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Martyrology - 1st of April
Upon the 1st day of April, were born into the better life:
At Rome, the holy martyr Theodora, sister of the great martyr Hermes.
She suffered by order of the judge Aurelian, under the Emperor Hadrian, and is buried beside her brother upon the Salarian Way, not far from the city.
On the same day, the holy martyr Venantius, Bishop of Toledo.
In Egypt, the holy martyrs Victor and Stephen.
In Armenia, the holy martyrs Quintian and Irenaeus.
At Constantinople, [about the year 830,] the holy Confessor Macarius, who died in exile, under the Emperor Leo, because of his defence of holy images.
At Grenoble, holy Hew, [born 1053, died 1132,] Bishop of that see, who passed the latter part of his life, even for many years, in the wilderness, and passed away, famous for miracles, to be ever with the Lord.
At Amiens, the holy Abbot Valery, at whose grave miracles are oftentimes wrought. [Monk of Luxeuil, and first Abbot of Leuconais, in the year 619.]
And elsewhere many other Holy Martyrs, Confessors and Holy virgins.
R. Thanks be to God
Morning Prayer
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Place Yourself in the Presence of God, and adore His holy Name.
Most holy and adorable Trinity, one God in three Persons, I believe that Thou art here present: I adore Thee with the deepest humility, and render to Thee, with my whole heart, the homage which is due to Thy sovereign majesty.
An Act of Faith
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I believe that Thy divine Son became man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.
An Act of Hope
O my God, relying on Thy infinite goodness and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
An Act of Love
O my God, I love Thee above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because Thou art all-good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbour as myself for the love of Thee. I forgive all who have injured me, and ask pardon of all whom I have injured.
Thank God for All Favours and Offer Yourself to Him.
O my God, I most humbly thank Thee for all the favours Thou hast bestowed upon me up to the present moment. I give Thee thanks from the bottom of my heart that Thou hast created me after Thine own image and likeness, that Thou hast redeemed me by the precious blood of Thy dear Son, and that Thou hast preserved me and brought me safe to the beginning of another day. I offer to Thee, O Lord, my whole being, and in particular all my thoughts, words, actions, and sufferings of this day. I consecrate them all to the glory of Thy name, beseeching Thee that through the infinite merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour they may all find acceptance in Thy sight. May Thy divine love animate them, and may they all tend to Thy greater glory.
Resolve to Avoid Sin and to Practice Virtue.
Adorable Jesus, my Saviour and Master, model of all perfection, I resolve and will endeavour this day to imitate Thy example, to be, like Thee, mild, humble, chaste, zealous, charitable, and resigned. I will redouble my efforts that I may not fall this day into any of those sins which I have heretofore committed (here name any besetting sin), and which I sincerely desire to forsake.
Ask God for the Necessary Graces.
O my God, Thou knowest my poverty and weakness, and that I am unable to do anything good without Thee; deny me not, O God, the help of Thy grace; proportion it to my necessities; give me strength to avoid anything evil which Thou forbiddest, and to practise the good which Thou hast commanded; and enable me to bear patiently all the trials which it may please Thee to send me.
The Lord’s Prayer...
The Hail Mary...
The Apostles’ Creed...
At this point, please go to the relevant text of Fr Hamon’s Meditation. Once I have read and meditated on the text, and its various points . I complete my meditation by saying:
Evening Prayer
Saturday in Passion Week: The Cross the Science of the Christian
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will tomorrow resume our meditations upon the cross, considered as the great book which instructs us, and we shall see that it teaches us: first, to feel a tender interest in all that has regard to our neighbour; second, to despoil ourselves entirely of the spirit of selfishness. Our resolution shall be: first, to seek in all things the glory of God and the good of our neighbour; second, to detach our hearts from everything else. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St Paul: “I judge not myself to know anything among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (I Cor. ii:2).
Meditation for the Morning
Let us adore Jesus crucified as our Doctor and our Master. It is He who teaches us thoroughly what we ought to seek for esteem, and love; that is to say, the interests of God and of our neighbour, what we ought to fly, despise, and hate; that is to say, everything that is opposed to these two interests. Let us thank Him for this lesson, and let us ask of Him grace to conform our conduct to it.
The cross teaches us to feel a tender interest in all that regards our neighbour
The cross, in fact, shows us: first, in our neighbour, whoever he may be, a man so tenderly loved by Jesus Christ that, in order to save him, He came down from heaven to earth, became man and gave His blood, His honour, His liberty, and His life, and identified Himself so entirely with each child of Adam as to say, All that is done to the least of My brethren I look upon as done to Myself, and all which is refused to them I look upon as refused to Myself (Matt. xxv:40–45). Now, this being understood, it is evident that under penalty of failing in our duty to Jesus Christ we ought to feel a tender interest in all that has regard to our neighbour, to his salvation, to his reputation, or to his honour, to his joys, to his sorrows, to his prosperity or his reverses. To be careless respecting the interests of a person so dear to Our Lord, to wound him, to grieve him, to injure or scandalise him, is to wound Jesus Christ Himself in the very apple of His eye. All the interests of this man ought to be as dear to us as those of Jesus Christ; we ought to esteem ourselves happy and honoured by all we can perform for His service and lovingly seize every opportunity of doing so.
Second, the cross teaches us to what extent we ought to carry zeal for the interests of our neighbour; for if Jesus Christ on the eve of His death commanded us to love each other as He Himself has loved us (John xiii:34), the cross offers itself to us as being the commentary on this precept; it teaches us that we ought to be disposed to make the utmost sacrifice for the good of our neighbour, to suffer everything from others without making anyone suffer, to bear privation and discomforts, and, according to circumstances, to immolate ourselves wholly for the happiness of our brethren, since it is thus that the crucified Jesus has loved us. Let us here examine ourselves. How many services which we might have rendered have we refused to our neighbour? How many times have we seen him suffering discomfort and embarrassment, compromising his interests by awkwardness or ignorance? We might have freed him from his painful position by a word of good counsel, by charitable advice, by a good office which would have cost us little; and turning away our heads, we have passed by without showing any interest in his misfortunes. Oh, how far we are from loving our brethren as Jesus Christ has loved us!
The cross teaches us to divest ourselves entirely of the spirit of selfishness
Until Jesus Christ came, no one knew how to live except for self. To obtain for one’s self enjoyments, riches, and glory; to keep at a distance from one’s self poverty, suffering, and humiliation, such was the whole care of the human race. Jesus Christ appeared on the cross, showed Himself to the world, and from the summit of this new seat He says to the world: Learn of Me to forget yourself, to divest yourself of that miserable egoism which thinks only of self; which troubles itself but little that others should be unhappy, provided that it can enjoy; which believes that it aggrandises itself by surrounding itself here below with false goods, often even to the prejudice of others, and that it lowers itself by leading a hidden, unknown life, by depriving itself or by suffering in order to oblige others. Behold Me, I am the well-beloved Son of God, and yet I am poor, suffering, humiliated. If riches and abundance, pleasure and glory had been true goods, would not God, My Father, have given them to Me? If poverty, humiliation, and suffering had been evils, would He have made of them My portion? Learn from My example, and know that all which passes away is nothing (Philipp. iii:8); “that all is vanity except to love God and to serve Him” (I Imit. i:3).
These sublime truths, issuing from Calvary eighteen centuries ago, have changed the face of the world; inspired thousands of souls with the most noble sentiments and the most generous sacrifices for the welfare of religion and of society; and such souls as these have been seen, detached from everything except the cross, to sell their goods for the solace of the poor, embrace an austere life, that they might belong more certainly to God, submit to persecution as to a piece of good fortune, and return delighted to have been deemed worthy to suffer for Jesus Christ. Behold how the cross has thus withdrawn egoism from the world, and has substituted for it charity with its heroic devotedness. Whosoever does not understand these things is possessed of only a false virtue, an alloy of a semblance of devotion united with the love of self, with a research of what will administer to its tastes and its comforts, frivolity, the love of the world and of its vanities: a worse state than is that of great vices, because great vices awaken remorse, whilst this false devotion makes the soul slumber in a security which leads it to death. Are we not of the number of those who have not yet understood this great lesson of the cross: death to egoism?
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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