Thank you very much. Let us prepare for tomorrow's Sunday. It's not every weekend that we have students from Syracuse here with us, so let us do our best that the Mass tomorrow may be a real act of worship, of prayer, and of edification of our souls. Now the Master Bar, as you know, is again the same texts as those of the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, and then the texts, that means the Collect and the Epistle and the Gospel and the Secreta and the Postcommunion are from the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany.

[01:14]

That is always in this last part of the Sundays after Pentecost, it's always this exchange between the Sundays after the Epiphany, depending on how Easter fell, not the year, how many Sundays there are, and after Pentecost until the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Ecclesiastical year. The idea was, you realize then, the ecclesiastical year isn't, I cannot say now exactly the first Sunday of Advent is a completely new thing, completely new beginning, that is not the case, even the number of the Sundays of Advent changed in some way. The history of the liturgy of the church shows that there is a development in which the Advent season was more and more brought into

[02:27]

equilibrium, so to speak, with the Lenten season. So there was a tendency to extend these Sundays, and we can see that practically these last Sundays of the old ecclesiastical year already have the same topic, the same predominant thought as also the Sundays of Advent and, one can say, the entire Christmas season. as soon as the actual year is on the decline and the darkness of the winter, the night of winter, begins to be on the increase, that is then the time when the Church turns our thoughts away from the How can one say from the earthly, our earthly interest, to speak out, concentrates our focuses, our attention on what we call the last things, the second coming of Christ.

[03:42]

And you know that in this, one can in fact in some way divide the ecclesiastical here simply in two parts. One part which is devoted to the redemption, Christ's work of redemption, that means his sacrifice on the cross, the preparation for it in Lent, and the fruits of it in the time after Easter, and the Sundays also after Pentecost. And then the other half of the ecclesiastical year is concentrated around the mystery of Christ's coming, of Christ appearing upon us. And that is the topic which predominates in the worship and the thinking of the Church at the time when the natural light

[04:44]

goes down, recedes. Then we concentrate on the supernatural light, on that splendor that Christ brings into this world through his first coming in the flesh and through his second coming in glory. And those two comings, that's what Advent means, it means coming, they are always seen together, because the first coming of Christ anticipates in some way already the second coming. And we, as Church, how any of us, we stand in between his coming in his earthly flesh and his coming in glory. So for us, the one, the coming, which has taken place in the past, and the one which will take place in the future are by the Church, who stands in between the two, seeing together.

[05:52]

That is the beautiful essence of contempla, to contemplate, contemplation, to see together, going into the continuity and to see the parallel between the first and the second. In the text then of the last two hours, I wanted to call your attention especially to those songs, which are those of the 23rd, Sunday after Pentecost, and which the scholar of the whole congregation sings, and the three procession, which take place in the course of the celebration of Holy Mass. One is the introit procession, coming into, before, into the presence of the orator, into the presence of the curious, of the Lord, that's the introit procession.

[06:59]

Then the second procession, which is that of the offertory, where the faithful come with their gifts. And then finally the last procession where we all gather together around the altar as the holy table from which we receive the bread of life. So these three processions and each one of them is accompanied by an antiphon. And I want to introduce your attention to these three, because they are in a beautiful inner continuity. The beginning is the introit antiphon when we enter into the church. Then we sing it, the Lord said, I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You shall call upon me and I will hear you.

[08:01]

and I will bring back your captivity from all places." That is when we enter into the sanctuary. Then the second of the Overture is, From the dead I have cried out to thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my prayer. From the dead I have cried out to thee, O Lord. And then third is the communion verse equivalent. Amen, I say to you, whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done to you. Now you see there right away, if you look at the very fall of it, the introit, they are words of the Old Testament, taken from the prophet Jeremiah, the 29th chapter, in fact taken from the letter which Jeremiah the prophet wrote after the catastrophe of the fall of Jerusalem and the Jewish Jewish people being brought away into Babylon to captivity.

[09:20]

And these are words, let's say, of the Old Testament, words of promise The second, the offertory, where we are acting, bringing our gifts, in which our being and our life is represented, they are words of men, words which come out of the heart of the congregation. From the depth I have cried out to thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my prayer." And the Holy Communion, those words are taken from the New Testament. And they are words of Christ. They are words of fulfillment. Holy Communion is the answer, one can say, to the promise of the introit.

[10:23]

Holy Communion are the thoughts of peace that the Father thinks for us, and we receive these thoughts of peace when we receive the body and the blood of our Lord and Savior. That is the meal of peace offering, as the Old Testament says. So, let us just turn still to the intro. You must always have, be interpreted and employed have before your eyes the, as I say, the standard situation. These masses are masses which were composed and which in some way carry with them also the local color of the city of Rome and of the Roman Basilicas. Now the characteristic feature of the Roman Basilicas is that when you come into them, then right away the of the altars, carried by the columns, leads you and leads your eye to the altar and then from the altar up into the apse.

[11:36]

And in the apse you see always represented the gloriously reigning Lord, the Curius. The one who says, when you see me, you see the Father. The glorified Christ who is, one can say, the visible manifestation of the Father. So it is this when the community comes into the Basilica in the church, there this picture greets them. and it begins to speak, as it were. Usually this thinker of the curious has in his right hand, in his left hand, the gospel opened, and then there is written, you see, in that book, for example, heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall never pass.

[12:39]

So it is the manifestation there of the gloriously triumphant Lord, who is our peace, and who manifests these thoughts of peace to us in the word that he has given us. He is the teacher of peace, magister pacis. And he shows us this risen Lord. He is, as it were, the predominant figure which rules and thrones above and rules the events of history. The whole flow of events here on earth is really only a veil. But behind this veil is the dominant figure of the Christ, gloriously reigning Christ, who has died for us, who is risen, and is now enthroned at the Father's right hand, and therefore has the keys, the keys to the past and the keys to the future.

[14:01]

He is the Lord of history. He is the one who will appear as soon as this curtain of earthly events has come to an end, is being rolled away, and we see behind him the one who dominates and guides human history, and that is the Lord who has conquered Christus, Victor, Christ the cock. Now it is that voice which we hear at this moment. You see, the church lives in this fall season. The leaves are falling from the trees. The whole life is, as it were, ebbing down. The year has long passed its climax. Now our life and our vitality are going down like everything.

[15:04]

And so therefore we are filled with thoughts of, I wouldn't say pessimistic thoughts, but with thoughts of doubt. It's a time in which we realize how transitory the things of this world are. We feel the burden of it. But the Church, of course, turns our eyes at this time before, representing the transitoriness of all earthly things. The Church turns our attention to the second coming of Christ, when this world is rolling over, as it is in fall and in winter. then that reminds us of the newness of Christ. When this world is growing old, then a new hope is rising.

[16:12]

And that new hope is Christ's second coming. And therefore, when the general picture of this world invites us, let us say, to pessimistic thoughts about the vanity of all earthly things, of death in the eyes of church is like rolling away the whole curtain of these earthly events and seeing behind it the dominant figure of the princeps arches, the prince of peace. And his words, therefore, his message, his glad tidings we hear. They are communicated to us in Holy Scripture, of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, down to the end, including the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation. And here this is, this introit is, let us say, apocalyptic.

[17:18]

The Lord says, I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. what was actual for the Jews who had lost the Temple, and had lost the earthly city of Jerusalem, and had lost their kingdom, and were in exile, and felt the burden of defeat, and the loneliness and helplessness of exile, What was good to them, this message that I, Jeremiah, at the command of the Lord sent to them, that of course also applies to us and to the Church. So it is with great joy that we hear the message of the curious Christos that comes down as it were from that axe from the throne at the right hand of the Father.

[18:19]

I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You shall call upon me, and I will hear you, and I will bring back your captivity from all places." So with that, the Mass starts with this promise, this prophecy, this glorious future, this rising of our hope. for the return from captivity into liberty, which liberty then is fully realized for us in the mystery of Holy Communion. There we really are, around the Father's table as his free children, and taking part not only in thoughts of peace, but one can say the power and the life of peace. So then we go from there to the Alphatory. In the Alphatory you hear these words which are so familiar to you from the Psalm de Profundis.

[19:28]

From the dead I have cried out to Thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my prayer. From the dead I have cried out to Thee, O Lord. That, of course, is a cry which is directed to God out of the situation of the exile, out of that inner helplessness, that weakness, lostness, which is part of our existence here on earth. The human life is held, as it were, in a precarious way and on a thin thread in itself into nothingness, into the abyss of nothingness, and constantly we find ourselves confronted with the manifestations of that nothingness. Our human existence is so frail, so questionable, so insecure,

[20:31]

Everywhere around us, death, sudden sickness, suddenly something happens, and the man who was still a short time before was in the full power of his thinking and was planning, and something may go wrong organically, and the whole thing is just thrown off. and he's brought to the edge of the grave. So therefore, we realize that. That's the meaning of thought of this season, that we taste that precariousness of our earthly, human, created existence. The prayer of the Church, the worship of the Church is always realistic. Certainly the Church, as the mouthpiece of the Father's mercy here on earth, holds out for us the good hope, a glad tiding, a divine promise, but as a promise not of human achievements, but a promise of divine grace.

[21:54]

Not a promise that we shall ascend, but a promise that God shall descend to us. That is also the whole situation under which these words of the introvert were said. Jeremiah sends this message, full of hope, which, however, is contrary to the message of the false prophets. who said and told the people, just gather together, get organized, and throw out the yoke of the Babylonians. That was the earthly promise. That was the appeal to the earthly resources of Israel. That was, in fact, a dream. It was a completely unrealistic dream. The false prophets have lost contact with reality because they always promise to people the impossible things that they could achieve by their own power.

[23:10]

And it's the illusion of profit. But it pleases the people. While the prophecy of Jeremiah's was, for 70 years you will stay with them and just accept it and stay there and build homes, get together and form families and continue your life as a people peacefully, living together in peace with those that are around you. And then God will call you back, bring you back from the captivity. So it was the promise of a redemption, of a divine redemption, not an appeal to self-redemption. That's the tremendous difference. So here also at the Overture,

[24:12]

which is the moment in which we bring our earthly gifts to the altar, in which we, as it were, take an active part in the sacrifice. It is as if the Church would warn us not to overestimate the drop of water which we put into the cherries of life at the altar. that small, that great, or that little earthy thing that we have to be. Don't pay too much attention to what you give to God. Don't only and always think what you want to do for God. See the other way around. What God wants to do with you. See what God has given you. Therefore, listen to the word that comes from above.

[25:16]

Receive the gift that God gives you from above. Be ready to be redeemed. Be ready to believe. That are the saving virtues of the Christian. So therefore, here are the offertory where we come with our gift The Church puts these words into our mouth, from the depth I have cried out to Thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my prayer. So that wonderful word of humility and of faith, at the moment in which we, as it were, become active in the Mass, reminding us Then what we do at the offertory is by no means a contribution, but is by all means nothing but a prayer. And then we come to the communion, and in the communion then we hear the words, Amen, I say to you, whatever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done.

[26:33]

And that are the words of Christ, who is there with us, and the author, who is our friend, who gives himself. Whatever you ask when you pray, that is so important, quid quid oraltes petitis. That means what you ask in prayer. There are two ways of asking. appearing before God and putting before Him our requests. And there is the other way in which we appear before God, praising Him, thanking Him what He has given us, submitting our entire will to Him. Not my will, but Your will be done. That is what we call praise. And any petition which is brought before God on the hands of prayer, that is the petition which will be heard.

[27:41]

So also here, we receive whatever you ask, believe that you shall receive. And that is such a beautiful word, which is so deeply true and realized at the moment in which we receive Holy Communion. Whatever we ask in prayer, we receive it right in. But because what do we ask in prayer? We ask in prayer that we become one with our Lord Jesus Christ, and that through Him And in the Holy Spirit we may praise the Father, because that is our salvation, that is our blessedness, that is our joy, that is the fulfillment of our entire human existence. That is the thing we were created for, and therefore

[28:46]

ask for it in prayer, addressing ourselves to the Father as creatures that need help of our Lord Jesus Christ, that have to be redeemed by him shedding his blood for us and giving his body for us. And that is what we receive in Holy Communion. So that there is the peace, the thoughts of peace are fulfilled, and these thoughts of peace which we receive in the very person of our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, they are also the divine answer to all our human ways. He needed to sit by the house and pray for that.

[29:38]

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