Today begins the holy season of Lent. Just yesterday I recieved the multi volume work of Dom Gueranger entitled the Liturgical Year. For today it says, among many other things, this:
Yesterday, the world was busy in its pleasures, and the very children of God were taking a joyous farewell to mirth: but this morning, all is changed. The solemn announcement, spoken of by the prophet has been proclaimed in Sion: The solemn fast of Lent, the season of expiation, the approach of the great anniversaries of our Redemption. Let us, then, rouse ourselves, and prepare for the spiritual combat.
But in this battling of the spirit against the flesh we need good armour. Our holy mother the Church knows how much we need it; and therefore does she summon us to ender into the house of God, that she may arm us for the holy contest.
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We are entering, to-day, upon a long campaign of the warfare spoken of by the apostles: forty days of battle, forty days of penance. We shall not turn cowards, if our sols can but be impressed with the conviction, that the battle and the penance must be gone through. Let us listen to the eloquence of the solemn rite which opens our Lent. Let us go whither our mother leads us...
Let us keep one another in prayer during this Holy Season.
