A Change of Mood

style=width:200px;height:300px;float:right;" >THOSE AMONG us who are older can remember when, instead of ‘Ordinary Time’, we had the seasons after Epiphany and after Pentecost (or after Trinity in some traditions). In between the Epiphany season and the start of Lent there were three Sundays with strange names: Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima. They marked a change of mood from Christmas-tide to the run-up to Easter. With the increasing use of the ‘Extraordinary Form’ of the Mass (the old Missal to you and me), this season is returning.



When he began to compose his great series of commentaries on the Sunday Gospels, usually (but misleadingly) called his ‘Sermons for Sundays’, Saint Anthony chose to start at this point, with Septuagesima. The Office readings in the Breviary went back to the beginning of the Bible, the story of Creation, continuing week by week with the stories of the Patriarchs Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.



Anthony had clearly decided right from the start that he wanted to demonstrate the harmony or concordance of the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, but to begin with he did this, we may feel, in a rather unimaginative way, commenting first on the days of creation and then on the Gospel of the labourers in the vineyard. With practice, he would come to weave marvellous tapestries of meaning out of the various texts, as we can see as we follow him through the year.





Penitence





One set of texts that he was determined to include each week (as we have noticed over recent months) was the Introits of the Sunday Mass. We have already considered those for Advent and Epiphany-tide (which of course come at the end of the work, as Anthony wrote it), as full of expectation before Christmas, and full of praise and adoration afterwards. We come down to earth with a bump on Septuagesima, as the penitential note is struck from the first: “The waves of death rose about me, the snares of the grave entangled me. In my anguish I called to the Lord, from his temple he heard my voice.” (Ps 17(18) 5-7)



Although these words were first sung centuries before the coming of our Lord, and express the faith of Israel in the midst of persecution, they foreshadow the suffering and death of Christ, and His trust in His heavenly Father. Here is good pre-Lenten material for meditation. Again, as we meditate on the single word ‘temple’, we recall that God dwells in the sacred humanity of Jesus, in the Church, in each human soul, and in the entire universe.





Rising up





On the following Sunday the entrance chant was, “Awake, Lord, why do you sleep? Arise, do not reject us for ever! Why do you hide your face, and forget our oppression and misery? Stand up and come to our help.” (Psalm 43(44) 23-26). Here again is a cry of human anguish, when God seems to hide Himself, to be unconcerned with human suffering. Yet we know that He alone can help us and save us – there is no-one else to turn to. Noah’s ark, which was the subject of the Office readings, is an image of the safe refuge God provides amidst the flood of evil that washes about the world, and the storms that batter the Church.



Anthony was well aware of the scandals that beset the Church in his own time, as we are of those today. “Three times they say, Arise!” (in the Introit), he comments, interpreting this in reference to sexual immorality, to negligent and lukewarm religious, and to greed for money that exploited the poor. Today’s world certainly suffers from sexual license, from financial mismanagement, and from a widespread indifference, if not hostility, to religion. So we too should beg God to arise, and save His Church from these evils.





Enlightenment





“My God, be a rock of refuge for me, a mighty stronghold to save me, for you are my rock and my refuge.” (Ps 30(31) 3-4). Anthony depicts the believer as a blind man (the Gospel reading was of the healing of a blind man), calling out for help. “He asks God to protect and defend him with arms outstretched on the Cross, as a hen spreads her wings over her young... He seeks in Christ’s side, pierced by the lance, a place of refuge in which to hide from the face of the enemy... He says... On you I fall back, casting myself on you alone and no other... Son of David... reach out to me the hand of mercy.”



The Saint follows this with a vivid meditation on the Passion of our Lord, and a sharp critique of Church leaders who lack vision, fail to correct abuses, and fail to inspire the faithful by their own example. Sadly, we have learned recently of clergy who have betrayed their sacred vocation, Anthony’s words still ring true. But he reminds us that our Lord did not spare Himself for our sake. We should reflect upon all that He suffered for us, and we should see His sufferings reproduced every day all around us in the sufferings of the poor and the sick, the hungry and the homeless. And we should ask ourselves what we are doing about it.





The coming spring





Although as I write it is still cold, by February we shall have turned the corner of the year and be heading for Spring. (Once again, I apologise to readers in the southern hemisphere who are heading in the opposite direction. Your time will come!) The history of the Church has passed through many seasons, and Saint Anthony was writing at a time of hoped-for reform and renewal, following the Fourth Lateran Council. The popes of that reform were also the popes of the early Franciscan movement that was an important part of it.



It looks as if Pope Benedict is presiding over another spring-time for the Church, with his inspiring teaching on Scripture, on the Eucharist and on the Church. Above all he reminds us that the heart of our faith, and of our religion, is friendship with Jesus Christ. As we meditate on the texts of the Liturgy with Anthony, let us make them our own prayers for salvation and renewal, and for the Church in our day to become God’s effective instrument for bringing the whole human race into the unity and peace that He wills. Penitence, rising up in the strength of God, and seeking our light from Him: those can be watch-words for us as they were for Anthony.