How is your DGO crossword?
At the moment I am labouring to scan pictures a Nunraw-An Album History Lecture.
Meanwhile a quick check with WDTPRS
. . . as below.
Donald
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: William Wardle
To: Dom Donald.Nunraw
Sent: Sunday, 15 April 2012, 9:10
Subject: DGO gem
From: William Wardle
To: Dom Donald.Nunraw
Sent: Sunday, 15 April 2012, 9:10
Subject: DGO gem
Dear Father Donald,
There is a true gem on the Daily Gospel Org today, the commentary from St. Basil of Seleucia on the reaction of Thomas to the news of Christ's resurrection: "The Lord appeared again and dispelled both the sadness and the doubt of his disciple. What am I saying? He did not dispel his doubts, he fulfilled his expectation. He entered, all the doors being shut."
Some people I know spend the best part of a day puzzling over a clue in the crossword. I shall spend the day pondering upon this thought, wondering if I will truly appreciate its meaning for myself by nightfall!
With my love in Our Lord,
William
+ + +
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/04/wdtprs-low-sunday-quasimodo-sunday-sunday-in-albis/
WDTPRS “Low” Sunday, “Quasimodo” Sunday, Sunday “in albis”
This Sunday has many nicknames. In the post-Conciliar calendar it is the “Second Sunday of Easter (or of Divine Mercy)”. It is also called “Thomas Sunday” (because of the Gospel reading about the doubting Apostle), and “Quasimodo Sunday” (from the first word of the Introit), and “Low Sunday”.
This is also the conclusion of the Octave of Easter, during which we halted our liturgical clocks and contemplated the mysteries we celebrated from different points of view.
Since ancient times this Sunday has been called “Dominica in albis” or “in albis depositis”, the Sunday of the “white robes having been taken off.” 1 Peter 2:2-3 says:
“Like (Quasimodo – from a Latin Scripture translation that pre-dated the Vulgate by St Jerome) newborn babes (infantes), long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”
Holy Mass on “Low Sunday” begins with an exhortation of the newly baptized, who were called infantes. The infantes wore their white baptismal robes for the “octave” period following Easter during which they received special instruction from the bishop about the sacred mysteries and about the Christian life. Today they put off their robes and, in some places, left them in the cathedral treasury as a perpetual witness to their baptismal vows.
Today’s Collect, based on a prayer in the Missale Gothicum, begins by calling God merciful:
Deus misericordiae sempiternae, qui in ipso paschalis festi recursu fidem sacratae tibi plebis accendis, auge gratiam quam dedisti, ut digna omnes intellegentia comprehendant, quo lavacro abluti, quo spiritu regenerati, quo sanguine sunt redempti.
Those clauses with quo, having no conjunctions (a trope called asyndeton) gives this prayer a forceful feeling, as do those abluti…regenerati…redempti with the single sunt.
Accendo means “to kindle anything above so that it burns downward” and also “to illuminate, to inflame a person or thing”. It recalls the fiery liturgical imagery of the Vigil. Comprehendo, a vast verb, is “to lay hold of something on all sides.” Think of “comprehensive”. It concerns grasping something with the mind in a thorough way (on all sides). A lavacrum is “a bath”. In Titus 3:5 we read, “He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy (misericordiam), by the washing of regeneration (lavacrum regenerationis)…”. Abluo, “to wash off, wash away, cleanse, purify”, is used by Cicero (d 43 BC) to describe a calming of the passions through a religious rite of washing away sin (Tusc 4, 28, 60) and also by the poet philosopher Lucretius (d AD 55) to describe the removal of darkness by the bringing in of light (De rerum natura 4, 378). Early Latin speaking Christians adapted and “baptized” existing religious vocabulary to express their faith as it grew over time with new theological insights. Abluo was ready made to be adapted to describe the effects of baptism.
CURRENT ICEL (2011):
God of everlasting mercy, who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast kindle the faith of the people you have made your own, increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed, that all may grasp and rightly understand in what font they have been washed, by whose Spirit they have been reborn, by whose Blood they have been redeemed.
The priest prays that, by the recurring sacred mysteries we veteran Christians and neophytes, together as a people, will be always renewed and that our grasp of how we have been redeemed and our comprehension of the effects of that redemption will continually deepen.
We who were once set on fire with the indwelling of the Spirit, should each day ask God to rekindle us, burn us up again from above. We should pray daily for an increase of a faith that seeks to grasp, comprehend, understand ever more fully who Our Lord is and who we have become in Him. Grace and faith precede and prepare our fuller comprehension. On our own we can grasp only so much. Faith brings to completion what reason begins to explore. As the ancient adage goes: “Nisi credideritis non intellegetis… Unless you will have first believed, you will not understand.”
St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) preached to his infantes with the imagery of spring, and compared the newly baptized to little birds trying to fly from the nest while the parent bird (Augustine himself) flapped around them chirping noisily to encourage them (s. 376a). Then they were then out of the nest of the bishop, as it were, on their own in living their Catholic lives.
Holy Church wants us to comprehend these mysteries in a way that makes a concrete difference. The infantes had to get to the business of living as Catholics after they put off their white robes. Those of us who were baptized long ago must remember always to continue wearing our baptismal garments in our hearts and to live outwardly the Catholic faith we put on within.
7 Responses to WDTPRS “Low” Sunday, “Quasimodo” Sunday, Sunday “in albis”
1. 
Rellis says:
Rellis says:And, to clear up any misconceptions which have been repeated on other blogs, the Collect for the OF has been this Collect since long before JP2 coined this “Divine Mercy Sunday.” Some are under the impression he changed the 1969 M.R. Collect in order to fit the new theme. He did not.
Perhaps if we kept some of those ancient traditions, we would have such a high rate of dropouts. The second largest “denomination” in America is former Catholics. We have a very high rate of converts who leave Holy Mother Church. Perhaps if this 8 day wearing of white robes- or shirts in today’s age- were restored, it might make more of an impression on our converts.
Whaddaya think?
This Sunday must hold the record for the most monikers of any liturgical day of the whole year!
What a beautiful collect! I am shuddering to think how my pastor will alter it to make it more “user-friendly”…
It is interesting to note that the Gospel reading for this Sunday in the Ordinary Form is the same in the Extraordinary Form, recounting both “doubting” Thomas and the institution of the Sacrament of Mercy: Penance and Reconciliation (“confession”).
4. asperges says:
asperges says:I have managed to get to Mass twice in the week: Monday (Dominican rite) and today EF. The Masses are quite striking and today’s starts that epistle of St Peter about the “geniti infantes” which is picked up in tomorrow’s introit. The collects are similar in theme also. All week, the Victimae Paschali sequence has been recited and the Credo as well as the Gloria even in weekday masses. Haec Dies gradual of Easter Sunday is repeated with different endings too all week as well as the ‘Ite .. alleluia, alleluia’ which stops today (though not in the NO). From tomorrow, double alleluias come in and continue until the end of Paschaltide. So very moving and striking, these liturgical niceties.
[BTW: Divine Mercy seems better to sit within Lent than on today - perhaps the now 'vacant' 1st Sunday of the Passion would be a better spot for it.]
5. poohbear says:
poohbear says:[BTW: Divine Mercy seems better to sit within Lent than on today - perhaps the now 'vacant' 1st Sunday of the Passion would be a better spot for it.]
Jesus Himself asked St Faustina for the Divine Mercy feast to be the Sunday after Easter. I wouldn’t mess with it.
6. Kathleen10 says:
Kathleen10 says:Beautiful words, thank you.
After having intended and tried to, for multiple years, I am planning to go to Stockbridge, Massachusetts for the Divine Mercy Sunday celebration. Every year it was SOMETHING, flu, snowstorm (about five years ago) etc. Tomorrow is my pilgrimage, and I am thrilled. I am asking the Lord for a posthumous Plenary Indulgence for my Mom, who passed last August. I think this is ok, and I feel strongly the Good Lord will grant it, even if it is not technically “ok”.
I can’t wait to go!
I can’t wait to go!
7. Bea says:
Bea says:How beautiful.
Words that lift up the heart and fortifies our Catholicism.
A “blood transfusion” for the soul.
We hunger for words like these in our parishes.
Thank you Fr. Z
Words that lift up the heart and fortifies our Catholicism.
A “blood transfusion” for the soul.
We hunger for words like these in our parishes.
Thank you Fr. Z
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