Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine)

To the seeker after fine pearls may be applied the words: “Seek and you will find,” and, “Everyone who seeks will find” (Mt 7,7-8). If you ask what is to be sought, and what will be found by everyone who seeks for it, I say with all confidence: pearls – especially that pearl which will be acquired by those who give their all, who sacrifice everything for it, the pearl Paul meant when he said: “I have accepted the loss of everything in order to gain Christ,” (Phil 3,8). “Everything” means beautiful pearls; “to gain Christ” refers to the one pearl of great price. Admittedly, a lamp is precious to people in darkness, and they need it until sunrise. Precious too was the radiance on the face of Moses (2Cor 3,7) – and I believe on the faces of the other prophets also. It was a sight of beauty leading us to the point of being able to see the glory of Christ, to whom the Father bore witness in the words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” (Mt 3,17). But “compared with this surpassing glory, what formerly was glorious now seems to have no glory at all,” (2Cor 3,10). We need at first a glory destined to be outshone by an “all-surpassing glory”, just as we need the partial knowledge which “will be superseded when that which is perfect has come,” (1Cor 13,9f.). Thus everyone beginning to live a spiritual life and “growing toward maturity,” (Heb 6,1) needs tutors, guardians, and trustees until the “fullness of time” (Gal 4,4) arrives for him, so that after all this, he… may on his emancipation receive his patrimony. This patrimony is the pearl of great price, and “the coming of what is perfect to supersede what is imperfect” (1Cor 13,10) when, after acquiring the forms of knowledge, if we may call them so, which are inferior to knowledge of Christ, one becomes able to understand “the supreme value of knowing Christ,” (Phil 3,8). Yet many do not understand the beauty of the many pearls of the Law and of “the partial knowledge” scattered through all the prophets; they wrongly think that, without having fully understood the Law and the prophets, they can find the one pearl of great price…: the full comprehension of the gospel and the complete understanding of the acts and words of Christ Jesus.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team

Do you want to know how Jesus, far from abolishing the law and the prophets, comes rather to confirm and to complete them? Where the prophets are concerned, this happens first of all when he confirms through his works what they had announced. This is where the expression comes from, constantly repeated in St. Matthew: “That the word of the prophets might be fulfilled” (…) Where the law is concerned, Jesus fulfilled it in three ways. First of all, by not omitting any of its legal requirements. He told John the Baptist: “We must do this if we would fulfil all of God’s demands,” (Mt 3:15). To the Jews he said: “Can any of you convict me of sin?” (Jn 8:46) (…) In the second place, he fulfils it because he wanted to submit himself to it for our salvation. Oh marvel! By submitting to it, he communicated to us, too, the grace of fulfilling it! St. Paul teaches us this when he says: “Christ is the end of the law. Through him, justice comes to everyone who believes,” (Rom 10:4). He also says that the Savior condemned sin in the flesh “so that the just demands of the law might be fulfilled in us who live not according to the flesh,” (Rom 8:4.) He also says: “Are we then abolishing the law by means of faith? Not at all! On the contrary, we are confirming the law,” (Rom 3:31). For the law aimed at making a person righteous, but it didn’t have the strength do so so; then Christ came, he who is the end of the law, and he showed us the way which leads to righteousness, that is to say faith. Thus he fulfilled the law’s intention. The letter of the law could not justify the sinner; faith in Jesus Christ will justify him. That is why he can say: “I have not come to abolish the law.” Now, if we look more closely, we can perceive a third way of fulfilling the law. What is this? It consists in the very precepts, which Christ had to give; far from overturning those of Moses, they are their just consequence and their natural complement.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team

It is now fitting we should consider the time of our Lord’s coming. He came, as you know, not in the beginning, nor in the midst of time, but in the end of it. This was no unsuitable choice but a truly wise dispensation of infinite Wisdom who, aware that the sons of Adam are inclined to ingratitude, ordained that she would not come to their help until they were in the greatest need. Truly, “it was evening and the day was far spent”, and the “Sun of justice” had almost set (Lk 24:29; Mal 3:20); only a faint ray of its light and heat remained on earth. The light of divine knowledge was very small, and as iniquity abounded so the fervor of charity grew cold (Mt 24:12). No angel appeared; no prophet spoke. The angelic vision and the prophetic spirit alike had passed away, both hopelessly baffled by the obduracy and obstinacy of humankind. Then it was that the Son of God said: “Behold, I come” (Ps 40[39}:8; Heb 10:7). And “while all things were in quiet silence and night was in the midst of her swift course, your almighty Word leaped down from heaven, from your royal throne” (Wis 18:14-15). As the apostle Paul says: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son” (Gal 4:4).

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team

In our own day we see many people at prayer but, unfortunately, we see none of them turning back to give thanks to God… “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?” As I think you will remember, it was in these words that our Savior complained about the lack of gratitude of the other nine lepers. We read that they knew well how to make “supplications, prayers, petitions” since they lifted up their voices, crying out: “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” But they lacked the fourth thing required by the apostle Paul: “thanksgiving” (1Tm 2:1) for they did not turn back nor give thanks to God. We see still more in our own day people who implore God for what they lack but a mere handful who seem to be grateful for the blessings they have received. There is no harm in imploring him, but what causes God not to grant our prayers is his finding us lacking in gratitude. After all, perhaps it is even an act of mercy on his part to hold back from the ungrateful what they are asking for so that they may not be judged all the more rigorously on account of their ingratitude… For it is sometimes out of mercy that God holds back his mercy… So you see that not all those who are healed of the leprosy of this world, I mean their manifest complaints, profit by their healing. Indeed, many are secretly afflicted with an ulcer worse than leprosy, all the more dangerous in that it is more interior. That is why it was right that the Savior of the world should ask where the other nine lepers were, since sinners avoid healing. So, too, after his sin, God questioned the first man: “Where are you?” (Gn 3:9).

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team

“Watch, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” Like many other scriptural texts, this admonition is addressed to all of us, though it is formulated in such a way that it would seem to concern only Christ’s immediate audience. We can all apply it to ourselves because the Last Day and the end of the world will come for each of us on the day we depart this present life. This means we must make sure we die in the state in which we wish to appear on the Day of Judgment. Bearing this in mind each of us should guard against being led astray and failing to keep watch, otherwise the day of the Lord’s return may take us unawares. If the last day of our life finds us unprepared, then we shall be unprepared on that day also.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team