Four Days of September Boudon & Birthday ... Saint Padre Pio The Holy Church celebrates today (but also Wednesday and Friday) the Four Days of September , days of penance are normally accomplished on Saturday, computers. Here is the nice comment that gives Dom Guéranger:
For the fourth time this year, the holy Church of his son comes to claim the tribute of penance intended from the beginning of Christianity to spend the season. Wednesdays will be found to the third week of Advent and Lent the first, historical data concerning the imposition of Ember, we recalled in those days the intentions that must govern, among Christians, accomplishing this task in their annual service.
winter, spring and summer, marked by their early abstinence and fasting, in turn saw the blessing of heaven down to the months in which they are made, the Autumn reaps the rewards that God's mercy, appeased by the satisfactions sinful men, deigned to germinate within the earth cursed. Entrusted the precious seed on the ground in time of frost has penetrated the soil from the first sunny days when Passover was announced, it gave the field the graceful emerald dress that suited them to join the triumph of Lord soon faithfully that at the same time, our souls should be in the spotlight of the Holy Spirit, its stalk grew up under the action of the burning sun, the spike yellowing has promised a hundredfold the farmer, the harvest was completed in joy, and now the sheaves piled up in the attic of the father to invite man raise his thoughts to God that he came all the property. It does not say, as did the rich of the Gospel after a bumper harvest, " My soul, thou art much goods laid up for many years rest, eat, drink, good cheer! "And God said to him, the Gospel adds:" Fool! Tonight we gonna reapply your soul that you have prepared, for whom will it be? "For us, if we truly want to be rich in God and deserve his help in the conservation, not least in the production of the fruits of the land use at the beginning of this new season, same means of penance to us three times already so useful. The rest is a formal command of the Church, requiring, under pain of grave sin, anyone who is not lawfully excused from abstinence and fasting in three days.
We have previously demonstrated the need for private initiative is needed on the ground of repentance, the Christian desiring to advance in the way of salvation. In this regard, however, as in all others, the private project never reached the merits and effectiveness of public action, for the Church is its very dignity and the power of atonement that attaches to the efforts of the bride, performed acts of penance on his behalf in the unity of society. St. Leo likes to return to this fundamental fact of Christian asceticism in the speech he addressed the people of Rome on the occasion of the seventh month of fasting. " Well, he said, it is open to all of us to afflict his body with penalties volunteers, and curb, sometimes softer, sometimes more severely, the carnal desires that fight against the spirit : must, however, that on certain days, be celebrated by all a general fast. Devotion is more effective and holy, whereas in the works of piety, the whole Church is united with one mind and one soul. All that is the public nature is preferable to private, and we must understand that more interest is at issue applies where the zeal of all. That particular observance of the Christian is sparing nothing for his diligence, that everyone, imploring the aid of divine protection, must bring with her, to himself, the heavenly armor against the snares of evil spirits. But the soldier of the Church, although it could behave valiantly in single combat, fight, however, more reliably and more safely at his official rank in the army of salvation, therefore it supports, in company with his brothers, and under the command of the invincible king universal war. "
Another year, these days the holy Pope and doctor insisted even more strongly and more extensively on these considerations, we can not overstate the individualistic tendencies of piety modern. We can borrow a few of his thoughts, referring the reader to the collection of his admirable speech. "Adherence set on high, says he , always prevails over private practices, whatever they may be; public law makes the action more sacred than can to specific regulations. The exercise of mortification that everyone is required by his own will, not looks, in fact, that the utility of a party and a member; fasting undertaken by the universal Church, on the contrary, leaves no one aside from the general purification, and that's when God's people become all-powerful, when the hearts of the faithful gather in unity of holy obedience, and that in the camp of the Christian army, the provisions are similar on all sides and defend the same at all locations. So here today, my beloved, the solemn fast of the seventh month invites us to store in the invincible power of this unit. Lift up our hearts to God, robbing something of this life to increase our eternal good. The plenary remission of sins is obtained without difficulty, when the whole church meets in a single prayer and faith alone. If the Lord promises to grant any request to the pious agreement of two or three that he will refuse any an innumerable people, continuing both a compliance and even praying in agreement with the same spirit? It's a great thing before the Lord, show infinitely precious, when all the people of Jesus Christ applies all the same offices, and that without distinction of sex and conditions, all levels of the same act heart. Away from evil and do good, seems the only thought of all equally, God is glorified in the works of his servants; abundant alms; person seeks only the interests of others, not his. By the grace of God that is all in all, the fruit is common and common merit, for the affection of all may be the same, despite the disproportion of faculty and those who have less to give to the richest s'égalent by the joy they feel from the generosity of others. Nothing messy in such a people, no dissimilarity, where all members of the whole body should conspire to show the same force of love. While the excellence of the parties reflects on the whole and makes its beauty. So kiss my beloved, this blessed strength of the sacred unity and enter this solemn fast with the firm resolution of intention. "
Let us not forget in our prayers and fasts in these days, the new priests and other ministers of the Church will receive the laying on of hands Saturday. Ordination of September is not usually the most numerous ones the Pope is doing in the course of the year. The August office to which the Christian people to his fathers and guides in the paths of life, however, offers a particular interest in this time of year, which responds better than any other state in this world, as he is inclined towards its ruin. The year looks, too, to its decline. The star winner we saw rise at Christmas time as a giant, to overcome the frost and restrict the power of darkness, falls now to be exhausted, to the horizon, each day is further away from the glorious zenith where we admired his incomparable brilliance, at the Ascension of our Emmanuel, his lights have lost their zeal, and if the time during which it sheds its light equally further the length of shadows, his pale disc already announced the arrival of the long nights where nature, stripped of its last ornaments under the force of storms seems to be buried forever in the icy shroud which embraces. Thus the world, once lit by the Man-God and warmed by the Holy Spirit seen in our time to cool charity, reduce light and fire of the Sun of Justice. Every revolution torn from the Church of the jewels she no longer found after the storm gusts are increasing however, and the storm becomes a normal state of societies. The error dominates, and makes the law, iniquity abounds. When will the son of man, "said the Lord, do you think it is still faith on earth?
Raise your heads therefore, children of God, because your redemption is near. But by the time Yet when the heavens and the earth, renewed for the eternal reign, will thrive in the intoxicating light of the Lamb victorious, days must elapse even worse when politicians themselves would be impressed, if possible. Importance in these unhappy times, the shepherds of the flock are at the height of their dangerous vocation and sublime! So fasting and pray, that are already so numerous losses in the ranks of the formerly faithful Christians practice of penance, does not falter. Tight in our small numbers around the church, imploring the Husband: it deigns to increase its donations those he calls the most formidable than ever honor the priesthood, he infuses his divine their caution to thwart ambushes, zeal in pursuit of untamed souls thankless perseverance until death to maintain, without reluctance and without compromise, the fullness of truth entrusted by him to the world and their preservation should be untouched by the last day, the testimony of the faithfulness of the Bride.
And one of the newly ordained is important to us since it is the venerable Henri-Marie Boudon which Saturday 19 September 1653 received at the hands of Bishop Boutault, the minor orders (porter, reader, exorcist, acolyte) and the Sub-Diaconate , by which he pledged to celibacy and the breviary, and was the very fact (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas) vow of chastity. This happened in Evreux undoubtedly the cathedral.
