[Officium]
Feria VI infra Octavam Ascensionis

[Lectio1]
Lesson from the second letter of St. Peter the Apostle
!2 Pet 1:1-4
1 Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained equal faith with us in the justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2 Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord:
3 As all things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness, are given us, through the knowledge of him who hath called us by his own proper glory and virtue.
4 By whom he hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.

[Lectio2]
!2 Pet 1:5-9
5 And you, employing all care, minister in your faith, virtue; and in virtue, knowledge;
6 And in knowledge, abstinence; and in abstinence, patience; and in patience, godliness;
7 And in godliness, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity.
8 For if these things be with you and abound, they will make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 For he that hath not these things with him, is blind, and groping, having forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

[Lectio3]
!2 Pet 1:10-15
10 Wherefore, brethren, labour the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time.
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
12 For which cause I will begin to put you always in remembrance of these things: though indeed you know them, and are confirmed in the present truth.
13 But I think it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance.
14 Being assured that the laying away of this my tabernacle is at hand, according as our Lord Jesus Christ also hath signified to me.
15 And I will endeavour, that you frequently have after my decease, whereby you may keep a memory of these things.

[Lectio4]
From the Sermons of Pope St. Leo the Great.
!2nd for the Lord's Ascension.
Dearly beloved brethren, that mysterious thing, our salvation, which the Maker of the universe thought worth purchasing with His Own Precious Blood, was aimed at by Him, in the dispensation of His humility, from the hour wherein He was born as touching the flesh, till the moment when, at the end of the Passion, He cried on the Cross: „It is finished.“ Although from under the form of a servant many marks of His Godhead shone forth, yet, as a whole, the work of those three-and-thirty years was to manifest the verity of the Manhood Which the Son of God had taken into Himself. But when the suffering was all over, and the bands of death were broken, (that death which had lost all his power by seeking to bind Him Who knew no sin,) then was weakness changed into strength, mortality into immortality, insult into that glory which the Lord Jesus Christ, on so many occasions, made manifest by so many and infallible proofs, until the day came when that triumphant procession of victory, which He had led from the realms of shattered death, followed Him with unimaginable pomp into the heavens.

[Lectio5]
On the solemn Feast of the Passover the cause of our joy was that Christ was risen again. This day we rejoice because that He is ascended up into heaven. We call to mind and justly celebrate that day whereon our lowly nature was, in the Person of Christ, borne up high above all the heavenly armies, above all the circles of Angels, beyond the heights of all the Powers, even to where Christ is sitting on the right hand of the Father. Our foundations are laid, and our house is built upon this succession of the works of God and His grace is made more wonderful by this, that, though the visible Object of worship is removed from among men, the faith of the Church doth not grow weak, nor her hope wavering, nor her love cold.

[Lectio6]
It is the back-bone of a strong mind and the eye of a trusty soul, to believe unhesitatingly that which is not seen with the bodily eyes, and to centre all love where there can be no experimental knowledge. This it is which is the only thing we can have of godliness for how could a man be justified through faith, if the saving objects were objects of sight There was a man who would not believe in the Resurrection of Christ until he had examined by sight, and touched the marks of the Passion in the Divine Body, and the Lord said to him Because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.“ (John xx. 29.)

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to Mark
!Mark 16:14-20
At that time: Jesus appeared unto the eleven disciples as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And so on.
_
Homily by Pope St. Gregory the Great.
!Same as before.
„He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned.“ Perchance some man will say within himself: „I have already believed, and therefore I shall be saved.“ Thou hast well said, if thou showest thy faith by thy works. He only hath a true faith whose life doth not give the lie to his confession. Hence it is that Paul saith, touching some who were falsely faithful: „They profess that they know God but in works they deny Him.“ (Tit. i. 16.) And John likewise saith: „He that saith, I know Him and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar.“ (I. ii. 4.)

[Lectio8]
Once, then, it so standeth, it is to our lives we must look for proof of the reality of our faith. Then only are we truly Christ's faithful people when our works are the fulfilment of our profession. The day whereon we were baptized we bound ourselves to renounce all the works of the old enemy, and all his pomps. Therefore let every one of you now turn his inward eye upon his own behaviour, and if, since his baptism, he hath kept that promise which he made before it, let him know that he is in very truth one of Christ's faithful ones and let him rejoice.

[Lectio9]
But if he hath utterly broken his promise, if he hath fallen away to work iniquity, and to lust after the pomps of the world, let us see if he now knoweth how to weep over his backsliding. By the merciful Judge that man is not punished as a perjurer who in the end telleth the truth, even though he hath first lied. Because Almighty God doth, in His tender kindness, so receive our contrition, that, in His judgment, He declareth us not guilty of that which we have done amiss.
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