Shrove Tuesday
A spiritual writer summarizes man’s primary business —his duty towards his soul, the breath of his creator— in the words, ‘'Remember Me.” He reminds us of the longing desire of all men to be remembered by their friends on earth, and leads us up by this consideration to Christ’s command (since Christ is God as well as man), that we should remember Him. It is the substance of His culminating address, the one before His Passion, the one in which He gave the means to remember Him perfectly. Now as our reception of Christ’s Body and Blood in Holy Communion is to the Masses we hear ; so, by analogy, is Lent—the time of our more complete recollection of His sufferings—to the rest of the year. It is a more perfect way.
Let us then, accompany His servants who shall act as guides—pedagogues to lead us, as some member of a great man’s household led his children to school in old Roman days—let us walk daily to school this Lent, to learn more perfectly than we have hitherto done the science of remembrance. Let us hasten and do that now, which may be expedient for us for ever hereafter.
~ St. Benedict.
NOTE—The mottoes after some of the readings are designed to serve as a thought for use now and again during the day, as a reminder of the morning’s meditation.