[Officium]
Sabbato infra Octavam Ascensionis

[Officium] (rubrica 196 aut rubrica 1955)
Sabbato post Ascensionem

[Lectio1]
Lesson from the second letter of St. Peter the Apostle
!2 Pet 3:1-7
1 Behold this second epistle I write to you, my dearly beloved, in which I stir up by way of admonition your sincere mind:
2 That you may be mindful of those words which I told you before from the holy prophets, and of your apostles, of the precepts of the Lord and Saviour.
3 Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 Saying: Where is his promise or his coming? for since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they are wilfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God.
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
7 But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men.

[Lectio2]
!2 Pet 3:8-13
8 But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance.
10 But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up.
11 Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness?
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with the burning heat?
13 But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promises, in which justice dwelleth.

[Lectio3]
!2 Pet 3:14-18
14 Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace.
15 And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you:
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.
17 You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.

[Lectio4]
From the Sermons of Pope St. Leo the Great.
!2nd on the Ascension.
And so the seen Presence of our Redeemer in the Body was changed for an unseen Presence in the Sacraments, and hearing was given to the Church in place of seeing, that her faith, rightly so called, might be the more victorious and stedfast and that teaching, which the hearts of all her children are called on to hear, is a teaching enlightened by rays from heaven. This faith, strengthened by the Ascension of the Lord, and established by the gift of the Holy Ghost, neither bonds, nor imprisonment, nor exile, nor famine, nor fire, nor savage beasts, nor those forms of death, finewrought in cruelty, wherein they that persecute us are well skilled, have been able to scare. For this faith there have striven throughout the whole world, even unto the out-pouring of their blood, not men only, but women also, not little lads only, but tender maidens. This is the faith which hath cast out devils, healed diseases, raised the dead.

[Lectio5]
Hence even the blessed Apostles themselves, who had been comforted by so many miracles and taught by so many discourses, were sickened by the horrors of their Lord's Passion, and received but doubtfully the assurance of His Resurrection, till after the Lord's Ascension and then fared on so bravely, that all that had been fearful to them before became joyful then. The reason was that they had lifted up all their mind to think of the Godhead of Him Who sitteth at the right hand of the Father. They asked no longer for a seen Presence, when their spiritual eye had caught the fact that, even as, when He had come down to earth, He had not left His Father, so now that He was gone up into heaven, He had not left His disciples. So then it was, dearly beloved brethren, that the Son of man more excellently and more sacredly revealed Himself as the Son of God, when He had withdrawn Himself again into that glory which He had with the Father before the world was. In some unspeakable way He began to be more present, as touching His Godhead, when He removed Himself farther from us, as touching His Manhood.

[Lectio6]
Then it was that a better instructed faith began intellectually to approach the idea of a Son equal to the Father, and no longer to need to handle in Christ the bodily Matter, Which is of a nature as touching which He is inferior to the Father since, Its nature still remaining in the glorified Body, the faith of believers was summoned to that place where the Only-Begotten Son, Who is equal to the Father, is felt, not by the application of a bodily hand, but by the effort of a spiritualminded intellect. Hence it was that after His Resurrection, when Mary Magdalene, (in whom was there represented the Person of the whole Church,) wished to handle the Lord, He said: “Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father”, that is, “I will no more that thy nearness to Me should be a nearness of body to Body, nor that thine experience of Me should henceforward be one proceeding from fleshly experiment for that, I appoint thee an higher world, I make ready for thee a nobler form of it than this after that I have ascended to My Father, a time will come when thou shalt indeed touch Me, but after a manner more perfect, more real than this, even a time when thou shalt lay hold on that which thou touchest not now, and believe that which thou seest not now.”

[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.
“And these signs shall follow them that believe In My Name they shall cast out devils they shall speak with new tongues they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” My brethren, these signs do not follow us. Do we, then, not believe Nay. The truth is, these things were needful when the Church was young. That she might grow by the increase of the faithful, she needed to be nourished with miracles. Even so we, when we plant a young tree, continually water and tend it till we see that it hath taken firm root in the earth but when once it hath taken firm root, it can grow of itself. Hence, Paul saith of tongues: “Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” (1 Cor. xiv. 22.)

[Lectio8]
We have a deeper matter of thought touching these signs and mighty works. It is the work of the holy Church to do every day spiritually that which the Apostles then did carnally. When her Priests, armed with the power of exorcism, lay their hands upon believers, and command evil spirits to dwell no longer in their souls, what is it they do but cast out devils When Christ's faithful people themselves give up the language of their old life, and speak the wonderful works of God, the glory and power of their Maker, telling of them with all their strength, what is it they do then but speak with new tongues When either the one or the other doth by his exhortation charm the wickedness out of his neighbour's heart, what is it he doth but take up serpents?

[Lectio9]
When they hear the voice of temptation inviting to deadly sin, but are not drawn thereby to work iniquity, do they not then drink a deadly thing, and it doth not hurt them? As often as they see their neighbour fainting in well-doing, and run to help him with all their might, so that their example braceth the feeble life of the waverer, what do they but lay hands on the sick and they recover And indeed, such miracles as these are the greatest miracles, which are spiritual the greatest, for they bring health, not to the dying body, but to the immortal soul.
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