Run the Race

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.

We have barely come out of the joyful season of Christmas, welcoming the Babe who will be our savior, when it seems we are headed for the mourning of the end of His life, preparing for that event with much prayer, fasting and abstinence. Of course, in the end, we have the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life for all who "run the race" to win the prize.

Septuagesima Sunday, this year, February 16, leads us into the season of Lent. The names of the three Sundays before Ash Wednesday were borrowed from the numerical system of the ancient time, Septuagesima - 70th day, Sexagesima - 60th day, Quinquagesima - 50th day before Easter, to correspond with the name of Lent, Quadragesima in Latin, or 40th. They do not correspond actually with the indicated period.

We now have purple on the altar and in the vestments. We omit the Gloria and Alleluia in the Mass. We prepare for the penitential season. We have lost Heaven through Adam and Eve. We have the means now, after Christ's death and resurrection, which opened that door for us, to retrieve what we have lost through our first parents and through our own sinful lives.

It was interesting this year, that Septuagesima came during the Olympics. St. Paul's Epistle: 1 Corinthians, 9:24-27, and 10:1-5, compares our life to a contest. We must fight, mortify ourselves, race to the intended goal. We are told by good pastors that Catholic life is hard, is a struggle, will have pain and suffering to test us and our resolve. We need to turn away from the corruptible rewards of the world and strive for the incorruptible reward of Heaven. "Brethren: Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain." He admonishes us to bring our bodies into subjection. He reminds us that though all who followed Moses drank the same spiritual drink and ate the same spiritual food, ".....with most of them God was not well pleased."

Then, in the day's Gospel, Matthew 20: 1-16, we are told the parable of the landowner and his hiring of laborers, from the first hour to the last. All receive the same wage, which they agreed to. Those who worked the longest complained that it was not fair. There are those of us who serve God all our lives and expect that we will be rewarded, perhaps seeing those who come to the Lord at the last minute, not equal in grace. All of us are called to do the Lord's work, and all of us will receive the same reward, if we are faithful.

Our Sunday church bulletin had quotes from a sermon of Pope St. Gregory the Great (d. 64 A.D.). They take up the last words of that Gospel, For many are called but few are chosen "because there are many that arrive at faith, but few that are led into the heavenly kingdom.........Behold the voices of all proclaim Christ, but the lives of all do not proclaim Him. And many keep company with God in word, but shun Him in deed. And it was with this in mind that Paul said: They profess that they know God; but in their works they deny Him. (Titus 1:16).....And says the Lord Himself by the mouth of the psalmist: I have declared and I have spoken: they are multiplied above numbers. (Ps. 39:6). At the call of the Lord the faithful are multiplied without number, because not a few come also to faith who do not belong to the elect. Here below they are mingled with the faithful through confession, but because of their reprobate way of life they shall not merit to be partakers of the lot of the faithful.....Nor can they who are slaves to the pleasures of their bodies be there numbered in the flock of His sheep. There the judge shall separate from the lot of the humble those that now exalt themselves upon the horns of pride. Neither shall they receive a kingdom who, though formed in heavenly faith, with all their hearts seek the things of earth."

So should we run our earthly race, as hard as we can, to obtain the prize, and to be among those who are chosen to receive that incorruptible crown of eternal happiness, for which God intended us. Begin now to think of how your life, for the health and welfare of your soul, might be improved. Lent give us 40 days to contemplate the four last things - Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell.