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From:
Legio Christi <primus.pilus@gmail.com> Date: Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:58 AM
Subject: Septuagisma Sunday
To: Centurions ListServe <
order-of-centurions@googlegroups.com>
The Sunday called Septuagesima
the third Sunday before Lent
Septuagesima Home
O LORD, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we which are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
Source: Sacramentary of Bishop Gregory of Rome [600 AD]. The collect shows the great stress that Gregory knew from all sorts of calamities and threats - often perceived directly as a result of the sin of the nation. Note the penitent tone of the collect in this somber season. This pre-Lenten season of three Sundays was instituted in about 700. Septuagesima is the pre-Lent Sunday approximately 70 days before Easter.
Gen 1 Psalms 8, 148 | 104; 1 Corinthians ix. 24 & St. Matthew xx. 1
Homily of Augustine on the Gospel
Comment
Today at the link one may read Augustine's homily on the parable of the Householder and the Laborers. Before he addresses the parable, he writes of God the Good Husbandman:
"God cultivateth us." For that we cultivate God, there is no need to be proved to you. For all men have this on their tongue, that men cultivate God, but the hearer feels a kind of awe, when he hears that God cultivates man; because it is not after the ordinary usage of men to say, that God cultivateth men, but that men cultivate God. We ought therefore to prove to you, that God also doth cultivate men; lest perchance we be thought to have spoken a word contrary to sound doctrine, and men dispute in their heart against us, and as not knowing our meaning, find fault with us. I have determined therefore to show you, that God doth also cultivate us; but as I have said already, as a field, that He may make us better. Thus the Lord saith in the Gospel, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches, My Father is the Husbandman." What doth the Husbandman do? I ask you who are husbandmen. I suppose he cultivates his field. If then God the Father be a Husbandman, He hath a field; and His field He cultivateth, and from it He expecteth fruit.
I recall Paul's words to the Corinthians in his first epistle:
"I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase .... ye are God's husbandry...
We remember that in the physical church militant there coexists God's wheat and Satan's tares together [Matt xiii. 18]. We may consider Augustine's words and watch for those who "have spoken a word contrary to sound doctrine" in our day. Test every strange doctrine against the only true rule we have, and that is the unchangeable Word of God. Beware of those who claim they have a Word from the Holy Spirit to lead them -- and not the doctrine of the Church based on scripture. Look for the good fruits of God's husbandry in the lives of his saints, but for the hand of Satan in those hypocrites, frauds, and snake-oil salesmen who rob the flock [1Cor vi.10]
Finis
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Legio Christi-Ecclesia Militans
"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" [St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 14:19]
* ORDO CENTURIONUM * IN HOC SIGNO VINCES * TIME DEUM ET OPERARE IUSTITIAM
--
Released by Primus Pilus
Legio Christi-Ecclesia Militans
"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" [St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 14:19]
* ORDO CENTURIONUM * IN HOC SIGNO VINCES * TIME DEUM ET OPERARE IUSTITIAM
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