Thursday, 28 February, 2008
THURSDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK IN LENT (III)
(Day of fast – traditional)


Collect: Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the help of Thy grace: that duly applying ourselves to fasting and prayer, we may be delivered from enemies of mind and body. 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 Jeremias the Prophet, 7:1-7.
[Let us pray to the Divine Physician, that the severe abstinence of the Lenten fast may cool the fever of our passions and assure our salvation.]
Gospel: Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. Luke, 4:38-44.
[We must imitate the example of Jesus, and during Lent follow Him with the holy liturgy in His ministry of redemption. Let us love to listen to the word of God: it will cure our souls and secure them from the Devil who seeks to reign therein.]

ST. GABRIEL OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS, Confessor (III)
“St. Gabriel, born at Assissi A.D. 1838, was guided by Our Lady into the Passionist Institute and became a veritable Apostle of her Sorrows. His life was throughout perfect and irreproachable. He died at the age of twenty-four and many miracles bore witness to his holiness. He was canonized by pope Benedict XV, who gave him as a pattern to young people.”

Collect: O God who didst teach blessed Gabriel to think continually of the sorrows of Thy most sweet Mother, and didst exalt him through her by the renown of holiness and miracles: grant us through his intercession and example so to join Thy Mother in her grief that we may be saved by her maternal protection: Who livest and reigneth with Thy Son Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.
Epistle: From the First Letter of Bl. John the Apostle, 2:14-17.
[We must not love the world, but do the will of God.]
Gospel: Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. Mark, 10:13-21.
[Give to the poor whatsoever thou hast, and come, follow me.]

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)