Mater Dolorosa, Friday of Passion Week

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Friday in Passion Week – Feast of the Seven Dolours

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

The Station, at Rome, is in the church of Saint Stephen, on Monte Celio. By a sort of prophetic presentiment, this church of the great proto-martyr was chosen as the place where the faithful were to assemble on the Friday of Passion Week, which was to be, at a future time, the feast consecrated to the Queen of Martyrs.

Collect
Cordibus nostris, quæsumus, Domine, gratiam tuam benignus infunde: ut peccata nostra castigatione voluntaria cohibentes, temporaliter potius maceremur, quam suppliciis deputemur æternis. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen. 
Mercifully, O Lord, we beseech thee, pour forth thy grace into our hearts; that repressing our sins by voluntary mortifications, we may rather suffer for them in this life, than be condemned to eternal torments for them in the next. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Epistle
Lesson from Jeremias the Prophet. Ch. XVII.

In those days, Jeremias said: O Lord, all that forsake thee shall be confounded: they that depart from thee, shall be written in the earth (as on sand, from which their names shall soon be effaced), because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed, save me and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise. Behold they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? let it come. And I am not troubled, following thee for my pastor, and I have not desired the day of man, thou knowest it. That which went out of my lips, hath been right in thy sight. Be not thou a terror unto me; thou art my hope in the day of affliction. Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let me not be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction destroy them, O Lord our God.

Jeremias is one of the most striking figures of the Messias persecuted by the Jews. It is on this account, that the Church selects from this prophet so many of her lessons, during these two weeks that are sacred to the Passion. In the passage chosen for today’s Epistle, we have the complaint addressed to God, by this just man, against those that persecute him; and it is in the name of Christ that he speaks. He says: They have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters. How forcibly do these words describe the malice, both of the Jews that crucified, and of sinners that still crucify, Jesus our Lord! As to the Jews; they had forgotten the Rock, whence came to them the living water, which quenched their thirst in the desert: or, if they have not forgotten the history of this mysterious Rock, they refuse to take it as the type of the Messias.


And yet, they hear this Jesus crying out to them in the streets of Jerusalem, and saying: If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink. His virtues, his teachings, his miracles, the prophecies that are fulfilled in his person, all claim their confidence in him; they should believe every word he says. But they are deaf to his invitation; and how many Christians imitate them in their obduracy? How many there are who once drank at the vein of living waters and afterwards turned away, to seek to quench their thirst in the muddy waters of the world, which can only make them thirst the more! Let them tremble at the punishment that came upon the Jews; for unless they return to the Lord their God, they must fall into those devouring and eternal flames, where even a drop of water is refused. Jesus, by the mouth of his Prophet, tells the Jews that the day of affliction shall overtake them; and when, later on, he comes to them himself, he forewarns them that the tribulation which is to fall on Jerusalem, in punishment for her deicide, shall be so great that such hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. But if God so rigorously avenged the Blood of his Son against a City that was, so long a time, the place of the habitation of his glory, and against a people that he had preferred to all others—will he spare the sinner who, in spite of the Church’s entreaties, continues obstinate in his evil ways? Jerusalem had filled up the measure of her iniquities; we also have a measure of sin, beyond which the Justice of God will not permit us to go. Let us sin no more; let us fill up that other measure, the measure of good works. Let us pray for those sinners who are to pass these days of grace without being converted; let us pray that this Divine Blood, which is to be so generously given to them, but which they are about again to trample upon, let us pray that it may again spare them.

Gospel
Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem. Ch. XI.

At that time: the chief priests and Pharisees assembled in council against Jesus, and said: What do we, for this man doth many miracles? If we let him alone so, all men will believe in him; and the Romans will come, and take away our place and nation. But one of them, named Caiphas, being the high-priest that year, said to them: You know nothing, neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this he spoke not of himself; but being the high-priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but to gather in one the children of God, that were dispersed. From that day therefore they devised to put him to death. Wherefore Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews, but he went unto a country near the desert, unto a city that is called Ephrem, and there he abode with his disciples.

Jesus is more than ever in danger of losing his life! The council of the nation assembles to devise a plan for His destruction. Listen to these men, slaves of that vilest of passions,  jealousy. They do not deny the miracles of Jesus; therefore, they are in a condition to pass judgment upon Him, and the judgment ought to be favourable. But they have not assembled to examine if He be or be not the Messias; it is to discuss the best plan for putting Him to death. And what argument will they bring forward to palliate the evident murder they contemplate? Political interests — their country’s good. They argue thus: “If Jesus be longer allowed to appear in public and work miracles, Judea will rise up in rebellion against the Romans, who now govern us, and will proclaim Jesus to be their King ; Rome will never allow us, the weakest of her tributaries, to insult her with impunity, and, in order to avenge the outrage offered to the Capitol, her armies will come and exterminate us.” Senseless Councillors! If Jesus had come that He might be King after this world’s fashion, all the powers of the earth could not have prevented it. Again — how is it that these chief priests and pharisees, who know the Scriptures by heart, never once think of that prophecy of Daniel, which fortells, that in seventy weeks of years, after the going forth of the decree for the rebuilding of the Temple, the Christ shall be slain, and the people that shall deny Him, shall cease to be His: moreover, that, after this crime, a people, led on by a commander, shall come and destroy Jerusalem; the abomination of desolation shall enter the Holy Place, the temple shall be destroyed, and the desolation shall last even to the end. How comes it, that this prophecy is lost sight of? Surely, if they thought of it, they would not put Christ to death, for by putting Him to death, they ruin their country!

But to return to the Council. The High-Priest, who governed the Synagogue during the last days of the Mosaic Law, is a worthless man, by name Caiphas; he presides over the Council. He puts on the sacred Ephos, and he prophecies; his prophecy is from God, and is true. Let us not be astonished: the veil of the temple is not yet rent asunder; the covenant between God and Juda is not yet broken. Caiphas is a blood-thirsty man, a coward, a sacrilegious wretch; still, he is High-Priest, and God speaks by his mouth. Let us hearken to this Balaam: Jesus shall die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but to gather in one the children of God, that were dispersed. Thus, the Synagogue is near her end, and is compelled to prophecy the birth of the Church, and that this birth is to be by the shedding of Jesus’ Blood. Here and there, throughout the world, there are Children of God who serve him, among the Gentiles, as did the Centurion, Cornelius; but there was no visible bond of union among them. The time is at hand, when the great and only City of God is to appear on the mountain, and all nations shall flow unto it. As soon as the Blood of the New Testament shall have been shed, and the Conqueror of death shall have risen from the grave, the day of Pentecost will convoke, not the Jews to the Temple of Jerusalem, but all nations to the Church of Jesus Christ. By that time, Caiphas will have forgotten the prophecy he uttered; he will have ordered his servants to piece together the Veil of the Holy of Holies, which was torn in two at the moment of Jesus’ death; but this Veil will serve no purpose, for the Holy of Holies will be no longer there; a clean oblation will be offered up in every place, the Sacrifice of the New Law; and scarcely shall the avengers of Jesus’ death have appeared on Mount Olivet, than a voice will be heard in the Sanctuary of the repudiated Temple, saying: “Let us go out from this place!”

Humiliate capita vestra Deo. 
Bow down your heads to God.

Concede, quæsumus, omnipotens Deus, ut qui protectionis tuæ gratiam quærimus, liberati a malis omnibus, secura tibi mente serviamus. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.


Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that we who seek the honor of thy protection, may be delivered from all evil, and serve thee with a secure mind. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.