Blessed Schuster’s Daily Thoughts on the Rule: Third Sunday of Lent
3rd Sunday of Lent
The Devil’s Strategy
1. Today the station is on the Via Tiburtina, near the tomb of St Laurence, in the major basilica dedicated, however, to the Most Holy Virgin. In the Gospel reading, therefore, Our Lady must be commemorated. Such is the genius of the Roman liturgy, to seek if possible in the readings of the Mass allusions to the basilica where the Station gathers.
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In the first part of the reading is described the state of the world before the Redemption of Jesus Christ. Satan, strongly armed, guarded his spoils without opposition, and exercised over them that evil rule which is well represented by the tyranny of the idolatrous governments of that time.
Traditum huiusmodi Satanae (Rule, Ch. 25: ‘Such a man is as if delivered over to Satan’), Saint Benedict would write, following the example of Saint Paul [1 Cor 5:5].
One arrives on the scene, however, stronger than the devil: Jesus Christ. He disarms the usurper, takes back his spoils, and distributes the booty to His own, granting the Church temporal goods too: Ascendens in altum…dedit dona hominibus. (Eph 4:8: ‘Going up on high, He distributed His gifts to men.’)
The Cassinese Patriarch [St Benedict] did precisely this. He chased out the devil from his ancient shrines; he took back from him the souls which he had reduced to slavery, and he consecrated all the old acropolis of Cassino to the worship of the true God.
2. The Saviour opportunely warns us that His victory over idolatry does not dispense the Church from standing continually at arms against the new unforeseen assaults of the ancient adversary. Satan, once defeated, wants revenge. He takes with him the seven demons of the capital vices, and moves again to the siege. If in the meantime Christ’s soldiers are resting on their laurels, the conquest of the stronghold of religion will not be difficult, and the conditions of a region which apostatises from Christianity will become worse still than those of the pagan peoples.
This is why Saint Benedict continually rouses his disciples to arms, even in the turreted fortress of Monte Cassino.
‘To carry out thy military service under the true King, Christ the Lord, thou dost seize the splendid and most solid arms of obedience.’ (Rule, Prologue) Beware, alas! a monk outside of obedience is a soldier without arms.
Even the holy anchorites, like Saint Anthony and Saint Hilarion, must engage in combat, and how! Ad singularem pugnam heremi…sola manu vel brachio contra vitia carnis vel cogitationum, Deo auxiliante, pugnare sufficiunt. (Rule, Ch. 1: ‘They withdraw to the desert, to the hand-to-hand struggle against the Devil, and with the help of God they can now strive against the temptations of the flesh and of the thoughts.’)
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3. While Jesus is preaching, a lady, perhaps a mother, interrupts and exclaims: ‘Blessed the womb that bore Thee and the breasts which Thou hast sucked.’
The Saviour, however, completes and spiritualises this overly material praise of the Mother of God, and adds: ‘Rather, blessed they who listen to the divine word and observe it.’
The praise of the divine maternity made by the unnamed woman is valid exclusively for Mary Most Holy, who is the historical Mother of Jesus. The Lord’s, by contrast, can concern us too, because it proposes for us a Marian program of holiness, at once easy and imitable.
Saint Benedict translates it into his own language:
Obsculta, o fili, praecepta magistri et inclina aurem cordis tui et admonitionem pii Patris libenter excipe et efficaciter comple. (Rule, Prologue: ‘Hearken, O son, to the precepts of the Master, and bend the ear of thy heart. Welcome willingly the teaching of the loving Father, and generously fulfill it.’)
Three things, therefore, are asked of us: Audi, custodi, perfice [Hear, keep, carry out], and may the Most Holy Virgin be gracious to thee.