Monday, 18 February 2008
MONDAY IN THE SECOND WEEK OF LENT (III)
(Day of fast – traditional)


Collect: Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that Thy household, in mortifying the flesh by fasting from food, may follow after Thy justice by abstaining from sin. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who livest and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.
Lesson: From the Prophet Daniel, 9:15-19.
[The wrath of God, the Almighty Lord of Heaven and Earth, which fell the first time on Jerusalem at the time of the captivity into Babylon, was renewed against Israel at the burning of the Temple. Like guilty Christians, they would only be able to return to the Lord by penance, while the heathen are called instead to believe in Jesus, to become part of His people by baptism.]
Gospel: Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. John, 8: 21-29.
[Our Lord Jesus Christ foretells that the Jews will lift Him up on the cross, and thrice He says that they will die in their sin, because they have not believed in Him and have neglected to do His works.]



Remarks are abstracted from The Daily Missal and Liturgical Manual, from Editio Typica of the Roman Missal and Breviary, 1962
(Baronius Press Limited, London, 2004, in conjunction with the Fraternal Society of St. Peter, www.baroniuspress.com)