Posted on 04/09/2005 10:25:21 AM PDT by Mike Fieschko
Excerpts from The Liturgical Year by Dom Guéranger, O.S.B.
From catholichaven.org, here is part of Dom Guéranger's commentary on Good Shepherd Sunday. The rest is at Second Sunday After Easter.
THIS Sunday goes under the name of Good Shepherd Sunday, because in the Mass there is read the Gospel of St John, wherein our Lord calls himself by this name. How very appropriate is this passage of this Gospel to the present season, when our divine Master began his work of establishing and consolidating the Church, by giving it the pastor, or shepherd, who was to govern it to the end of time!
In accordance with the eternal decree, the Man-God, on the fortieth day after his Resurrection, is to withdraw his visible presence from the world. He is not to be again seen upon the earth till the last day, when he will come again to judge the living and the dead. And yet he could never abandon mankind, for which he offered himself on the Cross, and delivered from death and hell by rising triumphantly from the grave. He will continue to be its Head after his Ascension into heaven: but what shall we have on earth to supply his place? We shall have the Church. It is to the Church that he will leave all his own authority to rule us; it is into the hands of the Church that he will entrust all the truths he has taught; it is the Church that he will make the dispenser of all those means of salvation which he has destined for the world.
This Church is a society, unto which all mankind is invited. It is composed of two classes of members; the governing and the governed; the teaching and the taught; the sanctifying and the sanctified. This society is the Spouse of Christ; it is by her that he produces his elect. She is the one only Mother of the elect; out of her bosom there is no salvation.
But how is this society to subsist? how is it to persevere through the long ages of time, even to the last day? who is to give it unity and adhesion of its parts? what is to be the visible link between its members—the palpable sign of its being the true Spouse of Christ, in the event of other societies rising up and disputing her titles? If Jesus himself could have remained with us we should have had nothing to fear, for where he is, there also are truth and life; but, as he says, he is going, and we may not as yet follow him. Give ear, then, and learn what is the primary quality of the true Spouse of Christ.
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I put a link to this site on Angelqueen. I noticed it's for sale.
You should post these on the '62 Sunday Missal threads.
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