LENTEN PASTORAL, 1882.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 461, 10 February 1882, Page 3

LENTEN PASTORAL, 1882.

Francis, by thb Grace of God and Favour op the Apostolic See. Bishop op Wellington.

To the Clergy and Faithful of the said Diotese, Health and Benediction in the Lord.

Revebevd Brethren and Deab Children in Jesus Christ.

The holy season of Lent has come round again, and it is our duty to exhort you to spend it as you ought. We may fitly apply to it these words of the Apostle S. Paul : " And me Jielping do exhort you, that you receive net the Grace of God in vain. For Me saith : In an accepted time liave I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee. Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. vi. 2.) Now is the time to enter into ourselves and amend our evil ways. " Thus saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, in weeping, and in mourning. Blow the trumpet in Sion, and sanctify a fast " (Joel ii. 12, 15.) Leßt is, indeed, a holy time, a time of prayer, penance, and mortification, a time of sorrow and weeping for our sins and those of our fellowmen, and also a time of especial mourning over the sufferings and bitter passion of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Transport yourselves in thought to that wilderness in which Jesus spent forty days and nights in prayer and rigorous fasting. Contemplate Him prostrate before His Heavenly Father with His sacred brow in the dust, now pouring out his soul in intense acts of adoration, praise, and thanksgiving, now imploring mercy upon poor sinful man ; and accompanying His tears and supplications with incomparable mortification ; since for forty days and nights He neither ate nor dxank, while His couch was the hard ground, and His shelter the vault of heaven. O, how forcibly He teaches us by His example the holiness of Lent ! Though His life was eminently holy at all times, He imparted to it during those forty days an exterior character of special sanctity. He spent those days in retreat ; thereby telling us to spend them in holy recollection, a necessary condition for hearing God's voice in the depths of our soul, and so coming to know, love, and enjoy Him ; and also in a spirit of earnest reflection, an indispensable condition for self-knowledge and reformation.

He spent that time in prayer, to teach us that we ought to pray more and better during the precious season of Lent, for then God is more disposed to hear us. " In. an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee"

He spent that time in most rigorous mortification, to enjoin us during Lent to be less indulgent to our sensuality, tastes, and pleasures, and to accept with resignation, nay, sincere gladness, the privations imposed on us by our kind and merciful Mother, the Church. Thus our Lord teaches us the holiness of Lent, and His teaching is confirmed by that of the whole Catholic Church. For why these frequent instructions and sermons, these additonal religious exercises, why that prescribed fast and abstinence, unless it is to oblige us to sanctify the period of Lent ? O blessed be the Church for this salutary lesson I In the course of our life we are so apt to neglect the duty of penance, to forget that there are but two gates into heaven, the gate of innocence, and the gate of penance ; and, as we have lost our innocence, we have no hope but in penance. Hence our Saviour says to sinners like us : " except you do penance you shall all likewise j?emA." (Luke xiii., 5). We stand in great need of beiDg reminded of this duty every year ; for penance is indispensable, either to atone for our past sins, or to hinder us from relapsing into our evil ways. To all these reasons for spending the season of Lent in a worthy manner, there is added another most cogent one, derived from the great mysteries of the Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour, for which Lent is intended to be a preparation. The fruit of the celebration of these mysteries ought to be death to ourselves and a new life in God and for God. But such will not be the happy result of Lent, unless it has been truly sanctified. We shall receive the fulness of the grace attached to their celebration, if we come to them with the perfect disposition of a well spent Lenten Fast ; but the contrary will happen if we have the folly and misfortune to squander these precious days in dissipation, thoughtlessness or tepidity. But how shall we sanctify the time of Lent ? We must first endeavour to perform our ordinary actions and discharge our usual duties with greater perfection. In this lies the very essence of sanctity. Hence during Lent we must say our prayers better, employ our time better, watch over our thoughts and words, offer our actions to God in union with the penance of our Saviour in the wilderness* and in expiation of our sins,