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BOOK OF ANSWERS
to Questions in

My LENTEN MISSAL

The questions are found at end of

each Afass in A 1y 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,
li
the 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 keepMy judgments ”

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 moderated
f

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