Quadragesima Sunday

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, Quadragesima Sunday. Quadragesima means forty, and it is now forty days until Good Friday. Quadragesima is the name in Latin for the whole season of Lent.

Today would have been a good day for the restoration of the traditional Mass. For Eastern Catholics and schismatics, "The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy" is celebrated today, in remembrance of the overthrow of Iconoclasm in AD 843. This destroying impulse had periodically afflicted the east since 726. The Holy Roman Catholic Church in recent years has had its own destroyers of pious tradition to cope with, and it still reels from the effects of their pernicious influence.

It is not yet 8 am in Rome, so it is possible that the motu could be published today. But since no one hints that Pope Benedict will do anything today on this score, apparently the wait will continue. [The Holy Father will be on retreat with the Curia this week, starting today, so no news is likely this week].

I hope the Church will not have to wander for a full forty years in a liturgical desert of its own creating.

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From the Novus Ordo first reading for today:

When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us,
imposing hard labor upon us,
we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers,
and he heard our cry
and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
He brought us out of Egypt
with his strong hand and outstretched arm,
with terrifying power, with signs and wonders;
and bringing us into this country,
he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.

Deuteronomy 26:6-9

From the traditional epistle for today:

We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful.

2 Corinthians 6:8

Both the old and new Gospel readings for today recount Jesus' temptation by the Devil, after His 40 days of fasting. The Anglican Reverend Dr. Peter Toon [who should really be Catholic] offers this meditation on the temptations of our Lord.