[Officium]
Feria Quarta infra Hebdomadam II in Quadragesima

[Lectio1]
Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
!Matt 20:17-28
In that time, Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples apart, and said to them: Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death. And so on.
_
Homily by St. Ambrose, Bishop (of Milan.)
!Bk. v to Gratian, on Faith, c. ii
Consider what it was that the mother of Zebedee's children came to Christ desiring, with, and for her sons. She was a mother, who, longing for the honour of her sons, preferred a request immoderate, and yet pardonable. She was a mother who, albeit stricken in years and comfortless, at an age when she had sore need of the strength of her offspring to help and keep her, was yet so earnest in godliness and motherly love, that she had liefer suffer the loss of her sons, that they might gain the reward of following Christ still, as we read they had already done, when, at the first call of the Lord, they left their nets and their father, (iv. 21, 22.)

[Lectio2]
She, then, yielding to the intensity of her motherly love, besought the Saviour, saying, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one at thy right hand and the other at thy left hand, in thy kingdom. Although it was a mistake, it was a mistake of love. For a mother's love knoweth no moderation. Yet, although it was a greedy prayer, that was a pardonable greed, which hungered, not for riches, but for grace. Neither was that request shameless which sought, not her own good, but her children's. Remember that she was a mother. Think how that she was a mother.

[Lectio3]
Christ took into His consideration that mother's love of hers, which made her sons' reward the comfort of her own old age, and which could bear the loss of her loved ones, broken as she was by a mother's yearnings. Consider also that she was a woman, that is, of the weaker sex, to which the Lord had not yet given strength by His Passion. Consider, I say, that she was an heiress of Eve, and weakened by that transmission of the unbridled covetousness of the first woman, which the Lord had not yet disarmed by His Blood, even that craving for undue dignity, wherewith all our natures are imbued, and which Christ's Bloodshedding had not yet washed away. She erred indeed, but the mistake was an inherited weakness.

[Ant 2]
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, * and the Son of man shall be betrayed to be crucified.

[Oratio 2]
Look down in mercy upon thy people, O Lord, we beseech thee, and grant unto them, whom Thou commandest to abstain from fleshly meats, power to abstain also from the corruption of sin.
$Per Dominum

[Ant 3]
For He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, * to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify.

[Oratio 3]
God, the Renewer and Lover of innocency, turn the hearts of all thy servants to thyself, that so they, being enkindled with the fire of thy Spirit, may be found ever rooted in faith, and fruitful in works.
$Per Dominum