDNESDAY—Till IK II WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 185. We ought to “be glad and rejoice in

(God’s) mercy.”

( 2 ) Page 185. Duties of Justice, respecting his per-
son, his life, his good name, his wife, his servants,
his chattels, his property.

( 3 ) Page 186. Of true worship God says, “you
shall make an altar” for sacrifice, prescribing for the
ancient Jew, the type of sacrifice tc be offered thereon.
He now points to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
with which we unite our daily sacrifices as true wor-
ship. Of false worship He warns against the ever
present idolatry of money, material wealth and power.'

( 4 ) Page 186. The Psalmist’s repentance affected
both soul and body: “all my bones are troubled and
my soul is troubled exceedingly.” Nor is this surprising



MY LENTEN MISSAL 47

since soul and body are united and there is a certain
reciprocity of cause and effect between body and soul.

(5) Page 186. Divine etiquette prescribes for morals,
whilst human etiquette chiefly prescribes for mere
manners. Manners

,
alas, sometimes wax, while

morals wane! “This people honoreth Me with their
lips but their heart is far from Me.” For instance,
human etiquette so often prescribes an elaborate
system of table manners, yet tolerates and even
approves foul speech at 'the table. To this, Divine
etiquette replies, “not that which goeth into the
mouth defileth a man, but what cometh out of the
mouth, this defileth a man.”

(6) Page 186. In the strong language of Isaias, the
Prophet, who declares, in God’s Name: “in vain do
they worship Me.”

(7) Page 186. The fundamental reason for God’s
Mercy to us is the all-sufficing merits of Jesus Christ,
His Only-Begotten Son and our Brother, for Whose
“Name’s Sake,” we are acceptable before the Father.

(8) Page 186. The “way” of our Lent prepares us
for the “joy” of Easter. The divinely and, therefore,
absolutely accurately prescribed progress is always:
“Per crucem ad lucem”—“through the Cross to the
Light.” For by the alchemy of God's Mercy our
present “sorrow shall be changed into joy.”

(9) Page 186. For true peace of mind it is necessary
to be “set free from all evils.”

(10) Page 186. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

TIIHIKSIIAV—Till III! WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 190. On our pait we must <(attend to (His)

law” and docilely “incline (our) ears to the words of
{His) mouth ” On His Part, He promises to “hear”
our prayers and to be our “Lord forever.”



48 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(2) Page 190. We must hear “the word of the
Lord,” not “lying words” but infallibly true and
solemnly admonishing us: “Make your ways and your
doings (your thoughts, words and deeds) good.”

(3) Page 190. God requires firstly that we “execute
(just) judgment between a man and his neighbor,”
i.e., that the scales of Justice be not tipped to favor

any man or any corporation however great and mighty,
but that they be held with impartial evenness;
secondly, that we exercise no unjust discrimination
towards “the stranger,” the alien, whether alien by
creed or race or nationality; nor towards “the father-
less and the widow,” who are, of themselves, virtually
defenseless; nor towards the “innocent,” children,
whether born or, as yet, unborn. He requires, thirdly,
that we “walk not after strange gods to (our) own
hurt,” whether they be the “gods” of godless science
or the gods of greedy politics or the gods of sinful
pleasure and place and power and pelf.

(4) Page 190. Because it shows me the ultimate
Source of all our good, including nourishing and
delectable food and drink, namely: God, Who “givest
meat in due season” and Who generously “opens
(His) Hand” to “fill every living creature” from His
Bounty.

(5) Page 190. By serving Him, even as “she min-
istered to them.”

(6) Page 190. We must change the tortured crying
out of the expelled devils into the prayer of faith and
say: “Thou art the Son of God.”

(7) Page 190. “To other cities also I must preach
the Kingdom of God.” But Jesus cannot preach today
to “other cities,” except through His “Other Christs

”

the Missionaries and they obviously, need the mate-
rial support of our generous almsgiving and the
spiritual sustenance of our earnest prayers.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 49

( 8 ) Page 190. The Holy Mass is referred to as the
inspiration of all true Christian Sacrifice because the
Mass is the mystically renewed Sacrifice of Jesus,
Whose sacrificing Love thus inspires us to act on His
Words: “Unless a man deny himself and take up his
cross daily and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple.”

(9) Page 190. Our prayer ought to be a prayer for
duection that so we may “keep (His) justifications.”

(10) Page 190. Entire obedience to God’s Com-
mandments, on the part of all of high and low, of
governments and peoples, of Capitalists, and Workers,
of rich and poor, will certainly bring the “heavenly
favor” of reasonable prosperity.

(11) Page 190. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

FRIDAY - THIRD WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 197. Because, firstly, all things ought to

be referred “to God's greater glory,” and secondly,
because the Psalmist is especially anxious that God’s
graces to him may confuse those, who are not only
his enemies

,
but the enemies also of God .

(2) Page 197. Moses and Aaron entered and fell
flat upon the ground “before the Tabernacle of the
Old Covenant” which merely contained the two tab-
lets of the Ten Commandments. We are inspired to
kneel and pray before the “Tabernacle” of the “New
Covenant” where Jesus, true God, true Man, dwells
night and day.

(3) Page 197. One becomes a “well of refreshing
water” within his soul, when he has really found
Christ, in Whom he lives, and to Whom he can say,
“My Lord and my All” (John 20, 28). Even though
in material things, he be a “have-not,” yet, because
of his Divine possession, he realizes he is a true



50 BOOK OF ANSWERS

“have.” With others, he wishes and acts to “share
this wealth,” in works of social justice and social
charity, for their souls' sake, for Christ's Sake.

(4) Page 197. By giving us Him “in Whom are all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2, 3)
and Who, therefore, can and does say: “Come to
Me all ye who labor and are heavily burdened and I
will refresh you” (Matt. 11, 28); i.e., I will satisfy
your thirst, which, whether you know it or not, is
the thirst after that Unity and Truth and Goodness
and Beauty Which is God.

(5) Page 197. By denying Moses the high privilege
and great pleasure of leading his people into the
Promised Land, saying to him: “Because you have
not believed Me, you shall not bring these people
into the land, which I will give them.”

%

(6) Page 197. In Baptism: the waters of super-
naturally regenerating life, from the Rock, Which is
Christ. In Penance: the cleansing “Blood of the Lamb
Which was slain,” Christ. The “Rock, » which is
Christ” (I Cor. 10, 4), “struck twice by the Rod,”
which is the two-beamed Cross, is the blessed Source,
whence the efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance
and of all the Sacraments derives. In the Holy Eucha-
rist: Christ Himself, Who is the “Fountain of water
(John 4, 14) which, if any man drink of It, he shall
not taste death forever” (John 9, 52).

(7) Page 197. By showing to us in symbol and type
that the Sacraments are the divinely instituted chan-
nels of supernatural life, eminently deserving of our

reverent study , and productive of fruits of holiness
and true happiness.

(8) Page 197. Our present crucifixion may readily
enough be seen as implied in the Psalmist’s expres-
sion “we are become exceeding poor ” The extreme
“poverty” of the Poor Man of Nazareth Himself was



MY LENTEN MISSAL 51

that
“
self-emptying” whereby He became “obedient

unto death, even to the death of the Cross” (Phil.

2, 8). Our future resurrection is suggested by the
Psalmist’s words: “my flesh hath flourished again.”

( 9 ) Page 197. The fatigue of Jesus “wearied with
His journey” reminds the devout Christian of the
last wearisome journey of Our Lord to Calvary. There,
wearied to death by fatigue and cruelties and bitter
taunts and prodigal blood-sheddings, Jesus called out:
“I thirst

”

(John 19, 28). And His so poignant request
has echoed down the long corridors of the centuries
and is heard now as a plea for those souls, which can
be won for Him only by vigorous Catholic Action.

(10) Page 197. Because only the soul whose faith
is active is a fitting vessel, into which God through
the Church can pour the refreshing and invigorating
waters of His Grace.

(11) Page 197. Because an active lay worker, to
be an effective instrument of truly Catholic Action
must have no secrets before God. Such a one must
have opened her heart and soul to the inspection of
the Divine Physician, Who, having healed her spiri-
tual wounds, will then equip her for her active min-
istry to others.

(12) Page 197. “White to the harvest,” i.e., ready
to be gathered into the blessed granary of Souls,
which is the Church. Every Christian ought, there-
fore, as Jesus instructed His first Apostles, to “lift
up (his) eyes,” i.e., to be aware of the ever-present
opportunities to advance the Cause of the harvesting
of souls for God.

( 13 ) Page 197. By His example in speaking at
length, intimately and on friendly terms with one,
who was a Samaritan and, therefore, anathema to a
self-respecting, tradition-bound Jew, Jesus rebuked
and even now rebukes race prejudice of any kind.



52 BOOK OF ANSWERS

( 14 ) Page 197. She “left her water-pot and went
her way into the city and saith to the men there:
Come, and see a Man Who has told me all things,
whatsoever I have done. Is not He the Christ?”
They “went, therefore, out of the city and came unto
Him ... Now of that city many of the Samaritans
believed in Him, for the word of the woman giving
testimony: He told me all things whatsoever I have
done.” The woman, therefore, took immediate action,
becoming a lay-preacher of the miracle-working power
of Christ and achieved immediate and numerically
notable success in bringing others to Christ.

(15) Page 198. Let each one answer according to
his own conscience.

(16) Page 198. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

SATURDAY — THIRD WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 205. Negative: “discipline of the flesh

by abstaining from food” and by other works of
self-denial.

Positive: to “keep (the) law (of God), by the
practice of Christian virtue.”

( 2 ) Page 205. Because the love and fear of God
are the only two motives adequate to keep the errant
mind and heart and will of fallen man from sin.

(3) Page 205. We ought not so to speak because
God, Who is everywhere, seeth all things. Hence
such subterfuges are both stupid and disastrous.

( 4 ) Page 205. “Susanna cried out with a loud
voice and said : O Eternal God, Who knowest hidden
things, Who knowest all things before they come to
pass, Thou knowest that they have borne false wit-
ness against me . . . And the Lord heard her voice.”



MY LENTEN MISSAL 53

( 5 ) Page 205. Daniel said that such a condemna-
tion is “foolish” indeed.

( 6 ) Page 205. Our attitude should be one of un-
troubled confidence.

( 7 ) Page 205. To the repentant sinner Christ is
gentle and gracious and exquisitely tactful. To the
Scribes Jesus shows a crushing finesse of contempt,
scarcely deigning to talk to them and ingeniously ex-
posing to each his secret and unrepented wickednesses.

( 8 ) Page 205. Probably Christ wrote an indictment
of these hypocrites from the records of His Divine
Memory, facing them with secret sins , which they
had supposed they “got away with,” and were known
only to themselves.

( 9 ) Page 205. Even the greatest sinner can learn
from the words and actions of Jesus that His Heart
is always won to leniency and generous forgiveness
by true repentance.

( 10) Page 205. Because self-approbation is often
self-delusion. “Would that we could see ourselves as
others see us!” The Saints are the most loved by
God and men, and they, like the man of whom Christ
spoke in the gospel, put themselves “in the lowest
place” (Luke 14, 9), preferring themselves to none.
Not only God but even healthy-minded men “resist
the proud” (James 4, 6).

(11) Page 205. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

FOURTH SUNDAY of LENT
(1) Page 210. By presenting Heaven to us as the

“House of the Lord
” where we, by God's Conde-

scension and Mercy
,
shall go as His Children and

the brethren of His only-begotten Son. For we are
by the grace “of adoption of sons” (Gal. 4, 5) what



54 BOOK OF ANSWERS

Christ is by His Divine Nature, the “Sons of God,
and if sons heirs also

;
heirs indeed of God, and joint

heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8, 16/17).

(2) Page 210. He relieves us “by the consolation
of (His) grace.”

(3) Page 210. The Church knows that her children
are the children not “of the bond woman” but “of
promise,” and that they are “free by the freedom
wherewith Christ hath made us free.”

(4) Page 210. “So also is it now” In the Old
Testament, Isaac as a free-man, typifies the “freedom
wherewith Christ has made us free” (Gal. 4, 31),
freedom from slavery to the tyranny of sin. Isaac
was persecuted by the slave, who “was born ac-
cording to the flesh.” The world is always the irre-
concilable enemy of the spiritual. Past, present and
future, Christ warns us, “if they have persecuted Me,
they will also persecute you” (John 15, 20).

(5) Page 210. Filial “fear of the Lord is the begin-
ning of Wisdom” (Prov. 1, 7; Ps. 110, 10) and, there-
fore, salutary and liberating. But “servile fear” is,
by definition, enslaving. Filial fear is fear tempered
and sweetened and made efficacious by love and
reverence.

(6) Page 210. Final victory obviously belongs to
Christ, the Immortal King and Conqueror and to His
brethren. For Jesus reassured His disciples: “Have
confidence, I have overcome the world” (John 16, 33).

(7) Page 210. The sinner, on his return to God,
knows that he is indeed in “the Jerusalem” of the
New Covenant, the Church, “round” which are the
buttressing mountains of God’s Grace and the en-
circling and protecting love of the Lord, Who ever is
“round about His people.”

(8) Page 210. Miracles are authentic signs of the
divine origin of Him, Who works them. As Our Lord



MY LENTEN MISSAL 55

said: If “you will not believe Me, believe the works

”

(John 10, 38). Even the doubting Thomas finally pro-
fessed his absolute faith in Jesus “the Prophet that
is come into the world.” For upon beholding the mirac-
ulously Risen Christ, he exclaimed: “My Lord and
My God” (John 20, 28).

(9) Page 210. “My Kingdom,” Jesus said, “is not
of this world” (John 18, 36). But the loyalty inspired
by miraculous favors in the material order is, Our
Lord knows, too frequently selfish and sensual. His
followers, however, must be loyally ready to “follow
Him whithersoever He goeth” (Apoc. 14, 4), even to
pain and death, so galling to the sensual man.

(10) Page 211. They are then acceptable to the
Lord, Who “gives heed (to) and is appeased by”
them, and they are richly profitable to us “both to
our devotion and salvation.” Their total value is de-
pendent upon their union with the Sacrifice of Him,
Who is “the propitiation for our sins” (I John 2, 2;
4, 10; Rom. 3, 25) and to Whom the Father cannot
refuse to “give heed” and from Whom, therefore,
stems all that is to our supernatural “profit.”

(11) Page 211. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

MONDAY—FOURTH WEEK of LENT

(1) Page 215. Because as Good Friday approaches,
we, in union with Jesus, ought to live over again in
sympathy and love, the anguish of the Heart of Christ
against Whom “strangers have risen up” and “after
(Whose) soul (i.e., life) the mighty have sought.”

(2) Page 215. One ought, indeed, so to pray, even
as Christ on the eve of His Passion and Death,
prayed His Prayer of Agony in the Garden when He



56 BOOK OF ANSWERS

was in trouble from “strangers” (i.e., the ruling
powers of Imperial Rome), and “the mighty” (i.e.,
the Scribes and Chief-Priests of Israel).

(3) Page 215. Modern godless education attempts
an operation, similar to that proposed by the wise
Judge, Solomon. It attempts, with truly disastrous
consequences, to “divide the child,” in the classroom,
training his hands and head to be clever while leaving
utterly to one side and quite ignoring the require-
ments of his soul. It may indeed be called a “sword,”
for its result is likely to be the death of the spiritual
life of those who are submitted to its unnatural
surgery.

(4) Page 215. Because human cleverness is always
fallible and frequently biased whereas the “wisdom
of God” cannot err nor treat anyone unjustly.

(5) Page 216. The liturgical renewal of the Sacri-
fice of the Cross of Christ, Who is “our Life and our
protection.”

( 6 ) Page 216. The action of Jesus towards those
who profaned the material temple of His Father indi-
cates that, with greater reason and even more ruth-
lessly, He must punish those who, by sin, profane
the spiritual temple of the Triune God. St. Paul says:
“You are the temple of God. If any man violate the
temple of God, him will God destroy” (I Cor. 3, 17;
6, 19; II Cor. 6, 16).

(7) Page 216. Because, in such a case, the puri-

fying scourges of God’s Justice are richly deserved
and finally inescapable. Besides “whom the Lord
loveth, He chastiseth” Thus, one chastised by God
ought to know that such chastisements are intended
spiritually to profit him.

( 8 ) Page 216. They erroneously supposed that He
was speaking of the temple of Solomon, the glory of



MY LENTEN MISSAL 57

their race whereas He referred to the temple of His
Body, the imperishable glory of the whole human race.

( 9 ) Page 216. Because Jesus “knew all men and
because He needed not that any should give testi-
mony of man, for He knew what was in man.” Thus
Our Lord had a prudent fear of the relapse into sin
of those, whose fickle hearts had been won by a show
of His Power but who would be “scandalized in” Him
(Matt. 26, 31; Mark 14, 27; John 16, 32) by the
“scandal” of the Cross (I Cor. 1, 23).

( 10) Page 216. The commandments are indeed re-
garded as “kill-joys” by those who stupidly confuse
sinful and secular amusements with the sources of
abiding joy. One, though, who has obeyed the Psalm-
ist’s injunction: “taste and see that the Lord is sweet”
(Ps. 33, 9), knows that ultimate gladness is only to
be found by him who obeys the same Psalmist:
“Sing joyfully to God, serve ye the Lord with glad-

ness: come in before His presence (i. e., pray) with
exceeding great joy.”

( 11 ) Page 216. No sin is “secret” to God. Our
every thought, word, deed and omission is known
to Him, Who is ^//-knowing. But, blinded by self-
deceit and unenlightened by God’s Grace, which is
received when we humbly examine our consciences,
our sins may sometimes be secret to us, with, of
course, disastrous consequences to ourselves. For we
may think ourselves “worthy of (God’s) love . . .
(whereas, in reality we are worthy) of hatred”
(Eccles. 9, 1).

( 12 ) Page 216. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



58 BOOK OF ANSWERS

TUESDAY- FOURTH WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 221. Prophetically, i.e. by the lips of the

Royal Prophet, who was a prophetic type of the
Agonizing Savior.

(2) Page 221. The example of Moses inspires us
to pray and work for the conversion of our country,
even when God can justly indict our country of many
and serious crimes, just as He condemned the people
of Moses. Moses’ example teaches us also to plead
eloquently, reminding God of His merciful promises
and of those, whose holy lives have been glorious
chapters in our country’s history. For Moses said:
“remember Abraham

,
Isaac and Israel, thy servants,

to whom Thou sworest by Thy Own Self.” Finally
Moses’ success

,
“and the Lord was appeased,” indi-

cates to us that we also may expect God graciously
and mercifully to hear our prayer. Thus we may and
ought to pray with confidence.

(3) Page 221. Moses; implicitly , insofar as Moses’
petition to God dramatically emphasizes the suprem-
acy of God and, if one may so speak, the advantages
that would accrue to God’s Glory by a favorable
response to his prayer; Jesus, also implicitly: “he
that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory ; but
He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him, He
is true and there is no injustice in Him.” Thus Our
Lord implies a sharp rebuke to him who would usurp
the glory that is due to God alone.

(4) Page 221. The Psalmist reminds himself in his
prayer to God of the great deeds which, according to
the traditions of the Jews, God had done in their favor
“in the days of old.” We can hear in his words,
reminders also of the marvels which God’s Omni-
potence has wrought in favor of the Christian people,
who are the “chosen” of the New Covenant.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 59

(5) Page 221. Christ is the Son of the Father by
His very nature. We are the children of the Father
by adoption. By Christ’s example we are reminded
that we also ought to speak to “Our Father, Who (is)
in Heaven” (Matt. 6, 9; Luke 11, 2) with profoundest
reverence.

(6) Page 221. By explicitly telling us of the ultimate
Origin of His teaching: “My doctrine,” He says, “is
not Mine, but His that sent Me.” Even the quality
of Christ’s doctrine implicitly indicates its Divine

Source. For the Jews wondered, saying: “How doth
this man know letters, having never learned?”

(7) Page 221. The ordinary people, who ordinarily
are of “good will” (Luke 2, 14) recognized Christ as
a divinely-sent Teacher, even when their leaders
“sought to apprehend Him.” For the Evangelist nar-
rates: “Out of the people (i.e., those who may not
be learned but who are docile)

,
many believed in Him.”

Indeed the Good-News of “peace” between God and
man was first declared to men “of good will i.e.,
to the simple shepherds “watching and keeping the
night-watches over their flocks” (Luke 2, 8) on the
lonely hillsides of Judea.

(8) Page 221. Because to “judge according to ap-
pearance is to judge unjustly. We ought, therefore,
according to Christ’s own command to “judge just
judgment.”

(9) Page 221. Patient and persevering prayer is
finally rewarded by God's Own Intervention. For, to
him, who perseveres in active prayer, God will grant
passive prayer, and will “put into (his) mouth a new
canticle,” “a song (indescribably sweet) to (his) God.”

(10) Page 221. To “offer this sacrifice (i.e., the
Sacrifice of the Mass) worthily ” i.e., after having
been cleansed “from our sins” and sanctified “both
in body and soul.”



60 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(11) Page 221. There are many today who “work
under continual hardship” and many who are under
the most grievous hardship of having no work. For
them we ought to pray to God: “Grant (them) relief.”

( 12 ) Page 221. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words..

WEDNESDAY— FOURTH WEEK of LE.\T
(1) Page 228. He rewards them by the blessing of

forgiveness.

( 2 ) Page 228. The chief Baptismal graces thus
symbolized are:

a. The cleansing from the stain of original sin.
“I will pour upon you clean water and you shall
be cleansed from all your filthiness.”

b. The christening of our hearts, so that we parti-
cipate, by the Gift of Supernatural Charity, in
the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. “I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh and will
give you a heart of flesh.”

c. The infusion of sanctifying grace, which is our
supernatural participation in the very life of God.
“I will put a new spirit, My spirit, in the midst
of you.”

d. The publication to us of the Commandments
and the Creed to be the guideposts of our newly
received Christ-Life. “I will cause you to walk in
My commandments, and to keepMyjudgments ”

The chief Baptismal promises set forth symbolically
are:

a. The privilege of being a member of the Church,
which is the household of the faith, and not
merely a transient guest. For the Church is the
promised land of the New Dispensation, and
generously given by God to our first ancestors
in the faith of Christ. “You shall dwell in the
land which I gave to your fathers.”



MY LENTEN MISSAL 61

b. An especially intimate relationship with God
both here and hereafter. “You shall be My people
and I will be your God.”

(3) Page 228. The first Gradual was, and might
now also, be appropriately recited to Catechumens
because they need the reassurance that the Church
will be to them a mother to “teach” and to “enlighten”
and to lead them near to that God of gentle Goodness
before Whom they “shall not be ashamed.” The
second Gradual enlarges upon these comforting re-
assurances, telling the Catechumen that upon enter-
ing the Church through the portals of holy Baptism,
he will belong to a “blessed nation whose God is
the Lord” and to the “people” whom God “hath
chosen for His inheritance” i.e., for Heaven. Thus
the one baptized will have been repaid, not “according
to the sins (he may) have committed” but according
to the “mercies” of God which shall have “speedily”
gone before him.

( 4 ) Page 228. The virtue of “true devotion” be-
cause the truly devout perform their voluntary sacri-
fices not in stingy or niggardly fashion but with holy
eagerness.

(5) Page 229. The negative duty to avoid evil; the
positive duty to do good. In these two the entire
moral law is summed up.

( 6 ) Page 229. It is explained that obedience to God
will win His Favor. “If you will hearken to Me, you
shall eat the good things of the land.” Our primary
duties to God are, moreover, explained symbolically,
for God’s first command is: “Wash yourselves, be
clean.” Charity to neighbor is explained in some
detail. And we are allured to its practice by God’s
assurance. If, by practicing such charity we “come”
to Him, we shall have a convincing argument to
plead and to win His forgiving Mercy. If our “sins



62 BOOK OF ANSWERS

be as scarlet they shall be made as white as snow,
and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white
as wool.”

( 7 ) Page 229. Because we must obey God and
“thus saith the Lord God: Wash yourselves,” by
contrition. “Cease to do perversely, learn to do well,”
i.e., amend your lives.

( 8 ) Page 229. In the trials of life we must make
“manifest the works of God” by steadfastly refusing
to deny His Providence, even under stress, on those
who recognize His benign purposes in permitting
physical evils. He bestows blessings which brighten
and bring gladness, even to those who are, physically,
most sorely afflicted.

( 9 ) Page 229. Because “the night (inevitable)
cometh (on apace) when no man can work.”

(10) Page 229. One ought eagerly to seize every
such daily opportunity to publish God’s Mercies and
favors to us. Gratitude and the desire to share with
others the blessings of that faith, which opens our
eyes to the world of supernature, prompts and de-
mands such zeal.

(11) Page 229. By the Sacrifice of the Eucharist
“our sins (are) purged By the Eucharist as a Sac-
rament our souls are nourished “with spiritual food”
and our bodies protected “with temporal aid.”

( 12 ) Page 229. We are helpfully warned to ask
“only what is pleasing to” God.

( 14 ) Page 229. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 63

THURSDAY—FOI ' HTH WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 233. They will have the reward of spiri-

tual joy and strength as the Psalmist so confidently
presumes.

(2) Page 233. We are ordered to ‘‘give glory” to
God and to pray to Him, “calling upon His Name”;
towards our neighbors we ought to practice the Spir-
itual work of mercy that is involved in all mis-
sionary activity. Thus we shall “declare His deeds
among the Gentiles.”

(3) Page 234. That we may “find joy in true de-
votion” and “the more easily receive (God’s) heavenly
delights,” for these graces of interior prayer are more
easily received by one who leads a life not of prayer
only but of penance.

(4) Page 234. Because God is not limited by the
limitations of His messengers. “The Spirit (indeed)
breatheth where He will” (John 3, 8).

(5) Page 234. Because God Only is the Author
and Master of the life of the human race.

( 6 ) Page 234. Each of the Sacraments of the New
Covenant, by God’s institution effect what they sig-
nify and signify what they effect. All and each, from
the beginning “to the end,” from Baptism to Extreme
Unction and Holy Viaticum, enrich “the souls of
(God’s) poor” by conferring upon them for the first
time, or restoring or increasing sanctifying grace.

(7) Page 234. Because our salvation through the
humiliation of the Incarnation, Passion and Death
and the glory of Resurrection of the Second Person
of the Blessed Trinity had been determined in the
inscrutable counsels of God from all eternity. We
may see an illustration of the saving work of Christ
in Eliseus, who, great prophet though he was, con-



64 BOOK OF ANSWERS

descended to come to the house of the Sunamitess
( Christ’s advent to the house of our humanity) and
to lie down upon the bed “where the child lay dead”
(even as Christ laid Himself down upon the bed of
the Cross

,
where prostrate humanity waited to be

supernaturally revivified). Eliseus “put his mouth upon
his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands
upon his hands: and he bowed himself upon him.”
May not this be regarded as symbolizing Christ’s
mystic identification of Himself with our sinful
humanity? He became “like as we are without sin”
(Heb. 4, 15).

( 8 ) Page 234. Such a sinner is so symbolized be-
cause whatever fleeting hope still remains to him,
depends upon the solicitude of others, even as the
return to life of the boy depended upon Jesus’ sight
of the grief of his bereaved mother. It is not too
fanciful to see in the Widow of Naim a symbol of
Mary, who ever grieves over the spiritual death of
her children and to whose solicitude, Christ, her
loving Son, cannot be indifferent. No wonder Mary
is styled by the Church: “the Refuge of Sinners!”

(9) Page 234. Because as dutiful children we
should follow the good example of our Mother.

(10) Page 234. Because the Mercy of Jesus is not
circumscribed by the limitations of His earthly Life
but is “from generation unto generation” (Luke 1, 50).
Thus what He did for the Widow’s son at Naim, He
will do, in the supernatural order, also for us.

(11) Page 234. By publicly, i.e., liturgically chant-
ing and proclaiming

,

His Praises, saying, like the
people of His own time: “A great Prophet is risen up
among us and God hath visited His people.”

(12) Page 234. Because God has no need of our
gifts. He wants chiefly our “purified souls.” Our Lord
says to each of us: “Son, give Me thy heart” (Prov.
23, 26).



MY LENTEN MISSAL 65

(13) Page 234. The duty of being “mindful of
(His) Justice alone

”
for so He has “taught” us and

never will He “forsake” us.

(14) Page 234. By being reminded that a sacri-
legious Communion is a terrible “judgment” against
rather than “a remedy” for us. As St. Paul says:
“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth
and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the
Body of the Lord” (I Cor. 11, 29).

(15) Page 234. This “prayer over the people” is
an especially remarkable (because marvelously suc-
cinct) summary of the successive stages of the
spiritual life. It indicates the three classically dis-

tinguished stages of the soul’s progress towards God.
First, “the purgative way” is suggested by the words:
“Put to flight the sins that assault” the Christian soul.
It indicates “the illuminative way,” in which the soul
grows proficient in the practice of Christian virtue,
rendering her “ever pleasing” to the Lord. Finally it
shows forth subtly the security of the final stage of the
mystical progress of the soul towards God, “the
transforming union

”
in which the soul abides “safe

under (God’s) protection.”

(16) Page 234. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

FRIDAY—FOURTH WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 241. One easily forgets this all-important

truth. Hence fixed times of meditation, even though
not absolutely necessary

,
yet are at least helpful, to

bring home these things graphically and impressively.

(2) Page 241. Because the Church, (which by
God’s instruction and the experience of the centuries,
knows the complex nature of man), understands that
our spiritual needs are often unfavorably conditioned



66 BOOK OF ANSWERS

by our temporal necessities. For we are not angels.
We are composed of body and spirit. The “new life”
which God gives “to the world by (His) wonderful
sacraments” is, we believe, efficacious to “keep us
free” not only “from sin” but also from “all adversity,”
even in the temporal order, which would occasion
our spiritual ruin.

(3) Page 241. Elias, God’s messenger, in order to
emphasize this consoling truth to “the woman of the
house” who, beside herself with grief, asked him in
plaintive tones: “Art thou come to me that my
iniquities should be remembered, and that thou
shouldst kill my son?” worked, by God’s Power, a
great miracle, viz.: the restoration of her son’s life.

This manifestation of God’s Power obviously estab-
lishes also for us that God wills “not the death of
the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way,
and live” (Ezech. 33, 11). We cannot, however,
truly live with the more abundant life — grace —
unless God “confer His grace” upon us.

(4) Page 241. By his example, for Elias finally
succeeded in accomplishing a great wonder, a true

and great miracle.

(5) Page 241. Because “it is good to trust in the
Lord (for generous recompense) rather than to trust

in princes
”

(o/ industry, e.g., —who so frequently
recompense inadequately). God has an infinite
“Ability” and an infinitely generous desire to reward
us richly for our least service.

(6) Page 241. To increase the faith of His dis-
ciples. Martha complained : “Lord, if Thou hadst been
here, my brother had not died.” Her faith, however,
was especially strong, for she said: “But now also
I know that whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God
will give it Thee.” To her gentle remonstrance and
to her so heroic protestation offaith, Jesus answered:



MY LENTEN MISSAL 67

“Thy brother shall rise again.” To His disciples,
however, Our Lord indicated the divinely wise reason
for His delay. He said to them: “I am glad for your
sakes that I was not there, that you may believe.”

( 7 ) Page 241. By showing us that His Power is
able to accomplish what to human judgment may
seem to be “beyond hope” However, since it involves
no intrinsic absurdity, it is within the Power of God
“with Whom, nothing is impossible.”

( 8 ) Page 241. Confirmation! For, by the Sacra-
ment of Confirmation we are made soldiers of Christ,
fortified and ready even to die, if need be, for His
Sake and in His Cause.

( 9 ) Page 241. Jesus in the Tabernacle is Emma-
nuel, God With Us! In the Eucharist, He perfectly
answers the petition of the unknowing disciples:
“Stay with us, Lord, for it is towards evening and the
day is now far spent” (Luke 24, 29). At eventide
and in the morning (at Mass!) and at noon

, Jesus
“stays with us” and “calls” us at least to visit Him
in His sacramental and ever-abiding Presence. There
He is always ready to “refresh (those) who labor and
are heavily burdened” (Matt. 11, 28).

(10) Page 241.
“And Jesus wept.”

(11) Page 242. We must think that “This (Jesus
is) a Just Man,” indeed the very “Son of God!”
(Luke 23, 47; John 9, 35). And we must resolve to
“walk worthy of the vocation in which (we) are
called” (Eph. 4, 1; I Cor. 7, 17; Phil. 1, 27), that so

we may merit, by God’s Power, to rise like Lazarus
from the tomb and to “walk (with the gloriously
Risen Christ) in newness of life” (Rom. 6, 4; Eph.
4, 13 ; Heb. 12, 1 ; I Peter 2, 1 ; 4, 2) on the everlasting
Easter Day.

(12) Page 242. God blesses the humble by saving
them, keeping them from “sin and all adversity ”



68 BOOK OF ANSWERS

God deposes the proud and mighty, bringing down
their haughty “eyes.” For “pride goeth before a fall”
because pride “puffeth up” (I Cor. 8, 1).

(13) Page 242. Our cleansing from stain of sin
and the appeasement of God’s just Wrath.

(14) Page 242. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

SATURDAY - FOURTH WEEK of LENT
(1) Page 246. Because the law and the words of

God are the fountains of “the waters” to which we
ought to “come and drink with joy.” Only God can
satisfy our craving for happiness. As St. Augustine,
taught by philosophic and theologic science, and by
his own experience put it: “Thou hast made us for
Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until
they rest in Thee.”

(2) Page 246. By indicating that this (the Lenten
season) is a time during which He is especially well-
disposed to hear us and truly “a day of salvation,”
when He is ready to help us to make such a renewal
and to hear those promises with spiritual fruit and to
our supernatural profit.

(3) Page 246. Because the “praise” of God brings
down upon “His people” His comforting and “mercy
on His poor ones.” This surely is reason greatly to

rejoice.

(4) Page 246. Because even though “a woman
forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son
of her womb,” yet God “will not forget” us but will
have pity on us, who are His children, begotten in
the mysterious womb of the bapiismal font and
brought forth thence unto supernatural life.

(5) Page 246. The Lord is always a “helper to the
orphan,” to those, i.e., who humbly cast themselves



MY LENTEN MISSAL 69

upon His Bounty. From the wicked, however, God
withdraws because “the wicked man is proud” and
“God resisteth the proud” (I Peter 5, 5; James 4,
6; Prov. 3, 34).

(6) Page 246. Because we who are prone to “judge
according to the flesh

” need to be enlightened by
“the Light of the world” that so, following Him, we
may not “walk in darkness but have the light of life.”

(7) Page 246. By shutting the eyes of our souls,
closing against us the gates of the Father’s bounteous
grace and so leaving us to judge merely humanly

,

i.e., “according to the flesh.”

( 8 ) Page 246. In regard to the past, a mixed record
of sins and repentances, God is asked “to he ap-
peased.

” Looking to the future we beseech God
“ever to direct our rebellious wills.”

(9) Page 246. Because only through sincere re-
pentance for “the evils we have done” can we “de-
serve to find the grace of (the) consolation” of Him
Who “dost choose to show mercy rather than anger.”
For God cannot show mercy to any but the sincerely
repentant. Towards the unrepentant God must show
His righteous anger.

(10) Page 246. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

PASSION SUNDAY
(1) Page 251. He bids us pray for grace to keep

away from the “unjust” and “deceitful.”

(2) Page 252. Because the body is the soul's
companion and there is a certain reciprocity of cause
and effect between soul and body. Each affects the
other. Hence the health of the body may have impor-
tant relationship to the welfare of the soul, which,

of course, is the Church’s primary concern.



70 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(3) Page 252. We ought to give fullest entrance
to the supernaturally sanctifying effects of the Blood
of Christ, because: first, He, being the “Mediator of
the New Testament” (Heb. 9, 15) and His Blood shed
upon the Cross, cleanses “our conscience from dead
works, to serve the living God” (Ibid. 9, 14) and be-
cause: secondly, they “that are called (in Him)
receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (Ibid. 9, 15)

.

W Page 252. Because “actions speak louder than
words

”

(5) Page 252. “Deliver me from my enemies, O
Lord (but) teach me (nevertheless) to do Thy Will.”

(6) Page 252. To imitate Our Savior Himself, Who
said : “I do know Him (the Heavenly Father) and do
keep His word” and thus to deserve His promised
reward : “If any man keep My word, he shall not see
death forever.”

(7) Page 252. By showing to us that there are lim-
its to the long-suffering even of the compassionate
Christ. We ought to beware lest He treat us as finally
He treated the stubborn Pharisees, against whom
“Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.”

(8) Page 252. Because unless we so act and thus
win grace for sinners, some of them will “fill up the
measure” (Matt. 23, 32) of their iniquity and so
against them, the Precious Blood of Jesus will have

finally to cry out, even though it was shed for their
redemption.

(9) Page 252. We must be ready to face “stones ”
i.e., to “suffer persecution for Justice sake” (Matt.

5, 10). For “the disciple is not above the Master

”

(Matt. 10, 24). And our Master, in the time appointed
by His Father and ours surrendered Himself to His
enemies. He “offered Himself (Heb. 9, 14) and gave
Himself a sacrifice” for us. He thus obeyed in His



MY LENTEN MISSAL 71

sinless Person the invariable law (Gal. 1, 4): “Per
crucem ad gloriam”; “Through the Cross to glory.”

( 10) Page 252. That long life is given to us by
God only that we may “keep (His) words ” i.e., His
Commandments.

(11) Page 252. Because sin is the only ultimately
important slavery. By surrender to the wiles of Satan
and the warrings of passion we become truly slaves
indeed, for it is “the truth (i.e., obedience to God)
which shall make (us) free” (John 8, 32).

( 12 ) Page 252. Because we, by God’s Grace, are
“one spirit” (I Cor. 6, 17) with Christ. He is the
Head; we are the members of His Mystical Body.
As St. Paul expresses this key-truth of our Christian
revelation: “You are the body of Christ” (I Cor. 12,
27) and you are “members of His Body, of His Flesh
and of His Bones” (Eph. 5, 30).

( 13 ) Page 252. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

MONDAY OF PASSION WEEK
(1) Page 256. In prophecy. For Christ is here

speaking by the mouth of the Psalmist. The Psalm-
ist’s prophetic description of Christ’s Passion is espe-
cially graphic and circumstantial so that it is really
not difficult to believe that it is a foretelling of His
coming sufferings.

( 2 ) Page 257. Because of our continuing need.
The words of Our Lord are and always will be true

:

“Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15, 5).

( 3 ) Page 257. By the fact that it was only after
the king of Ninive also “rose out of his throne and
cast away his robe from him and was clothed in
sackcloth and sat in ashes” and had “proclaimed and
published” public prayer and penance and repent-



72 BOOK OF ANSWERS

ance that “God saw their works, that they were
turned away from their evil way and (that) the Lord
God had mercy upon His people.”

( 4 ) Page 257. Both their fears and their hopes are
expressed officially by the king: “Who can tell
whether God will turn and forgive and will turn away
from His fierce anger, and we shall not perish?”

( 5 ) Page 257. Conduct similar to that of the minis-
ters of the Pharisees will deserve the same treatment
which Christ accorded them. But to them who had
come “to apprehend Jesus” He solemnly foretold:
Where I shall be

,
in Heaven with Him, the “Father

that sent me” (John 6, 40) “thither you cannot come”

(6) Page 257. By assuring us that in Him we shall
find the refreshment of the waters of eternal life,
flowing from “the rivers of living Water.” This in-
effable boon, of course, is promised only to those who
“believed in Him.”

( 7 ) Page 257. He “that sent” Christ is God, His
Eternal and Almighty Father, at whose “right hand”
Christ “sitteth” (Mark 16, 20), enthroned in immortal
glory, the King of Ages forevermore.

( 8 ) Page 257. We may answer the question of
Christ’s enemies affirmatively. For they having re-
jected Him

,
Christ turned at last “to the dispersed

among the Gentiles,” teaching them through His
Apostles. To His Apostles He gave the command:
“Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel
to every creature” (Mark 16, 15), “teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you
and behold / am with you all days even to the con-
summation of the world” (Matt. 28, 19). We are to
learn, therefore, to be zealous in carrying the gospel
of Christ to “all nations,” even to “the dispersed
among the Gentiles.”



MY LENTEN MISSAL 73

( 9 ) Page 257. Because in the spiritual and super-
natural order, faith has similar effects. It refreshes
us who are likely to be parched by the dry-as-dust
secular sciences. It extinguishes incendiary errors,

unhappily so zealously propagated in our day by
intellectual pyromaniacs. It helps life and growth
because to know is to live

,
and to know the truths of

God is to live beyond the growth even of the most
mature and carefully cultured mind which yet lacks
the supernatural nourishment of faith.

(10) Page 257. To “deliver” our souls and “save”
them for His “Mercy’s sake.”

(11) Page 257. Because only if God's Justice is
appeased by the “saving Victim,” Who is Christ, the
“propitiation for our sins,” can we be “purified from
our sins” and so not be unworthy of God’s favor.

(12) Page 257. The Church here imitates the ped-
agogy of the Divine Teacher Himself, Who, shortly
before His Passion, showed Himself on Mount
Thabor in majestic splendor as indeed a “King of
Glory” so that His privileged disciples would not be
scandalized in Him, when He should be seen by them
crowned with thorns and clothed in mock purple.

(13) Page 257. By being beneficially received in
the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

( 14 ) Page 257. That we may ever persevere “in
good works” and thus merit “the help of (God’s)
protection.”

(15) Page 257. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

TUESDAY OF PASSION WEEK
(1) Page 262. Because, if finally we shall have the

Lord on our side
,
we need fear no one , not even

Satan himself, for the Lord is our “light” and our



74 BOOK OF ANSWERS

“salvation.” Of course, whilst thus confidently ex-
pecting ultimate triumph we must not be inactive
ourselves. We must “do manfully.”

(2) Page 262. Because, first: “fasting” or some
other prudently adopted technique of self-denial, is
our “ Way of the Cross” our following of Christ, Who
is our Atonement; secondly: because atonement or
reconcilation with God is the obviously indispensable
prelude to the reception of His grace ; thirdly : because
grace is “the seed of glory,” i.e., of “health everlasting.”

( 3 ) Page 262. Because the Church knows our need
of being stimulated by such study to imitate Daniel’s
courage. We shall surely find inspiration and en-
couragement when we bring home to ourselves that
we, like Daniel, can and ought always to say : “Thou
hast remembered me

,
O God, and hast not forsaken

them that love Thee.” Moreover, such study is espe-
cially appropriate for these final days of Lent, for now
especially are the words of St. Paul true : Your “sal-
vation (victory) is nearer than when (you first)
believed” (Rom. 13, 11).

( 4 ) Page 262. We may see in Daniel, surrounded
by lions but finally victorious , a type of our Holy
Father the Pope because he, too, though constantly
besieged by wicked and cruel persecutors, will emerge
finally triumphant. Though the Church, especially in
the person of her Supreme Pontiffs, has passed through
many dark and critical days, Good Fridays

t
by God’s

beneficent Providence, she always lived and always
will live to see her Easter Sunday. For the Papacy is
immortal. Rome is “the Eternal City.”

( 5 ) Page 262. Daniel expressed these pious feel-
ings of his heart, first in words: “Thou hast remem-
bered me, O God, and Thou hast not forsaken them
that love Thee;” secondly by his action: for, “of the
dinner which God had sent” him . . . “Daniel arose



MY LENTEN MISSAL 75

and ate.” True thankfulness is never expressed
merely in words. We ought, therefore, emulating
Daniel, to show our gratitude to God by using His
great and good gifts to us, and especially by eating
of “the Bread which (He) will give, (His) Flesh for
the life of” our souls (John 6, 52), ever obedient to

Our Lord’s command: “Take ye and eat” (Matt.
26, 26; I Cor. 11, 24).

( 6 ) Page 263. Because there are often circum-
stances in which, in order to live the Christian life

completely we need the enlightenment of the Holy
Spirit. Self-deception is only too easy for fallen man.
Besides we are surrounded in this modern chaotic
world by glib deceivers

,
sowers of the seed of false

doctrine, who utilize the resources of class-room,
lecture platform, newspapers, radio, movies, etc., to
carry on, wittingly or not, the business of Satan , who
is “the father of lies” (John 8, 44).

(7) Page 263. Holy Week is the impressive litur-
gical dramatization and renewal of those holy days
immediately preceding and inclusive of the greatest
events in the world’s history, viz. : the Passion, Death
and Resurrection of Our Lord. He, apprehensive that
“the Jews sought to kill Him,” and knowing that His
“time (was) not accomplished” and had “not yet
come,” had to go up to Jerusalem Himself “in
secret

”
to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. We,

on the contrary, can go to the liturgical celebration of
the holy Mysteries of Christ, “openly” in public mani-
festation of our loyalty to Christ, our Crucified Re-
deemer, and of our gratitude to Him. Failure to take
advantage of such blessed opportunity not only would
be to suffer loss ourselves but also to occasion a
serious loss of edification to our neighbor.

( 8 ) Page 263. Because, first: Faith, to be merito-
rious, must be free and not forced. Secondly: Be-
cause Jesus knew that additional miracles would



76 BOOK OF ANSWERS

only serve to enrage His enemies the more, who
already “sought to kill Him,” thinking that His mira-
cles proved that Christ was not even “a good man”
much less that He is God, believing that His wonder-
working led the people astray. For whilst “some said

:

He is a good man, others said: No, but He seduceth
the people.”

( 9 ) Page 263. Because men of good will in the time
of Christ, and indeed of all times, see in them irrefut-
able signs of God's approval of Christ’s testimony to
His own identity. God can “neither deceive nor be
deceived But He would be deceived if He gave the
approbation of His Omnipotence to an impostor and
He would also, by such action, deceive those of good
will, who cannot but see in miracles the Almighty
Hand of God. Men of good will are humble and docile.
Hence, unlike those blinded by pride, they perceive
the truth as it is revealed to them, not only in the
libraries and laboratories of men, but also in the
Book and the Workshop of God.

( 10) Page 263. Because such conduct is dictated
by obedience to the Church, who puts upon the lips
of her children “the cry of the poor

”

whom God hath
not “nor will ever have forsaken.” That cry is an
exultant song of confidence, urged upon us by the
Psalmist and by the Church, using his lyrical phrases:
“Sing ye to the Lord, (ye) who know (His) Name.”

(1 1) Page 263. 1. Extreme poverty frequently nar-
rows one’s thoughts, one’s ambitions to the barest
material needs; hence it leaves almost no time, only
a faint, struggling ambition to work for Eternity. The
Church engages in charitable work to relieve such
distress. She pleads urgently for Social Justice to
abolish destitution, lest such unfortunates “despair
of (God’s) promises for Eternity.” 2. Extreme riches
are most likely to wean man’s heart from the things
of Eternity. They encumber and complicate his life



MY LENTEN MISSAL 77

in the gratification of his every whim, the endless
care of his monies, the accompanying fear of loss, the
envy of place and power. Hence the strong language
of Jesus, “it is easier for a camel to pass through the

eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19, 24).

(12) Page 263. Frequent and fervent Holy Com-
munion unites us even here on earth to the source
of all true happiness — God. “He that eateth My
Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me and I
in him . . . He that eateth this Bread shall live for-
ever” (John 6, 57), said Our Lord. He even declared
that the devout communicant “hath everlasting life”
(John 6, 55) and He promised: “I will raise him up
on the last day.” “Ever seeking after divine things
here” one, nourished by the Body and Blood of
Christ, will surely “deserve to come unto heavenly
things.”

(13) Page 263. Because our obedience to His Will
is a divinely established condition of the efficacy of

our prayers for the conversion of others. Besides, our

lack of obedience would be a scandal and a stumbling-
block to those who, by our good example rather, ought
to be numbered amongst the “people who serve” God,
and who would thus be an “increase both in merit
and number” of the children of Our Heavenly Father.

( 14 ) Page 263. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

WEDNESDAY OE PASSION WEEK
(1) Page 268. In the prophetic words of the in-

spired Psalmist, Our Lord expressed His absolute
confidence in the Eternal Father, Who will “lift {Him)
up above them that rise up against” Him and will
be to Him, “strength” and a clear “firmament”
despite the darkness of His dereliction and a “refuge”
and a “deliverer.” We may sense Our Lord’s anguish



78 BOOK OF ANSWERS

in the subtle overtones of the Psalmist’s words, and
we may hear His pleas to His Father in the Psalmist’s
confident description of the Almighty Father’s rela-
tionship to His well-loved Son.

(2) Page 268. Sound psychology proves that if we
guard our senses, the avenues to our mind, against
the myriad alluring and distracting material objects
which surround us, we shall more easily achieve
recollection of soul and spiritual vision. The eyes of
our souls are sharpened when we guard carefully
the eyes of our bodies. God, Himself, will “enlighten
the hearts,” i. e., give insight into spiritual things to

those of His “faithful who by holy fast” and other
corporal mortifications make themselves less un-
worthy of “a favorable hearing” before Him and
more apt to be inspired “with the spirit of devotion.”

(3) Page 268. To social charity: 1—the obligation
of cordial and sincere love of our brother, whether
he be brother by nature or by grace; 2—charitable
forgiveness of injury done to us; 3

—

good example.
To social Justice: 1 —honesty; 2—truthfulness; 3—
pacific relations with others; 4—promptness in the
payment of adequate wages; 5 public respect for
and worship of God; 6 impartiality in the courts of
justice, which ought not to be respecters of persons.

(4 ) Page 268. Because the Gospel emphasizes many
of the key-truths of our Faith: e.g., (1) the Holy
Trinity; (2) the necessity of believing the word of
Christ, the credibility of which is guaranteed by His
works; (3) our participation in the Divine Life by
grace; (4) the infallibility of the Scriptures; (5) ever-

lasting life. The Epistle details many of the moral
obligations of justice and charity.

(5) Page 268. By being reminded in the Psalmist’s
eloquent language that the Lord Our God will always
uphold us, if through human weakness we falter or



MY LENTEN MISSAL 79

stumble

,

and will save us from going ‘‘down into the
pit” of discouragement. For He, not remembering
“our former iniquities” will

"
speedily precede us

”

with “His mercies” We Christians can look forward
always to Christ Who, carrying His heavy Cross to
Mount Calvary, has gone before us “leaving (us) an
example that (we) should follow His Steps” (I Peter
2

,
21 ).

( 6 ) Page 268. He Himself at “the feast of the
dedication . . . walked in the temple, in Solomon’s
porch,” i. e., publicly with the rest of His fellow
countrymen.

( 7 ) Page 268. Jesus replied by indicating that it
was the lack of faith in His hearers which prompted
His reluctance to preach to them fully of the mystery
of His Divine Identity. “I speak to you and you
believe not” He insisted, moreover, that they be-
lieve and learn from His works, which gave adequate
testimony of Him.

( 8 ) Page 269. By saying: “The works that I do in
the Name of My Father, they give testimony of Me —
I and the Father are one!” Even the Jews, as we
know, had to admit reluctantly on another occasion:
“Never did man speak as this man speaketh” (John
7, 46). Both by word and deed, therefore, the Word
Incarnate acted as one would expect the God-Man
to act.

( 9 ) Page 269. Because only by good will can we
belong to the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd, Who
said: “My sheep hear My voice

,
and I know them

and theyfollow Me. And I give them Life Everlasting,”
anticipated here on earth by a life of faithful love and
loving faith. Therefore faith is a donation of God’s
Mercy, bestowed only upon those of good will.

(10) Page 269. Proud human reason sometimes
exalts itself, in the fashion of the unbelieving and



80 BOOK OF ANSWERS

indocile Jews of Christ’s day, refusing to believe His
Message because, forsooth, it is not phrased as they
would have it. Christ had spoken plainly enough and
His deeds spoke even more loudly and plainly than
His words. Yet, proudly they refused to believe!

(11) Page 269. Because only with such submission
can we present Christ's sacrificial submission of His
human will to His Father’s Will, acceptably and with
profit to our own souls.

(12) Page 269. Because we, no less than the priest,
are obliged to say as the officiating priest says at

every Mass: “I will wash my hands among the inno-
cent.” To “wash (our) hands among the innocent”
means to detach our hearts, by repeated acts of true
contrition and repeated firm purposes of amendment,
from any lingering affection for sin. Only after such
preparation are we disposed to “hear the voice of
(God’s) praise,” and rendered fit to “tell of all (His)
wondrous wrorks.”

(13) Page 269. Because it is God Himself Who
“dost give us the confidence of hoping in (His)

goodness,” and Whom we may, therefore, confidently
beg to “listen to our prayers ”

(14) Page 269. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

THURSDAY of PASSION WEEK
(1) Page 274. We reply in the noble words of the

Prophet, acknowledging that whatever good comes to
us from God, we owe exclusively “to the multitude
of (His) Mercy”; whatever of material evil He per-
mits is “done (to us) in true judgment; because we
have sinned against (Him) and have not obeyed (His)
commandments.” Strict obedience to God’s Com-
mandments would effectively regulate human greed
and human lust for the power of economic domination



MY LENTEN MISSAL 81

in individuals, corporations and nations. It is from
such greed and lust that depressions ultimately take
their ugly origin.

( 2 ) Page 274. Because only if we appreciate the
fundamental “dignity of human nature

” and the
grievous wounds inflicted upon it “by self-indul-
gence ” will we be prompted to “the practice of
corrective self-denial.”

(3) Page 274. We may apply Azarias’ words to our
baptismal covenant inasmuch as in Baptism we “have
received the adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba,
Father” (Rom. 8, 15); and hence we may confidently
expect that He will “not deliver us up forever” to
the dominion of Satan, His enemy and ours. More-
over, we have this blessed expectation in Christ, Our
Brother, for Whose holy “Name’s Sake,” God will
have mercy upon us always.

(4 ) Page 274. It is indicated that Daniel expects
to “be accepted” “in a contrite heart and humble
spirit,” i.e., according to his intention, even though
he give to God neither the riches of “prince nor
leader nor prophet, nor (even) holocaust nor sacrifice
nor oblation nor incense nor place of first-fruits.”

Daniel’s enumeration suggests that he had literally
nothing to give but himself.

(5) Page 274. The sentiment of fear that God
would “abolish (even His) covenant”; the sentiment
of confidence in God’s “Mercy ... for the sake of
Abraham, (God’s) beloved and Isaac (His) servant
and Israel (His) holy one ;” the sentiment of the final
victory of God Who, dealing with His people “accord-
ing to (His) meekness and according to the multitude
of (His) mercies,” will finally “deliver (them) accord-
ing to (His) wonderful works and (thus) give glory
to (His) Name.” Indeed, the victory of God will be



82 BOOK OF ANSWERS

splendid and will demonstrate that He is “the Lord,
the only God and glorious over all the world.”

( 6 ) Page 274. The Sacrifice of Christ in which we
share does not need essentially any addition of ours in
order to be pleasing to “Our Father, Who (is) in
Heaven.” However, Christ privileges us by allowing
us to put on the Paten, at Mass, our tiny hosts with
His Infinite HOST; and He will not disdain to offer
even our most petty sacrifices before the “Holy
Court” of Heaven. If we so act

,

then Christ can and
will say to His Heavenly Father: “Accept, O Eternal
Father, My Sacrifice and theirs who are My Mystical
Body.” Then we can say with St. Paul: “I fill up (by
corporal penances and brave struggle against the
concupiscence of the eyes, the concupiscence of the
flesh and the pride of life, and by patient bearing of
sickness and disease) those things that are wanting
of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body,
which is the church” (Col. 1, 24).

(7) Page 274. By saying of her to Simon, the
Pharisee, at a banquet : “Many sins are forgiven her,
because she hath loved much.”

(8) Page 274. She publicly humbled herself, will-
ingly running the risk of public reproach and doing
for Our Savior a generous service with exquisite
womanly courtesy and grace. For she, “a woman
that was in the city, a sinner

,

when she knew that
(Christ) sat at meat in the pharisee’s house, brought
an alabaster box of ointment; and standing behind
at His feet, she began to wash His feet with tears
and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and
kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment.”

(9) Page 274. By performing the humble and
gracious service described in the answer to the
preceding question.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 83

(10) Page 275. Because God has so ordained ! Has
He not said: “Unless you shall do penance (as did
the Magdalen) you shall all likewise perish”? (Luke
13, 3).

(11) Page 275. The parable of the “creditor who
had two debtors.”

(12) Page 275. That so the hope of Heaven may
“comfort,” i.e., strengthen us in our present “humil-
iation” whilst “upon the rivers of Babylon we sit and
weep,” i. e., while “in this our (land of) exile” from
the eternal “Sion.”

(13) Page 275. The needs of our spiritual life are
not less numerous and urgent than the requirements
of our bodies. If, therefore, we need daily “food for
our weak nature,” we need also frequently to receive
of the HEAVENLY Food, which is Christ’s “Flesh
for the life of the world” (John 6, 52).

(14) Page 275. Because it is unproductive of any
spiritual fruit. Holy Communion so received would
not “become for us an eternal remedy.”

(15) Page 275. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

FRIDAY of PASSION WEEK
(1) Page 282. Because Mary’s position at the foot

of the Cross is told us in the infallible Scriptures.
There we read that Mary bravely "stood by the Cross
of Jesus.” Artists, who err by picturing her in a swoon-
ing attitude are guilty (unwittingly, we hope) of doing
Our dear Lady an injustice. There was nothing of
mere feminine weakness in the “Queen of Martyrs!”

(2) Page 282. By “faithfully standing by (the)
Cross” of Christ in holy meditation, devoutly recall-
ing His sufferings and “the piercing of the most
sweet soul of (His) Blessed Mother Mary,” the



84 BOOK OF ANSWERS

heroes and heroines of the Christian life learned to
live their lives on the Mount Calvary of Christian
contemplation and thus obtained in abundance “the
blessed fruits” of His Passion and Death.

( 3 ) Page 283. To overcome “our sins” here and
so escape condemnation “to eternal punishment”
hereafter.

( 4 ) Page 283. God magnified the name of Mary
because she could sing “My soul doth magnify the
Lord” (Luke 1, 46), and because Mary who, though
she clearly foresaw the sorrows of her who would
become the Mother of the “Man of Sorrows” (Is.
53, 3), yet “spared not her life (but gave her All)

by reason of the distress and tribulation of (God’s)
people,” and thus “prevented our (eternal) ruin.”

(5) Page 283. Because Mary who “loved (Her own
even as Jesus loved) His own, loved (Him even as
He loved them) to the end” (John 13, 1), i.e., even
to the heights of Calvary, the Mount of Sacrifice,
her sacrifice as well as His.

(6) Page 283. She beheld her “Son, the Redeemer,
Him Whom the whole world doth not contain (be-
cause He is God!) . . . the Author of Life made Man,
(bearing the) punishment of the Cross !!!” No won-
der then the Church puts on the lips of the humble
Virgin Mother the epic words of Jeremias, the Prophet

:

“O all you that pass by the way, attend and see if
there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.”

( 7) Page 283. Each devout reader will have his or
her own preferences. We prefer stanzas number 5,
6 and 9.

(8) Page 283. The most important words in the
first Gospel seem to us: “Behold thy Mother. And
from that hour the disciple took her to his own ”

For these words confirm and make explicit that which



MY LENTEN MISSAL 85

was implied in Mary’s divine Maternity, viz., that
she is the “Mother of Men,” the members of Christ’s
Mystical Body even as she is forever the Mother of
Christ’s Physical Body; and they are an expression
of a perfect pattern of devotion to Mary, our Mother.
Like St. John we must “take her to (our) own.”

(9) Page 283. We ask her confidently to “remem-
ber” (us) when she stands “in the sight of the Lord,”
i.e., before the Throne of God in Heaven and, inter-
ceding in our cause to “speak good things for us,”
thus “to turn away His anger (which we have de-
served by our sins) from us.”

(10) Page 283. Because “through the merits of
(Christ’s) death and the multiplied intercession (of
the Saints and especially) of (His) Mother,” the
Queen of Saints, we shall, according to the designs
of God’s supernatural Providence, “enjoy (His) re-
ward with the blessed,” i.e., the beatifying Vision
of God. Our reliance is, therefore, adequately and
well placed.

(1 1) Page 283. It helps us to give to God a truly
“worthy service” by facilitating for us a “continual
participation at (His) altars.” When we use “My
Lenten Missal” well, we are no longer passive
spectators merely, but active participators in the
divine action of the Mass.

(12) Page 283. By her “martyrdom beneath the
Cross of the Lord,” Mary may truly be said to have
merited, in God’s eternal Plan, even her exalted rank
as our Co-redemptrix. For thus she co-operated per-
fectly with God’s efficacious grace which, destining
her to that office, enabled her also to fulfill it.

(13) Page 283. By prayer! For God will never
“forsake us,” if we but call upon Him. He will give
us His “continual protection” and especially the



86 BOOK OF ANSWERS

“continual protection of the Sacrifice” of the Mass,
upon which, according to the Prophet Malachy, the
sun never sets.

( 14 ) Page 283. The chief priests and pharisees
were worried and anxious about what appeared to
them to be Christ’s universal and imminent triumph.
We ought rather to be zealously concerned about His
relative failure, for even now He says: “Other sheep
I have that are not of this fold: them also I must
bring” (John 10, 16). We, therefore, can ask the
question of the “council against Jesus” in a sense
quite the contrary to that in which it was first pro-
posed. “What do we?” for even now, after nearly
twenty centuries of Christianity, “all (do not) be-
lieve in Him.”

(15) Page 283. If suffering were always and only
the consequence of personal sin, God would in justice
have had to exempt His Mother from the common
lot of man, for she was sinless. But He did not!
Rather He gave her the privilege of vicarious atone-
ment, making her at once the Lady of Sorrows and
the Co-redemptrix of the race.

(16) Page 283. We may piously believe that, not-
withstanding the natural psychology governing the

maternal relations of a mother towards her child,
Mary loved Jesus more for the privilege of her
Immaculate Conception . For Mary appreciated that
sinlessness is a greater boon even than divine
Maternity ! !

( 17 ) Page 283. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 87

SATURDAY of PASSION WEEK
(1) Page 289. Christ spoke to His Eternal Father

of our sins, with which as our Scapegoat He was
“afflicted,” and of the persecution of His enemies,
who succeeded, by His permission, in nailing Him
to the Cross. The Father heard His prayer. For,
though Christ died at the “hand of (His) enemies,”
they were ultimately “confounded” and He achieved
the glorious triumph of His Cross and Resurrection.

(2) Page 289. Because the use of “My Lenten
Missal” helps to instruct us in “these sacred rites”

of the Holy Mass, and we “abound in (God’s) better
gifts” and are thus made more pleasing to His
Majesty.

(3) Page 289. He describes them as “wicked” and
richly deserving of terrible punishments. For he
pleads with the just God to chastise them with
“famine,” death by violence, bereavement, war,
plunder, conquest and final impenitence.

(4) Page 289. Because we, even as “the wicked
Jews” of old, are tempted sometimes to “invent
devices against the just

”
i.e., to plan sinful deeds

even against the Just One, Christ! and to pay no
“heed to all His words” of merciful and condescend-
ing love. Though we know that “the law shall not
perish from (Christ, the High Priest) nor counsel
from the wise nor the word from the prophet,” yet
we are not restrained from our evil plans except by
serious meditation upon these imperishable truths,
in themselves powerful enough to stir up within us
a salutary fear.

(5) Page 289. Because we, like the Psalmist, need
to remind ourselves that God’s Justice will finally
prevail, for He the Lord will not “be silent,” but will
abide with him against whom such clever lying and



88 BOOK OF ANSWERS

troublesome actions are directed, putting his enemies
to rout. This truth will serve for our consolation
when we are the victims, and to strike us with a holy
fear of God should we find ourselves, alas, in the
role of “enemies.”

( 6 ) Page 289. Because the Church is founded upon
the “Rock” (Matt. 16, 18), by the Omnipotent Savior,
Who is “with (it) all days even to the consummation
of the world” (Matt. 28, 20). The enemies of Christ
during His mortal life could not but realize that, as
they put it: “We prevail nothing,” for “behold the
whole world is gone after Him.” The enemies of
Christ in His Mystical Life, which is the Church,
eventually learn finally and ruefully to admit: “O
Galileean, Thou hast conquered.”

( 7 ) Page 289. Christ compared Himself to a grain
of wheat, ready for planting, dying and then growing.
We know that it was through His Death and Burial
that He redeemed us and came Himself to victorious
and glorious Resurrection; and He has told us that
we cannot achieve a like triumph except by similar
means. For “the servant is not above his Master”
(John 15, 20).

( 8 ) Page 289. Because He has so ordered. He said

:

“He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that
hateth his life in this world keepeth it unto life eternal.

If any man minister to Me, let him follow Me; and
where I am, there also shall My minister be. If any
man minister to Me, him will My Father honor.”

( 9 ) Page 289. By the example of His own Life.
He waited patiently for the hour to “come that the
Son of Man should be glorified.” His Hour was fixed
in the eternal Counsel of the Trinity. Ours is also

!

Thus we may wait in patient expectation and blessed
hope of our ultimate glorification.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 89

(10) Page 289. Jesus answers by identifying the
Son of Man (Himself) with the Light of the world,
in Which we ought to believe that so we may become
“the children of light

”

(11) Page 289. Because the “justifications” of God
are taught us impressively in the Proper of the Mass,
which is almost entirely taken from the God-inspired
writings and which, therefore, is more efficacious
against the “calumniators” of the Church and the
enemies of the Faith than any mere humanly
contrived apologia.

(12) Page 289. Because having “made us partakers
in so great a Mystery,” as the Holy Mass, there is
nothing too extravagant to hope for from His
infinite Bounty.

(1 3) Page 290. “The truth is great and it will pre-
vail,” though we may have to wait till the Last
Judgment for the definitive unmasking of “unjust
witnesses” and all other varieties of liars. As St.
Paul, His Apostle, states the doctrine of His Master:
“For we shall all be made manifest before the judg-
ment seat of Christ.” “Iniquity hath lied to itself,”
indeed, but it will not be able finally to deceive itself.

(14) Page 290. Holy Communion is the beginning,
in faith here, of our life of union with God, seen “face
to face” (I Cor. 13, 12), hereafter. If we, therefore,

“continue to live by Its reception” here, we shall be
“so completely filled by this Divine Gift” as to be
ready for the reception of the even more wondrous
gifts of God in Eternity.

(1 5) Page 290. Direct references are made to these
three stages of the Christian life, for: in the purgative

way we are “purified”

;

in the illuminative way, we
are graciously instructed in the more intimate and
profound implications of Christ’s doctrine, especially

as applicable to our own spiritual progress; and in



90 BOOK OF ANSWERS

the unitive way, at least in its final expression (the
prayer of transforming union), we may be said to
have a foretaste and a “pledge of good things (of)
the future i.e., of Heaven.

(16) Page 290. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

PALM SUNDAY—BLESSING of PALMS
(1) Page 302. Because these words may be de-

scribed as an echo on earth of the Eternal Thanks-
giving by the angels in Heaven.

( 2 ) Page 302. Through His Death and Resurrec-
tion, for His Death purchases for us the rewards of
Eternal Life and His Resurrection is a harbinger of
our future glory. We must imitate Christ here on
earth in His Death, by patiently suffering the crosses
of life and resignedly accepting our death, so that
we may “rise together with Him.”

( 3 ) Page 302. They remind us of those Christians,
who, though redeemed from the slavery of sin, retain
lingering affections for their previous condition of

bondage to its cruel rule. They attempt to serve two
Masters, God and Mammon, an impossible feat as
Christ tells us : “You cannot serve God and Mammon”
(Matt. 6, 24). They accept with eagerness the con-
solations of Christ, Who is the true “Bread from
Heaven” (John 6, 50), yet they partake only with
extreme reluctance of the Sacrifice of Christ. For

Him and for themselves, they ought gladly to suffer
the privation of “the flesh pots of Egypt,” i.e., of

the fleeting and illusory and sinful pleasures of this
land of exile.

(4) Page 302. Caiphas, a leader of “a brood of
vipers” (Matt. 3, 7), as Christ described him and
his cohorts, had in mind only the temporal inde-
pendence of his people, for he was merely a politician.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 91

He hoped that Christ’s Death would avert the insur-
rection of his people, tragically divided in their

loyalties, and thus forestall the invasion of their

Roman masters. He said: “It is expedient for you
that one man should die . . . and that the whole
nation perish not,” thus voicing his own and his
political followers fears. After Caiphas’ unwitting

prophecy, “they devised to put Him to death, saying:
The Romans will come and take away our place and
nation.” Expediency has always been, and always
will be, the only standard of judgment of the mere
politician. He merely devises schemes and does not
prudently work out true solutions.

(5) Page 302. He prays to His Father to spare
Him, “if it be possible,” from the “chalice” of His
imminent Passion, indicating thus the reality of His
Humanity and, simultaneously, the heroism of His
conformity to the Father’s Will. He warns His dis-
ciples, (including us) to forestall temptation by
prayer and the rigid avoidance of the occasion of sin.
“Watch and pray” He says, “that ye enter not into
temptation.”

( 6 ) Page 302. By the use of creatures for God’s
Sake we can he the voice of creation. We can sing
their unvoiced hymn to the glory of the Father and
of His Son, Who is the King of the World. Our
property — even our very “garments,” the very
clothes we wear, the beasts of the field who serve
our temporal needs — ought to be dedicated to the
glory of Him Who “cometh in the Name of the Lord”
and to Whom, therefore, we ought constantly and by
everything which we have or are to sing: “Hosanna”

!

(7) Page 302. “Carrying palm and olive branches,”
i.e., praising God and His Christ exultantly ought
always to be the occupation of the Christian on his
way, through this vale of tears, “to meet Christ.”
But no other praise is acceptable to Him except the



92 BOOK OF ANSWERS

prayerful worship of “faith” and “hope” and the
imitation by charity of His “repeated mercies.”
Thus, to praise God is truly to unite acceptable
interior virtues with external “good deeds”

!

(8) Page 302. It is necessary “at all times”—even
in the privacy of our own homes — and “in all places”
— the school, the theatre, .the factory, the office, the
bank, the chambers of government — to imitate the
constant ministry and minstrelsy of the very angels
of God, who “stand (ever) before (Him) and sing
a hymn (to His Glory) repeating (it) without end”
and yet without wearisome monotony, saying, as we
also should: “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Hosts!
The heavens and earth are full of Thy Glory.”

( 9 ) Page 302. Blessed palms are, by the efficacious
prayer of the Church, made outward signs of God*s
Grace. They do not, of course, achieve their purpose
in the manner of the seven Christ-instituted Sacra-
ments. Yet they can be for us signs of God’s “pro-
tection for soul and body” and a blessed “remedy
for our salvation.”

( 10 ) Page 302. On condition that we receive the
blessed palms with becoming reverence and that we
devoutly keep them. For “wherever they shall be
brought” -^- especially into whatever home they shall
be thus carried — “the dwellers therein (will) obtain
(God’s) blessing,” and the protection of His almighty
“right hand.”

( 11 ) Page 302. Some of the most important and
most consoling truths of our Holy Faith are thus
symbolized, e.g., the redeeming Passion and Death
of Christ, Who, “taking pity on our human miseries,”
battled “with the prince of death for the life of the

whole world,” and won (thereby) “victory” for Him-
self and for us. For we become “partakers

”

not only

of His redeeming Passion but also “of His glorious



MY LENTEN MISSAL 93

Resurrection,” having been spiritually anointed with
“the spiritual unction” of His Grace, which is the
seed of Glory and the pledge and token of Victory.

(12) Page 302. From the days of the great Flood,
when, by God’s direction, “a dove” brought to Noah
and his family, confined in the saving Ark, an “olive
branch” as a “message of (His) peace to the earth,”
the olive branch has been quite fittingly regarded as
a symbol of peace.

( 13 ) Page 303. It is necessary that such physical
observances be accompanied always and completed
by “spiritual devotion” Only thus shall we gain
“victory over (our) enemy” and learn “ardently (to
love) every work of mercy.”

(14) Page 303. Faith removes the “stone of offense
and rock of scandal” For without faith we cannot
see in Christ Crucified, dying in ignominy and anguish,
the true “Light which enlighteneth” (John 1, 9). Our
good works must also be as “so many branches of
justice” which we must carry to “deserve to follow
in His Footsteps.”

(15) Page 303. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

The MASS for PALM SUNDAY
(1) Page 317. Even though His Human Nature was

perfect, even though He enjoyed the uninterrupted
Vision of His Father — yet He permitted Himself to
feel keenly our emotional shrinking from foreseen
pain, anguish and death. Hence, He experienced our
same need for comfort and reassurance from the
Father.

( 2 ) Page 317. First, we keep in mind the record
of His suffering by humbly submitting to God’s Holy
Will as He provides spiritual graces or permits
physical evils; secondly, we must ever keep in mind
our future “share in His Resurrection.”



94 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(3) Page 318. The “service” of the worldling is,
for the most part, self-seeking either in monetary
reward or the applause of men; or it is proudly
patronizing toward those it serves. The Christian, on
the contrary, serves his neighbor, not through self-
seeking, but by humble self-emptying

,

even as did
Jesus, “Who, being in the form of God . . . emptied
Himself, taking the form of a servant.”

Again, the service of the worldling is measured
and niggardly. It does not go -to the extreme lengths
to which the heroic Christian, following the example
of Christ, is prepared to go. For “He humbled Him-
self, becoming obedient unto death, even to the
death of the Cross.”

(4) Page 318. By genuflection and public prayer,
for “in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow . . .
and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus
Christ is in the Glory of God, the Father.” Thus shall
we imitate dutifully and devoutly on earth that which
the angels and the saints do with ecstatic delight “in
Heaven,” and which the damned in Hell — “those
under the earth” — do reluctantly and under the
compulsion of God’s Justice.

(5) Page 318. To be “jealous of sinners, seeing
(their) prosperity” is, in the Christian, stupid and
ungrateful. It is stupid because temporal prosperity
is a mere apparent good, ultimately valueless. It is
ungrateful because to the Christian, God has given
the reassuring hope of eternal prosperity. Temporal
prosperity is often unmerited, and is due to the
accidents of birth, etc. Heavenly prosperity is given
only to those who, by God’s Grace, earn it, and who
“are of right heart.” “How good is God to them!”
His goodness is as measureless as Eternity!

( 6 ) Page 318. They are prophetically descriptive of
the extremity of His suffering, prompting Him to cry
out to His Father: “O God, My God, why hast Thou



MY LENTEN MISSAL 95

forsaken Me?” In His extreme agony Christ was not
allowed to dispose even of His few and poor belong-
ings, for, as the Psalmist declares in His Name: “they
(i.e., Christ’s executioners) parted My garments
amongst them, and upon My vesture they cast lots.”
On our “good Fridays,” i.e., on those days when
we suffer in blessed union with Christ, we shall not,
indeed, have to bear extreme suffering as He did.
We ought always, moreover, to be sure that finally
“the (very) heavens shall show forth His Justice,”
whence He “will come with great power and ma-
jesty” (Luke 21, 27).

( 7 ) Page 318. Let the reader choose what is prac-
tical for himself! Each re-reading discovers hitherto
unsuspected texts and reveals implications which may
with profit be applied to one's own spiritual life, or
even be explanatory of that which is happening in
the great world of affairs about one. Our Lord’s own
words are, of course, outstanding because they are
the words of the Incarnate Word of God ! !

( 8 ) Page 318. Jesus, Our Savior, wants the com-
fort of our prayers and sacrifices so much that to
obtain them He becomes the Divine Beggar, gently
complaining: “I looked for one (even one!) that
would grieve together with Me, and there was none!
I sought for one to comfort Me, and I found none.”
Yet He receives only the “gall” and “vinegar” of
our heartlessly cruel indifference!

( 9 ) Page 318. Of Jesus the Heavenly Father re-
quires the gift of His Supreme Sacrifice, which is the
divinely-established purchasing Price of the restora-
tion of God’s Honor (violated so grievously by our
sins) and of our salvation. Of us He requires that we
offer Christ’s Gift “before the eyes of (His) Majesty”
to “obtain the grace of devotion,” and, thus helped,

so to serve Him as to merit “the reward of everlasting
happiness.”



96 BOOK OF ANSWERS

(10) Page 318. The action of the Holy Eucharist is
twofold negative: the purging away of “our vices”;
positive: the fulfillment of “our just desires,” espe-
cially the profoundest desire of our hearts, our desire
for union with God, which cannot be satisfied by any
or all creatures.

(11) Page 318. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

MONDAY of HOLY WEEK
(1) Page 322. Efficaciously!

!

For the Cross is “the
sword” that will slay those who “fight against” Christ
and against His Church and It is “the Way

”

“shut
up (and blocked securely) against” those who per-
secute Him in His Mystical Body.

(2) Page 323. We “fail in . . . many difficulties
because of our weakness

”

and so need to “be
assisted by the sufferings of Christ” well brought
home to our minds and hearts. As St. Ignatius prayed,
so ought we also, in our meditations on Christ’s
sufferings: “Passion of Christ, strengthen me.”

(3) Page 323. The sovereign liberty of Christ in
His sufferings is indicated by Isaias, who, speaking
prophetically in Christ’s holy Name says: “/ do not
resist: I have not gone back. I have given my body
to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked
them: I have not turned sway my face from them
that rebuke me and spit upon me.”

(4) Page 323. Because Christ in His sufferings is
the Light which “shineth in darkness” (John 1, 5),
of this dark valley of tears. This consoling Light,
however, cannot be apprehended except by one who
meditates devoutly upon Christ’s Passion.

(5) Page 323. Because, even in the midst of the
darkness, enveloping the world at the time of His
Crucifixion, Jesus is the “Light of the world

”
This



MY LENTEN MISSAL 97

is a true, beautifully true title, reaching its climax in

the ceremony of “lights” on Holy Saturday. For-
tunate, indeed, is our present day Christian who
meditates on “God my Light,” despite all the prophets
of gloom, who would blot out the Light of God from
the heavens in their programs of super-nationalism,
atheism, animalism, effete intellectualism and other
extremes.

(6) Page 323. By opening his soul to the devil, for
“Satan entered into him”! We have especially dam-
aging evidence of the destructive action of greed

upon the soul of Judas in the gospel history of his
progressive moral deterioration. He came to such a
sorry state that he, “about to betray” his Master,
complained when Mary of Bethany offered to Our
Lord a service, which Judas hypocritically described
as extravagant waste, alleging that the money thus
spent on the priceless Master should have been
“given to the poor.” Judas finally put his own price
on Jesus. He sold Him for “thirty pieces of silver”
(Matt. 26, 15), the price of a slave.

(7) Page 323. By praising the conduct of Mary,
who should serve as our model. She, thoughtless of
the cost, “took a pound of ointment of right spikenard,
of great price

,

and anointed the Feet of Jesus and
wiped His Feet with her hair.” We may well under-
stand Our Lord’s own words to be an invitation to us
during Passiontide to set aside all concern, not im-
mediately urgent —- even for social justice and charity
— so that we can give all of our time and all our
loving energy to the devout contemplation of His
sufferings. He speaks to us, even as He spoke in
Bethany of old : “the poor you have always with you”
and whenever you will you may do them good. “But
Me you have not always.”

( 8 ) Page 323. “The poor (we) have always with
(us)”, as Christ reminds us. Our charity towards the



98 BOOK OF ANSWERS

poor in everyday life is really a charity towards Christ
Himself, Who is “not always with” us in His physical
or even in His sacramental Presence, but Who is
never far to seek in the person of the poor, with
whom He has mystically identified Himself.

( 9 ) Page 323. On condition of our humble docility
and consequent prayer: “teach me (O Lord) to do
Thy Will, for Thou art my God.”

( 10 ) Page 323. The effects of the Holy Eucharist
are the effects of the

(<mighty power” of “Almighty
God,!’ cleansing us from stain of sin and thus en-
abling us to

“
approach

”

ever nearer and with ever
“greater purity” to Him, with Whom our Christ-
nourished soul longs for absolute union.

(11) Page 323. Because to the devout communi-
'cant is given “Divine fervor” that makes even the
humdrum, prosaic, everyday tasks of his everyday
life truly delightful. He carries the joy of his daily
Communion to his home and to his work and to his
play. He is one who knows something of the infinitely
rich meaning of the Gospel, the Evangelium, the
“tidings of great joy” (Luke 2, 10). He knows that
true happiness and authentically Christian holiness
are synonyms.

( 12 ) Page 323. There is here a verbal concordance
that may well serve to bring to our minds the most
awe-inspiring injunction ever laid upon mere mortal
man: “Do this in memory of Me.”

( 13 ) Page 323. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL 99

TUKSIIAY of IIOI.Y WEEK
(1) Page 335. Because it so “behooves us,” as St.

Paul wrote to the Galatians. It is our duty of grateful
affection towards Christ.

( 2 ) Page 336. We may and ought to meditate on
the memory of Christ's sacrifice. Yet in the Mass we
really celebrate the actual renewal. It is only in the

Mass that Jesus, Who “died once and dieth now no
more” (Rom. 6, 9, 10), yet renews His bloody Death
on the Cross in a mystical and unbloody manner.
Meditation on Christ’s Passion is a mere piously
constructed memorial. The Mass is more than a
memorial. It is a divinely constructed renewal

!

( 3 ) Page 336. Daily examination of conscience may
be said to be necessary, or at least very useful, to
dispose our minds to receive God’s enlightenment.
For a Christian examination of conscience is prayerful
and God illumines those who are constant in prayer.
From the heart of the true Christian examining his
conscience, there rises to Heaven the pious petition
of St. Augustine: “Lord, that I may know Thee (and)
that I may know myself.”

( 4 ) Page 336. Because God, Who says to us “Ven-
geance is Mine,” judges “justly” not externals merely
but the “reins and the hearts.” We can and ought,
with absolute trust in our infallible Advocate, say
with the Prophet: “to Thee have I revealed my cause,
O Lord, my God.”

( 5 ) Page 336. The ultimate lot of those who thus
proudly reject the Incarnate God and “wrong” Him
is the just judgment of the Lord, Who will “overthrow
them” and “cast (them) into the exterior darkness”;
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt.
8, 12), for “exterior darkness” is “everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25, 41).



too BOOK OF ANSWERS

The pride that refuses to accept God in the humble
garment of His Sacred Humanity is diabolic and
deserves a devil’s fate.

(6) Page 336. Christ, Who, by His ownfree choice
had fallen into “the hand of (His) wicked” adver-
saries and persecutors, achieved final victory over
them by the triumph of His Easter Resurrection. We,
if we follow in His footsteps, will have our Good
Friday. But we shall have also our Easter Sunday.
For Christ, Our Leader, will show us the way out of
our graves to the eternal Easter of Paradise.

(7) Page 336. Because our sacrifices have no re-
storative value unless united with the life-giving

Sacrifice of Christ, Our Brother.

(8) Page 336. Because we must patiently wait “the
time of (God's) good pleasure ... in the multitude of
(His) Mercy.” We may and ought to importune God,
as Christ has instructed us (Luke 11, 5-8). But holy
importunity is always accompanied and conditioned
by pious conformity to God’s holy Will.

(9) Page 336. Confidently! For He, the only Eter-
nal Son of the Eternal and Almighty God, can i(cure
our vices and provide us with eternal remedies.”

(10) Page 336. The Sacraments are classified by
theologians under two headings, viz. : the sacraments
of the dead (Baptism and Penance) and the sacra-
ments of the living: (Confirmation, Holy Eucharist,
Holy Orders, Extreme Unction and Matrimony). It
is the primary function of the sacraments of the dead
to resurrect the soul from the death of sin by purging
it of sin’s fatal poison. The sacraments of the living
are intended primarily to increase within the soul,
thus resurrected, its participation by grace in the
“new and holy life” of the Risen Christ. However to
the soul already enjoying this life, which is the be-
ginning here on earth, by faith , of the eternal life



MY LENTEN MISSAL 101

in heaven, by vision, the sacraments of the dead,
devoutly received, produce the primary effects of the

sacraments of the living, viz.: an increase of sancti-
fying grace.

(11) Page 336. See Mass for Palm Sunday — an-
swer to question number 7.

( 12 ) Page 336. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.

WEDNESDAY of HOLY WEEK
(1) Page 351. By functioning in that capacity, since

on the Cross Jesus “became obedient unto death,
even the death of the Cross,” according to the Plan
of the Triune God for our salvation. Thus the Savior,
“the Lord Jesus,” merited to enter into “the glory
of God the Father.”

(2) Page 351. Because only the offering of Jesus
is, of itself, acceptable to the “Almighty God.” Only
united with His Offering of Himself may we offer
ourselves, since “by the Sacred Passion of (God’s)
only-begotten Son,” we are “delivered” from the
sufferings of this life, and especially from the un-
remitting pain of an everlasting life in Hell which
we have deserved “because of our excesses,” i.e.,
our sins.

( 3 ) Page 351. Two such resolutions are especially
appropriate, viz.: 1st, devoutly to meditate on Christ’s
Passion, thus bringing to Him the aid of our sympa-
thy and consolation; 2nd, generously to help the
poor and the sick, in whose afflicted persons our faith
discovers the afflicted Christ.

( 4 ) Page 351. In His Human Nature Jesus was,
of course, inseparably united to the Divine. Yet, in so
far as He possibly could, He freely willed to experi-



102 BOOK OF ANSWERS

ence the utter abandonment by God of the soul
tortured in Hell. He did this in the extravagance of
His generous love for us. Reading the account of
Our Lord’s dereliction on the Cross, the devout
Christian cannot but reflect upon the hopeless tor-
ture of those abandoned by a justly angry God and
cast into Hell, over the portals of which may well be
inscribed, as Dante says: “Abandon hope, all ye
who enter here.”

( 5 ) Page 351. Because by the grace of the almighty
God we must always “hope” that we shall be deliv-
ered finally from the crosses of this life. These
ofttimes weigh so heavily upon our too easily dis-
couraged hearts. Yet one day we shall be brought
to “the grace of His Resurrection.” His Cross is not
only the model of our present life, but the source of
grace for our future resurrected life.

( 6 ) Page 351. Because nowadays it is the fashion-
able and the glamorous and the pretty that win
modern men’s and women’s esteem. Christ in His
Passion is “out of style.” For “there is no beauty in
Him . . . and we have seen Him ... a Man of Sor-
rows . . . whereupon we esteemed Him not For
Chirst Crucified is, and always will be, a scandal to
those puffed up by pride, who judge by sense ap-
pearances alone.

( 7 ) Page 352. He who, on the straight and narrow
way of life, attempts to lead himself rather than to
follow Christy the Good Shepherd, will discover, to
his sorrow, that he has turned aside into dangerous
paths in poisonous pastures. “All we like sheep have
gone astray f everyone hath turned aside into his
own way.”

(8) Page 352. The promises 1st—of divinely guar-
anteed spiritual fruitfulness to His Church and Gos-
pel: “He shall see a long-lived seed”; 2nd—of the



MY LENTEN MISSAL 103

accomplishment of the benign Will of God, which
“shall be prosperous in His Hand”; 3rd—of the sat-
isfying vision of His Father’s good pleasure in Him:
“He shall see and be filled”; 4th—the redemptive
quality of His teaching: “by His Knowledge shall this
My Just Servant justify many”; 5th—the distribu-
tion as just “Judge of the world to come” of the good
things of the “Father’s House” in which “there are
many mansions” (John 14, 2): “He shall divide the
spoils of the strong.”

( 9 ) Page 352. “By His Bruises,” i.e., by all the
harrowing sufferings of His Holy Passion.

(10) Page 352. 1—The burning thirst of unrequited
love: “my bones are burnt up as in an oven”; 2

—

spiritual aridity: “I am smitten like the grass, and
my heart is withered.”

(1 1) Page 352. Because otherwise we cannot “ob-
tain what we celebrate in the Mystery of the Passion,”
mystically renewed in the Holy Mass.

( 12 ) Page 352. The word “family,” especially in
this context, reminds us that the effect of Christ,
Our Brother’s redeeming Love is to make us, by
adoption, members of the Family of the Three Divine
Persons of the Blessed Trinity!! So we should have
been “at home” in the holy house of Nazareth with
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family and shall
be, by God’s Mercy, “at home” in the Eternal Day
in the Holy of Holies which is the heavenly dwelling
place of Father, Son and Holy Ghost!! The words
“did not hesitate” bring to our minds an especially
attractive characteristic of Christ’s love, viz.: the

promptness of Christ’s loving response to His Father’s
Holy Will and to our dire needs.

( 13 ) Page 352. Refer to Question 7—Mass for
Palm Sunday.

(14) Page 352. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



104 BOOK OF ANSWERS

HOLY THURSDAY
(1) Page 361. The Cross becomes our salvation

by the merits of Christ’s Precious Blood, shed
thereon. Through Him, the Father reconciled “all
things unto Himself, making peace through the Blood
of His Cross.” (Col. 1, 20). Furthermore the Cross is
the divinely designed Pattern of a truly Christian life

.

For the Christian lives by and according to the speci-
fications of Christ, written in symbols of bloody red
upon His immaculate Body. It is the token of our
resurrection because for us, no less than for our
Model, the Crucified Redeemer, the rule holds: Per
crucem ad gloriam—through the Cross to glory.
“Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and
so to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24, 26). Ought not
we also to achieve the glory of our resurrection in
the same way?

(2) Page 361. There can be no mere spectators
of this Drama of Redemption, the original Passion
Play! “The world’s a stage” indeed, and upon it
now and till the curtain is rolled down at the signal
of the crack of doom, Everyman must play his part
for weal or woe. Our best lines are those prompted
by the Good Thief: “we receive the due reward of
our deeds . . . Lord, remember me when Thou shalt
come into Thy Kingdom” (Luke 23, 41). We must
never repeat the disastrous speech of Judas—“What
will you (the devil and the world) give me (money,
honor, power, pleasure, secular learning) and I will
deliver Him unto you?” (Matt. 26, 15).

(3) Page 361. The abuses which St. Paul condemns
are first: the abuse of the infinitely precious Good
of the Holy Eucharist; second: the abuse of the
Church, the Home of our Sacramental Savior by
irreverent and unbecoming conduct therein; third:
the abuse of material wealth by selfishly refusing to
share it with those good and law-abiding Christians



MY LENTEN MISSAL 105

who “have not,” thus causing them to blush by
making a mockery of piously mouthed protestations
of Christian faith which, if genuine and active, would
surely prompt charitable good will and actual good
deeds.

(4) Page 361. “Whosoever shall eat this Bread or
drink this Chalice of the Lord unworthily , shall be
guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord . . .
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth
and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the
Body of the Lord.”

(5) Page 361. Because as St. Paul, with a divinely
inspired economy of impressive language, implying
a most profound theological dissertation on the Mass,
phrases it: “As often as you shall eat this Bread and
drink this Chalice {at Mass), you shall show forth
the Death of the Lord until He come.”

(6) Page 361. The name of Jesus means Savior .
But Jesus accomplished His Mission, having loved
His own . . . “to the end” by becoming “obedient
for us unto death, even the death of the Cross ” To
save us by His saving Death was, therefore, the
Mission of Christ, announced by His “Behold I
come” (Ps. 39, 8), at the first moment of His Life
and consummated at the last moment of His Life
when “He gave up the ghost” (John 19, 30).

(7) Page 361. The Eucharist proves that there is
no end to the limitless extravagance of Christ’s love
for us. For on the evening preceding the end of His
mortal career, Jesus invented and instituted a mar-
velous Technique by which, even “to the end

”

of

time, He would abide with us, thus giving also
Sacramental fulfillment to His Promise: “Behold I
am with you all days even to the consummation of
the world” (Matt. 28, 20).



106 BOOK OF ANSWERS

( 8 ) Page 361. St. Michael is the divinely appointed
arch-enemy of Satan, who is “the Prince of devils”
(Luke 11, 15; Mark 3, 22; Matt. 9, 34). But Satan is
our enemy, who, “prowling about the world” “goeth
about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may
devour” (I Peter 5, 8). We ought to entertain the
salutary fear that the devil will influence us as he
influenced Judas . For he “put into the heart of Judas
Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him!”

(9) Page 361. Our Lord’s tender Heart of Mercy
could not but be deeply wounded and saddened by
His foreknowledge of the treachery that was being
planned in the wicked and callous heart of Judas.
“For He knew who he was that would betray Him.”
Therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”

(10) Page 361. Because the priest of God has been
marvelously endowed by the elevating “right hand
of the Lord” with marvelous powers. To his infinitely
generous Benefactor, he owes, therefore, the duty of
humble gratitude and can most practically manifest
his thankfulness by zealous propagation of the Gos-
pel, i.e., by unremitting labors for the glory of God
and the advantage of souls. Catholic action is catholic.
It is the work of all. Such action is our way of ex-
pressing to God our gratitude for His many and
incomprehensibly vast favors to us. For God has
supernaturally endowed us that (we) may “declare
His works.”

(11) Page 362. Because we know that the Sacri-
fice of the Mass is the unfailing response of Christ’s
Church to the commandment of Him, Who is the
Eternal Father’s Only-Begotten and well Beloved
Son. He said to the Apostles and says constantly to
their successors . . . “Do this (offer Holy Mass) in
memory of Me.”

(12) Page 362. All refer to the special solemnity
celebrated in the Mass of Holy Thursday. The first



MY LENTEN MISSAL 107

is in the Third Remembrance by the words: “As we
celebrate this most sacred day on which our Lord
Jesus Christ was delivered up for us.” The second
is in the Prayer of Offering and is expressed by the
words: “Which we make to Thee in memory of the
day our Lord Jesus gave the Mysteries of His Body
and Blood to be celebrated by His disciples.” The
third is found amongst the Words of Consecration
of the Bread: “That is on this day.”

(13) Page 362. Because, in communicating Him-
self (cf. St. Thomas: Summa Theologica, Pars III,
Q. 81, Art. 1) Jesus revealed Himself ready to per-
form the menial and humble service of washing the
begrimed feet of mere creatures, His disciples, indi-
cating thereby the social service to be rendered unto
others as included in adequate preparation for Holy
Communion.

(14) Page 362. The Church, using the language of
Her greatest theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, hails
the Blessed Eucharist as the “pledge of future
glory” because She knows well that “grace is the
seed of glory” and that the Eucharist is not only a
Sacrament which signifies and bestows grace but also
which gives us the very Author of grace and She
remembers that He said, “If any man eat of this
Bread he shall live forever ... he that eateth My
Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath everlasting life
and I will raise him up on the last day ”

GOOD FRIDAY -
MASS of the PRE-CONSECRATED
Part I — Instruction Service, Page 364

(Question 1 ) What is symbolized by the prostration
of the officiating priest immediately before he begins
the Mass of the Pre-Consecrated?

(Answer 1) In prostrating himself, the priest re-
enacts the humble and agonizing prayer of Jesus in



108 BOOK OF ANSWERS

the Agony of the Garden, where Jesus “fell fiat on
the ground and prayed” (Mark 14, 35). In his own
person, also, as a humble, repentant sinner (and
indeed for all of us, whom he represents) he ack-
nowledges the tragic role we all played in the drama
of Calvary. Prostration is a becoming attitude for a
humble, repentant sinner.

(Question 2) How, by whom and why did the Lord
rebuke and punish Ephraim and Juda? (First Lesson).

(Answer 2) Sharply and with extreme but divinely
just severity

,
the Lord rebuked and punished them

“by the prophets” because they were without charity.
For their “mercy (was) as a morning cloud and as
the dew that vanisheth in the morning.” “For this
reason,” saith the Lord, “have I hewed them by the
prophets, I have slain them by the words of My
mouth.”

(Question 3) Why did God command the Israelites
to put the blood of the paschal lamb “upon the side-
posts and the upper door-posts of their houses?”
(Second Lesson)

(Answer 3) The homes of the Israelites thus marked
would, He promised, be spared God's avenging
anger . For, immediately following the verses of the
book of Exodus used in the 2nd Lesson today are
the words of “the Lord to Moses and Aaron in the
land of Egypt”: “And the blood shall be unto you
for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I
shall see the blood and shall pass over you: and the
plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I
shall strike the land of Egypt.” We confidently expect
if we frequently and devoutly make the Sign of the
Cross and decorate our homes with a crucifix which
we devoutly venerate, and before which we daily
pray, that we, also, will be the objects of God’s special
Providence, and that He will mercifully spare us. It
is interesting to recall, also, Our Savior’s promise to
St. Margaret Mary: “I will bless the homes in which



MY LENTEN MISSAL 109

an Image of My Sacred Heart (Which was bloodily
pierced for us) is exposed and venerated.”

(Question 4 ) What is the object of the Psalmist’s
petition? (Tract)

(Answer 4 ) It is the prayer of Christ from the depths
of GethsemanVs gloom, on the night before He died.
Our Savior, indeed, was not spared the Chalice of
His Passion; therefore, His enemies, “the proud”
and sinful, “hid a net for Him,” “laid (for Him) a
stumbling-block by the wayside” . . . (and) “plotted
against” Him. But their triumph was only seeming
and short-lived. The Father heard the prayer of His
well-beloved Son. Never, not even for an instant, not
even during that most terrible moment of Christ’s
mysterious dereliction, did His Father really “for-
sake” Him.

(Question 5 ) How do the words of the Prophet also
apply to us: “They shall look on Him Whom they
have pierced”? (The Passion)

(Answer 5 ) By devout and grateful meditation upon
Our Lord’s Passion and Death. For we “have pierced
Him.” “Christ died for us” (Rom. 5, 9). He “has
stretched forth (His) Hand to comfort us, to raise us
up, and (we) have taken those Hands that might have
struck (us) into Hell and have bent them back on the
Cross and nailed them there rigid and helpless.”
Each of us can, and ought , gratefully to acknowledge
with St. Paul: “He loved me and delivered Himself
for me” (Gal. 2, 20). Meditating upon Our Lord’s
Passion and Death, we may “look” with eyes, opened
by faith and tear-dimmed by the tears of sympathetic
love “upon Him (Whom we, by our sins) have
pierced.” There were many upon Calvary who
(<watched Him” (Matt. 27, 36). We must, unlike His
enemies, keep our watch upon Calvary with Mary,
His Mother.



110 BOOK OF ANSWERS

Part II — Petition Service, Page 375
(Question 1 ) What qualities of true Christian char-

ity are exemplified in each of the following prayers?
(Answer 1 ) The qualities of true Christian charity

most impressively thus exemplified are, their uni-
versal scope and supernatural quality. It wills the
supernatural advantage of All. No one, except the
blessed and the damned are excluded from the peti-
tions which the true Christian addresses to Almighty
God. The blessed do not need our prayers—they have
achieved redemption and are in Heaven

,
round the

Throne of “God and His Christ” (Ps. 2, 2). The
damned cannot be reached nor helped by our prayers
—they have “purchased to themselves damnation”
(Rom. 13, 2) and are in the bottomless pit of Hell,
with “the devil and his angels (Matt. 25, 41). True
Christian charity beseeches God benignly to bestow
of His infinite Bounty upon all and each, according
to their needs.

(Question 2) Which of these prayers seems to you
to be most urgently needed in the modern world?

(Answer 2) In our chaotic modern world the Church
is widely and viciously persecuted. Many wicked gov-
ernments attempt to usurp its divinely bestowed and
guaranteed authority. Wars are forced upon the ordi-
nary people by ambitious, racketeering politicians and
greedy financiers. Tragically they often find it im-
possible to “live in peace” and unnecessarily difficult
“to glorify God.” The first prayer seems to us to be
most urgently needed. This judgment is confirmed
by our Holy Father’s frequent and passionately fer-
vent requests for prayers for peace.

(Question 3) Whence does heresy derive, according
to the teaching of the Church, as implied in her

prayer for heretics?

(Answer 3) From the devil, “the Father of lies,”
who deceives “by diabolical fraud,” the minds and



MY LENTEN MISSAL 111

“hearts of these wanderers” from the one and true
sheepfold of the Good Shepherd, the Church. The
Church, therefore, does not unkindly presume the
bad faith of those in heresy and error. She ascribes
their unhappy lot to the deceits of the devil and not to
the malice of men.

(Question 4 ) Why do not the clergy and people
kneel before praying for the Jews?

(Answer 4 ) This negative prescription of the rubrics
of Holy Mother Church is an especially subtle indi-
cation of the delicate courtesy of her charity. She is
emphatically not anti-Semitic!!! She wishes her chil-
dren only to pray “in behalf of this blind race” so
cruelly deceived by their leaders “so that by ack-
nowledging the Light of (God’s) Truth, which is
Christ Himself (Who is their never-perishing Glory)
they may be brought out of their darkness.” The
Church knows that it was not the ordinary Jewish
people who brought Christ to His tragic Death. Even
the pagan and cynical Pilate knew how carefully to
distinguish between them and their cleverly lying
leaders. The Church always condemns such unjust
and unkind discrimination, saying, e.g., in the words
of our late Holy Father of truly blessed memory:
“A Christian cannot be an anti-Semite. We are all
spiritually Semites!”

Part III — Adoration of the Cross, Page 379
(Question 1 ) What is the instinctive response of the

true Christian when the image of Christ Crucified is
unveiled before him?

(Answer 1 ) The instinctive response of the true
Christian is expressed by the Church in dramatic
word and moving gesture: “Venite adoremus!! Come,
let us adore!/” For Christ Crucified is the God-Man
and, therefore, “the Salvation of the world.”

(Question 2) How do God’s reproaches to His



112 BOOK OF ANSWERS

people, as expressed in the versicles and responses,
after the unveiling of the Cross, apply to us?

(Answer 2) They must be said to apply to us most
impressively

,
for we have been the objects of God’s

love of predilection and His bounteous supernatural
Providence, even as were His people and we too
often, no less than they, have repaid His benefac-
tions with the most callous and bitterest ingratitude.
He has brought us out of “the desert” of sin, going
before us as a constant and enlightening example,
truly “by day a pillar of cloud and by night a pillar
of fire” (Ex. 13, 21). He has “brought (us) into a
very good land” for we are, undeservingly, children
of the Church. He has “opened the sea” before us,
for He has shown us the true and certain path through
earth to Heaven, the Promised Land. He is our
Way! (John 14, 26). With “great power, (He) has
lifted (us) up,” making us, far beyond our deserts,
His brethren and children of His Father by “the
adoption of sons.” And what have we done in return?
We have “prepared a Cross for (Our) Savior”: we
have crucified “again to (ourselves) the Son of God”
(Heb. 6, 6). We have “scourged” Him by the scourges
of our sins. We have “delivered” Him to be crucified
for us. We have “opened (His) Side with (the) lance”
of our impenitence (John 19, 34). We have “beaten”
Him with the “blows and lashes

”

of our callous repe-

tition of sins, imperfectly repented. We have crowned
Him with a “crown of thorns” indeed the crown of
our haughty indocility and insubordination to His
wise teaching. We have attempted the impossible task
of straddling our loyalties between earth and Heaven.
Our conduct is symbolically representative not of the
straight beam that reaches directly from earth to
Heaven, but of the cross beam between earth and
Heaven. Our loyalty is divided between God and
Mammon! We have stretched out His Arms and
nailed them on the cross beam of the Cross , by at-



MY LENTEN MISSAL 113

tempting to measure the demands of His a//-demand-
ing Love by the pettinesses of our selfishness. With
what impressive poignancy does Christ address us:
“What more should I have done, and did it not?
O My people, what have I done unto thee? Or in
what have I offended thee? Answer Me.” Our only
answer must be the answer of a contrite heart.

(Question 3) Name the more important of the
truths of our holy Faith expressed in the hymn:
“Crux Fidelis.”

(Answer 3) First: The doctrine of “the Blessed
j

Trinity ” to Whose “eternal glory” we sing in the
last stanza.

Second: The doctrine of the Fall of Man , conse-
quent upon “the crime of that first man,” “in whom
all have sinned” (third stanza).

Third: The promise , plan and performance of our
salvation (third, fourth and tenth stanzas).

Fourth: The Incarnation of the Son of God, Who
“from the bosom of the Father ... to earth was sent,
taking human flesh of Mary, by the Virgin’s prompt
consent” (fifth stanza).

Fifth: The Virgin birth of the Incarnate Son of
God, Who “within a narrow manger ... a weeping
Babe is found” (sixth stanza).

Sixth: The life on earth of God’s Heaven-sent,
Only-Begotten Son, as planned in the hidden coun-
sels of the God-Head (seventh stanza).

Seventh: The Passion and Death of Our Savior
(seventh and eighth stanzas).

Eighth : The supernal and sempiternal value of the
Cross, the

“
faithful , noble, sweet and lofty” Tree,

which “alone wast counted worthy earth’s Redeemer
so to bear” (refrain, first, second, third, seventh,
ninth and tenth stanzas).



114 BOOK OF ANSWERS

Part IV — Communion Service, Page 385
(Question 1 ) Contrast the Tree of the Cross with the

tree in the earthly Paradise, of the fruit of which,

Adam and Eve ate (“Vexilla Regis”).
(Answer 1 ) The Tree of the Cross is “the banners

of the King” of Heaven. Eden’s tree was the instru-

ment of the Prince of devils. From the Cross “Our

God hath reigned.” By Eden’s tree, Satan acquired
unholy dominion. The Cross is truly, though para-

doxically, a “beautiful and shining Tree.” Eden’s tree

was but seemingly fair. The Cross is “our only hope.”

Eden’s tree is the only, final source whence our woes

and calamities have their origin. The Cross is “Sal-

vation’s Fount.” Eden’s tree is “damnation’s fount.”

The Cross is a mystery of life and light. Eden’s tree

is a mystery of death and darkness.

HOLY SATURDAY
Part I—Blessing of the New Fire, etc. Pg. 392

(Question 1 ) What is the meaning of the words,

“the fire of Thy Brightness,” as used in the first two

prayers? and of the five grains of incense?

(Answer 1 ) Christ is “the fire of (God’s) Bright-

ness,” for He proclaimed Himself: “I am the Light
of the world”; and, “I have come to cast fire on the

earth, and what will I, but that it be kindled?” Christ,

the Word of God, enlightens us by the precious gift

of faith , and enkindles us by the gift of divine love,

which is “the greatest” (I Cor. 13, 13) of the theo-

logical virtues. The five grains of incense are in-

serted, in the form of a cross , into the Paschal

Candle, which is a symbol of Our Lord. Thus, we

may see in them symbols of His five holy Wounds,

the pious contemplation of Which cannot but inflame

the believing Christian with more and more ardent

love of God. Moreover, Christ’s own Wounds were

as so many sweetly smelling grains of incense , as-

k



MY LENTEN MISSAL 115

cending in acceptable and propitiatory prayer to
Heaven.

Part II — The Blessing of the Easter Candle
Page 393

(Question 1 ) With what dominant emotion does the
Church sing the “Exsultet?”

(Answer 1 ) The emotion dominating the Church as
she, the Spouse of Christ, sings the “Exsultet” is, of
course, joy!! So ecstatic indeed is her joy, that she
cannot contain it. She calls upon “the angelic choirs
of Heaven” itself to “rejoice” with her. The joy of
the Church is, notwithstanding its truly ecstatic qual-
ity, always wisely sober and prudently moderatedf
as a reading of the prayer will indicate.

(Question 2) What is the chief reason for this
dominating emotion?

(Answer 2) The chief reason is the Church’s vivid
awareness of the blessing of the redemption wrought
for us by Christ, and her lively sympathy with the
victory of Christ. “This is the night in which Christ
broke the chains of death and rose victoriously from
the grave.” The Church cannot forget

,
nor ought we,

her children, the “wonderful condescension of (God’s)
goodness to us (and His) inestimable degree of love,
since to redeem a slave, (He) didst deliver up (His)
Son.” No wonder that she only finds adequate, the
language of happy paradox, and exclaims: “O truly
necessary sin of Adam blotted out by the Death of
Christ! O happy fault that was worthy to have so
great a Redeemer!!!”

Part III — Prophecies and Prayers, Page 397
(Question 1 ) What is the purpose of the Church in

reading to her children today, prophecies written
many centuries ago?

(Answer 1 ) In earlier times these prophecies were
read as final instructions to the catechumens, await-



116 BOOK OF ANSWERS

ing Baptism. They were designed to serve especially
as a review of the Church’s teaching on the nature
and effects of that wonderful Sacrament. Today, no
less than yesterday, the inspired word of God is
instructive, and it will be always. As St. Paul wrote
to Timothy, his disciple: “All Scripture, inspired of
God, is profitable to teach

,
to reprove, to correct, to

instruct in justice” (II Tim. 3, 16). Besides, as the
Church, prays God has “foretold the mysteries of
these modern times” “by the preaching of (His)
prophets.” The use of Sacred Scripture here, and
indeed throughout the Sacred Liturgy, ought to suf-
fice to label as a libel the charge sometimes ignorantly
or maliciously made, that the Church closes her Scrip-
tures to her children and even positively forbids them
to read the Holy Bible. Pope Pius the Sixth, writing
to the translator of the Holy Bible into Italian, ex-
presses succinctly the mind of the Church: “At a
time when a vast number of bad books which most
grossly attack the Catholic religion, are circulated,

even among the unlearned, to the great destruction
of souls, you judge exceedingly well, that the faithful
should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scrip-
tures. For these are the most abundant sources which
ought to be left open to every one, to draw from them
purity of morals and of doctrine , to eradicate the
errors which are so widely disseminated in these
corrupt times !”

Part IV — Blessing of Font, Page 427
{Question 1) For whom, primarily, does the Church

pray at this part of the Liturgy?

(Answer 1 ) Primarily for catechumens about to be
baptized; in their behalf, the Church petitions the
“Almighty and Eternal God” to “look mercifully”
upon them who are “desiring a new birth” and to
“grant that the thirst of their faith may, by the
Sacrament of Baptism, sanctify their souls and bodies”



MY LENTEN MISSAL 117

and give to them “the spirit of adoption to regener-
ate” them. The great missionary heart of the Church
prompts her also to pray God to “multiply in her the
numbers of the regenerate ... all over the world
for the renovation of the nations.”

(Question 2) Why does the priest breathe thrice
upon the water in the form of the letter “psi,” ty?

(Answer 2) Because this letter, “psi,” is the first
letter of the Greek word for spirit. Such a gesture is
especially appropriate, consequently, since it is from
the Holy Spirit of God that the fecundity and super-
naturally regenerating power of the waters of holy
Baptism are derived. As “in the beginning . . . the
Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said

:

Be light made and light was made” (Gen. 1, 1-3),
so now the priest moves over the yet unsanctified
waters

,
in a gesture reminiscent of the motion of the

Spirit of God, beseeching Him to make “the Power
of the Holy Ghost (to) descend into all the water of
this font” and thus “make the whole substance of
this water fruitful for regeneration.” This letter
will also remind many of a Greek cross

,
and a gesture

made in this form will seem to them fitting, because
it is by ChrisVs Cross that the Power of God’s Spirit
has been purchased for us.

Part V — The Litany, Page 433
(Question 1 ) Why does the Church petition the

saints?

(Answer 1 ) The Church petitions the saints be-
cause, truly understood, the Church is not bounded
by the boundaries of this earth but reaches far be-
yond, even into the Heaven of the saints. For the
saints in Heaven are bound to Christians on earth in
the holy union of Charity. They are our intercessors

,

our advocates. They plead our cause before the judg-
ment seat in the Heavenly Court of Christ’s Justice.
They are His favorite brethren and they are ours.



118 BOOK OF ANSWERS

We do well, therefore, to petition them to be on
our side. Christ is the King of the Saints, indeed the
Prince enthroned forever in the Kingdom of the
Blessed, whether they be angels or saints. The ef-
fectiveness of their prayers for us derives indeed
from Him. But surely it will be to our profit if we
have them, who have achieved a definitive and ever
blessed status in the Kingdom of His Father, peti-
tioning Heaven’s Throne for us.

(Question 2) Why does the Church petition Christ?
(Answer 2) The Church petitions Christ because

she knows with St. Paul that Christ, enthroned for-
ever at the right hand of His Father is “always living
to make intercession for us!” (Heb. 7,25). She peti-
tions Him to “deliver us” from all evil and “all sin”
and “from everlasting death” “in the Day of Judg-
ment” “through (His) holy Incarnation, Coming,
Nativity, Baptism, holy fasting, Cross and Passion,
Death and Burial, Resurrection, Ascension,” and
finally “through the coming of the Holy Ghost,” the
Paraclete, Whom He sent to us (John 16, 7). For
these are the mysteries and the divinely planned
means of our salvation “through Him and with Him
and in Him.” (Words of the Canon of the Mass.)

Part VI — Holy Mass, Page 436
(Question 1 ) Why does the Church address God,

in behalf of “new children”? (Prayer)
(Answer 1) Because in them “the new children of

(His) family” she hopes that God will “preserve the
spirit of adoption” which He has but lately “given”
them. They are neophytes and the Church prays for
their perseverance that, “renewed in body and mind,
they may show forth (always) in (His) sight a pure
service.”

(Question 2) What does St. Paul insist is the be-
coming conduct for a Christian, aware of Christ’s
Resurrection? Why? (Epistle)



MY LENTEN MISSAL
1

119

(Answer 2 ) St. Paul insists that such a one ought
always to direct his ambitions towards Heaven:
“Seek the things that are above”; and that he ought!
to have his “mind” fixed upon “the things that are
above and not the things that are upon the earth.”
He admonishes him, therefore, to be unwordly. This
advice is appropriate because such a one is “dead”

j

to sin and his “life is hid with Christ in God” (Col.
j

3, 3). If, dutifully, he obeys the Apostle’s command,
he may confidently hope that “when Christ shall ap-
pear, Who is (his) life, then (he) also shall appear
with Him in glory.”

(Question 3 ) Why are we commanded to “praise
the Lord”? (Gradual and Tract)

(Answer 3 ) We are given two reasons. First: “His!
Mercy endureth forever.” Second: “The Truth of
the Lord remaineth forever.”

(Question 4 ) What injunction was laid upon “Mary;
Magdalene and the other Mary” by the Angel?
(Gospel)

(Answer 4 ) They are ordered to go “quickly (and)
tell His disciples that He is risen.” Thus they had the
honor to be the first Christian missionaries after Ours
Lord’s Resurrection and truly Catholic lay-Actionists.

(Question 5 ) What is the special theme of the
Easter Preface?

(Answer 5 ) The special theme is expressed majes-
tically in the words: “Christ, our Pasch was sacri-
ficed. For He is the true Lamb Who has taken away
the sins of the world; Who, by dying

,
destroyed our

death
,
and by rising again, restored our Life”

(Question 6 ) What verses of the Magnificat refer
to social justice and charity?

(Answer 6 ) “He hath showed might in His arm.
He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their;
heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat.”
For social justice will finally prevail. Those who have

i



120 BOOK OF ANSWERS

wickedly abused the powers of government to plunge
the people into the horrors of war, or to keep them
under the bondage of unjust economic servitude to
predatory Capital, will pay the awful price exacted
by an avenging God for their injustice. “He hath
filled the hungry with good things and the rich He
hath sent empty away.” For even here on earth, “the
poor have the Gospel preached to them” (Matt. 11,
5; Is. 61, 1). The rich are impeded by their very riches
in their quest for God, and their salvation is en-
dangered, since only too often they put their trust in
these too transitory riches, and neglect life’s really
important tasks. Our Savior says: “It is easier for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mark 10,
24-25). The poverty of the poor, though too often
brought about by the malice and greed of the selfish
rich, is never an insurmountable obstacle to the
acquisition of imperishable riches, to be deposited
and to collect interest in the Heavenly Bank, where
“neither rust nor moth doth consume nor thieves
break through and steal” (Matt. 6, 19; Luke 12, 33).
God has provided abundantly for all. By the zealous
practice of social justice and charity we each ought to
contribute our tiny share to the equitable distribution

of His “good things,” and to the just, and justly
achieved, social reformation which, thoroughly car-

ried out, will be the ever more perfect fulfillment of
Our Lady’s words.

EASTKit Si;AllAY
(1) Page 447. Our Lord, True Man as well as God,

owes His victory over death and His glorious Re-
surrection to God the Father. By obedience to the
Father’s Mission

, Jesus carried forward His life’s
work in death and beyond death’s tomb to definitive
and imperishable triumph. Christ had always the
comfort of knowing that His Father watched Him,



MY LENTEN MISSAL 121

knowing and applauding His “setting down” and
His “rising up.”

(2) Page 447. Because the Resurrection finally
“opened unto us the Gate of Eternity,” which had
been shut against us on account of our sins. We ought
constantly to hope for final victory since, Our Lord
“ever living to make intercession for us” (Heb. 7, 25),
secures for us God’s “continual help.”

(3) Page 447. We ought to prepare ourselves to
eat of the Paschal Lamb of the New Covenant, even
as the Jews made ready to eat the prefiguring
paschal lamb of the Old Dispensation, i.e., with “the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Hence we
must first “purge out” (of our hearts) the “old
leaven” by ridding ourselves of any lingering affec-
tion for sin. Such “leaven of wickedness and malice”
would, of course, destroy the holiness of our Holy
Communion and make It a sacrilege and a great sin.
So we shall become a “new paste” not unworthy to
eat “Christ our Pasch

,
(Who) is sacrificed.” We shall

achieve this necessary spiritual purge by fervently
renewing in our hearts a sincere act of contrition.
Indeed we ought to strive by repeating such acts to
acquire an abiding sorrow for sin, and a purpose of
Christian well-doing.

(4) Page 447. The Sacrifice of “Christ, our Pasch”
is the most perfect demonstration that even God’s
infinite love could devise that “the Lord ... is good
and His Mercy endureth forever.” For “greater love
than this no man hath that a man lay down His life
for his friend” (John 15, 13). We, therefore, have
abundant cause for ecstatically voicing our Easter
joy

,
singing out enthusiastically our Easter “Allelulias.”

(5) Page 447. The chief idea of the Sequence,
phrased mysteriously and paradoxically is the theme
of all our Easter rejoicing, viz.: “the strange duel”
which “life and death together fought.” Life seemed



122 BOOK OF ANSWERS

to have been vanquished. For Jesus is He Who said:
“I am the Life” (John 14, 6), and yet to the utter
amazement and crushing disappointment of some of
even His closest followers and most intimate friends,
Jesus, Life died the cruel death of the Cross. But
“life revived again”: Jesus, His bloody Wounds now
shining Badges of His Triumph

,
emerged from His

tomb, glorious and immortal. Thus was “even death
(itself) by Life slain.” No longer is death man’s
conqueror

,
ending all his hopes. It is the ultimate

step on the trail to Glory which Jesus blazed for us,
so that we, with St. Paul, can cry out rapturously:
“O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is
thy sting?” (I Cor. 15, 55).

( 6 ) Page 447. The darkest hour is the hour before
dawn. Even in our darkest hours, our moments of
spiritual gloom and depression, God rewards our
fidelity to the observance of His laws by giving us
the blessed hope that He will send to us, even as He
sent to Christ, our Brother, an angel to roll back the
stone of our graves. Life on earth may seem to us
to be a perpetual Lent. But there awaits us, if only
we are faithful and hopeful and serve our God with
loyal charity, an Easter Day. Upon it no sun will ever
set, a truly Everlasting Day of unimaginable bright-
ness. For, following in the Footsteps of Christ, our

Model, we shall cross through death and journey in
His Path beyond the borders of the blue, into the
very paradise of God, Who will admit us into mys-
terious and beatifying intimacy, though He “inhab-
iteth light inaccessible” (I Tim. 6, 16).

( 7 ) Page 447. As the earthquake of Good Friday
was the witness to and terrifying expression of cosmic
sorrow at the death of the Creator of the world and
the King of Ages, so the earthquake of Easter Sunday
was witness to and magnificent expression of cosmic
joy in His Triumph. Another great earthquake will
one day rock the world, and again it will be terrifying,



MY LENTEN MISSAL 123

because it will be an announcement to the whole
world of the imminence of the Day of the Great
Judgment, when “the Son of Man (shall come) in
great power and majesty” (Luke 21, 27), to “judge
the living and the dead” (II Tim. 4, 1). But even
that day of wrath will need hold no terrors for the
faithful Christian who has died in the Lord to sin and
will rise again with Him to Glory.

(8) Page 447. This life ought to be a school of
Christian virtue. From that school we shall one day
pass. That day of our passing will be an Easter Day
for all who have served God well and faithfully. It
will be for them a day of graduation from the turmoils
and travails and troubles of this life and a Com-
mencement Day of Life Everlasting.

(9) Page 447. The effects in the social order of
the first Easter day are incalculable. For upon the
truth of Christ’s Resurrection is based the reason-
ableness of the whole structure of Catholic doctrine
and discipline, the most powerful social agency

,
for

the civilization and refinement of mankind, in the
whole long and checkered history of our race. True
concord can be achieved only by the outpouring of
“the Spirit of (God’s) love,” operating upon us in
Holy Communion. It is a concord, therefore, not of
mere regimentation, like the concord of terrorized
and haplessly stupefied slaves in a totalitarian state,
but “of mind and heart

” There will be no peace
amongst men until they accept, as standards of think-
ing and canons of action, both in public and private
life, the Christian Creed and the Christian Code.
Only thus can they “be of one mind and heart.”
We can, and ought to contribute to that consumma-
tion, devoutly to be wished for, by frequently and
fervently praying the prayer of the Church; we can
“pray the Mass”!!

(10) Page 447. Sum up the Explanation before
Mass, in your own words.



MY LENTEN MISSAL

ATTEND DAILY MASS
WHAT YOUR PARISH MEANS

PiEST, whenever possible, you should “praythe Mass” daily in your own parish church.
Your parish Mass is offered for you.

For Students and Adults. My Lenten Missal
is intended for every Catholic. The Simplified

Method, explained on page i, adapts it for use

even by those in elementary school. The Ques-

tions at the end of each Mass suggest it as

a text-book, even throughout the year as a prepa-

ration for Lent.

For Brothers and Nuns. The Missal, of course,

is the daily guide of every Religious. They will

realize how it makes for the most perfect type of
education, “taught by the Holy Mysteries,” as

the ancient writers emphasized. The “Explana-

tion” of each Mass Theme, featured in My
Lenten Missal, is a two minute meditation. If

read before Mass, it will light up the entire

meaning of the liturgy.

Your Parish and Lenten liturgy! Would you

appreciate the Lenten Masses in their entire

beauty and power? They are “like the text of

some great drama. You cannot fully grasp their

significance until you see them interpreted on
the Altar” (Cardinal Schuster), at daily Mass in
your Parish church.

« SpUiMH Sdfl of



MY LENTEN MISSAL

UNABLE TO ATTEND
DAILY MASS?

THEN UNITE with MASS EVERYWHERE
See page 480

£Yecondly, if unable to attend daily Mass in^ your Parish church, you may and should
unite spiritually with your Parish Priests, since

the Parish Mass is offered for you.

Moreover, you can unite with Holy Mass at
any hour of the day or night. Holy Mass circles
the entire world. It travels with the sun. 300,000

Masses every 24 hours! Four elevations every
second! and all yours for the wishing! to adore
and thank God, to repair for sin and to petition
countless graces.

Each day of Lent, therefore, when unable to
attend Holy Mass in your Parish church, you may
use My Lenten Missal, by reciting the prayer
on page 480; then by reading the “Proper Mass”
for the day, together with it’s Explanation as

indicated on page 1.

Here is a Missal, begun 3,000 years ago. In it
are to be found Divinely inspired literary master-
pieces : Moses writes of the human pilgrimage to
the Promised Land; David sings of our hopes
before God

;
Solomon gives us words of wisdom;

Jeremias sounds out the Divine warnings; The
disciples and Apostles give us the words of
Christ Himself.

At Mass use the Missal for liturgical worship.
When unable to get to Mass, use it every day
for Lenten prayers and spiritual reading.

tku jCetUeu tkissot »



Use This Mass Clock if Unable to Attend

Daily Mass During Lent
Use "My Lenten Missal" — At Any Time — In Any Place

READ
THE MASS
DAILY

DURING
LENT

With your
parish
priest in
Church, if
possible

—

if not, read
it at any
time and in
any place.

READ
THE MASS

AT
ANY TIME
In Private
(see Page
5 ) unite
w i t h the
priest in
any part of
the world
praying
with you
andforyou.

Central U. S Time is listed, as practical tor entire U. S.; since Holy
Mass is offered during the three hours from 5 A. M. to 8 A. M.

Unite yourself any hour of day or night with some priest, some-
where offering Holy Mass. For instance, at 9 P. M. our time, Mass is

being offered in Jerusalem.

e
TERNAL Father, through the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, I wish to unite myself with Jesus, now
offering His Precious Blood « mention name oj

country » in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the
needs of Holy Church, the conversion of sinners, the
relief of the souls in Purgatory and for the special
grace I here implore. (Now turn to Mass for today.)

« SftedMH pMfe a

Q







•MY LENTEN MISSAL— 512 Pages
i. Attend Daily Mass Page 4

.... Page 6
:e Holt Week ...... Page 290

5. Three Hours Agony Service
(3 Methods) Pages 7 and 363

1. Simplified* Method; self-instructing, even
for a child to follow Priest Page 6

alendar ......... Page l

&.FTER Each Mass . . . Page 6

InU.S.A.

..... S .20

Seal, limp leather ...... x.oo
3.75



tlxe Pulpit and Clasaro-

will remind tlie faitklul

to act on the plea o