Sermon for Dominica in Quinquagesima
Scuola Invernale «Ecclesia Mater»
Ariccia
15 February 2026
1 Cor 13, 1-13
Lk 18, 31-43
Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
At the threshold of the Season of Lent, we are like the Blind Beggar on the roadside near Jericho. We are deeply conscious of our sins, of our forgetfulness of God and of His love. We are conscious, too, of the sinful nature of so many aspects of our culture when it rebels against God and the order which he has placed in nature and has written upon the human heart. We are conscious that we and our culture suffer a profound blindness which can only be dispelled by Christ Who teaches us: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”[1] We know that Christ alone has saved us from sin and that He alone can help us with His grace to overcome sin in our personal lives and in our world, but we have preferred to follow our selfish desires and the false prophets of the world.
During the Season of Lent, Our Lord comes into our lives with strong grace for our conversion to Him Who is alive for us in His holy Church. He passes by our way, as He passed by the way of the Blind Beggar, not on some insignificant journey but on the way to Jerusalem where “everything” in the Law and the Prophets regarding salvation, regarding Him, God the Son Incarnate, “will be accomplished,”[2] according to His own words to the Twelve Apostles. Anticipating His presence among us throughout the Season of Lent, we, together with the Blind Beggar, cry out to Him in prayer: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Lord, let me receive my sight!”
From the moment of our baptism, Our Lord has poured forth into our hearts, from His glorious-pierced Heart, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Our cooperation with the grace of our baptism, our practice of the theological virtues, leads us ever more into the light of Christ and to its perfection in His presence forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Apostles, because their thinking was yet too worldly, did not understand what Our Lord was teaching them about His approaching Passion, Death, and Resurrection. They were yet blind, but they loved Our Lord and stayed with Him. The grace of His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension transformed their minds and hearts to understand the Paschal Mystery and to practice the theological virtues in an heroic way. Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his commentary for Quinquagesima Sunday, instructs us:
Jesus tells His apostles, that His bitter Passion is at hand; it is a mark of His confidence in them; but they understand not what He says. They are as yet too carnal-minded to appreciate our Saviour’s mission; still they do not abandon Him; they love Him too much to think of separating from Him. Greater by far than this is the blindness of those false Christians, who, during these … days, not only do not think of the God who shed His Blood and died for them, but are striving to efface from their souls every trace of the divine image![3]
Today, let us, in a particular way, meditate on anything in our daily living which draws us away from Our Lord, which fails to cooperate with His grace which animates our souls, which leads us from light into darkness. Let us, at the same time, renew our confidence in Our Lord Who never abandons us along the way of our earthly pilgrimage to our destiny in Heaven but unceasingly and immeasurably offers His mercy and grace. Let us treasure in our hearts Our Lord’s response to Blind Beggar: “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”[4]
Saint Paul’s praise of love in today’s Epistle provides for us the method of our meditation, for our following of Christ is, in the end, an act of love of God and our neighbor. Dom Guéranger instructs us regarding the theological virtue of charity:
This virtue, which comprises the love both of God and of our neighbour, is the light of our souls. Without charity we are in darkness, and all our works are profitless. The very power of working miracles cannot give hope of salvation, unless he who does them have charity. Unless we are in charity, the most heroic acts of other virtues are but one snare more for our souls. Let us beseech our Lord to give us this light. But let us not forget that, however richly He may bless us with it here below, the fullness of its brightness is reserved for when we are in heaven; and that the sunniest day we can have in the world, is but darkness when compared with the splendour of our eternal charity. Faith will then give place, for we shall be face to face with all truth; hope will have no object, for we shall possess all good; charity alone will continue, and, for this reason, is greater than faith and hope, which must needs accompany her in this present life. This being the glorious destiny reserved for man when redeemed and enlightened by Jesus, is it to be wondered at that we should leave all things, in order to follow such a Master? What should surprise us, and what proves how degraded is our nature by sin, is to see Christians, who have been baptized in this faith and this hope, and have received the first fruits of this love, indulging during these days, in every sort of worldliness, which is only the more dangerous because it is fashionable. It would seem as though they were making it their occupation to extinguish within their souls the last ray of heavenly light, like men that had made a covenant with darkness. If there be charity within our souls, it will make us feel these offences that are committed against our God, and inspire us to pray to Him to have mercy on these poor blind sinners, for they are our brethren.[5]
Let us pray today that the days of strong grace of the Season of Lent will be especially a time for us to seek from the mercy and love of God the healing of any blindness in our souls and in the souls of our brothers and sisters. Let us pray that through our Lenten observance we may follow ever more wholeheartedly the light of Christ and may assist our brothers and sisters to do the same.
May the annual Winter School of the Scuola «Ecclesia Mater» help us to recognize any darkness in our lives and to seek in Christ the light which dispels all darkness. May our time together help us to recognize Christ Who is daily passing along our way and to seek from Him the cure of our blindness, the cure of the blindness which afflicts our culture.
Let us now unite our hearts to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the foot of the Cross, placing our hearts totally within the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus which He now opens to us as He makes sacramentally present His Sacrifice on Calvary by His Eucharistic Sacrifice. Lifting up our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, let us implore Him: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Lord, let me receive my sight!” Let us be confident of His response to us: “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”[6]
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinale Burke
[1] Jn 8, 12.
[2] Lk 18, 31.
[3] “La voix du Christ annonçant sa douloureuse Passion vient de se faire entendre, et les Apôtres qui ont reçu cette confidence de leur Maître n’y ont rien compris. Ils sont trop grossiers encore pour rien entendre à la mission du Sauveur ; du moins ils ne le quittent pas, et ils restent attachés à sa suite. Mais combien sont plus aveugles les faux chrétiens qui, dans ces jours, loin de se souvenir qu’un Dieu a donné pour eux son sang et sa vie, s’efforcent d’effacer dans leurs âmes jusqu’aux derniers traits de la ressemblance divine !” Prosper Guéranger, L’Année liturgique, Le Temps de la Septuagesime, 17ème éd. (Tours : Maison Alfred Mame et Fils, 1924, pp. 225-226. [Guéranger]. English translation : Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Septuagesima, tr. Laurence Shepherd (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2000), p. 191. [GuérangerEng].
[4] Lk 18, 42.
[5] “Cette vertu, qui renferme l’amour de Dieu et du prochain, est la lumière de nos âmes ; si elles en sont dépourvues, elles demeurent dans les ténèbres, et toutes leurs œuvres sont frappées de stérilité. La puissance même des prodiges ne saurait rassurer sur son salut celui qui n’a pas la Charité ; sans elle les œuvres en apparence les plus héroïques ne sont qu’un piège de plus. Demandons au Seigneur cette lumière, et sachons que, si abondante qu’il daigne nous l’accorder, ici-bas, nous la réserve sans mesure pour l’éternité. Le jour le plus éclatant dont nous puissions jouir en ce monde n’est que ténèbres auprès des clartés éternelles. La foi s’évanouira en présence de la réalité contemplée a jamais ; l’espérance sera sans objet, dès que la possession commencera pour nous ; l’amour seul régnera, et c’est pour cela qu’il est plus grand que la foi et l’espérance qui doivent l’accompagner ici-bas. Telle est la destinée de l’homme racheté et éclairé par Jésus-Christ ; doit-on s’étonner qu’il quitte tout pour suivre un tel Maître ? Mais ce qui surprend, ce qui prouve notre dégradation, c’est que des chrétiens baptisés dans cette foi et cette espérance, et qui ont reçu les prémices de cet amour, se précipitent en ces jours dans des désordres grossiers, si raffinés qu’ils paraissent quelquefois. On dirait qu’ils aspirent à éteindre en eux-mêmes jusqu’au dernier rayon de la lumière divine, comme s’ils avaient fait un pacte avec les ténèbres. La Charité, si elle règne en nous, doit nous rendre sensibles à l’outrage qu’ils font à Dieu, et nous porter en même temps à solliciter sa miséricorde envers ces aveugles qui sont nos frères.” Guéranger, pp. 222-223. English translation : GuérangerEng, pp. 188-189.
[6] Lk 18, 42.