Tuesday, 26 February, 2008
TUESDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK IN LENT (III)
(Day of fast – traditional)

Collect: Graciously hear us, O almighty and merciful God: and in Thy loving kindness grant to us the fruits of wholesome temperance. 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 Fourth Book of Kings, 4:1-7.
[This Epistle shows us in the wondrous increase of a small quantity of oil at the word of Eliseus, by the sale of which a poor widow was enabled to pay an inhuman creditor, a figure of the mercy of our Lord, whose infinite merits supply the ransom for our sins.]
Gospel: Continuation of the holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, 18:15-22.
[The clemency or mercy of the Jews was content to forgive three times; Jesus says here in the Gospel that we are to forgive seventy times seven times, that is: always.]

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)