Keep
your eyes open!...
Lent, 2018
(Ecc
3:1-7) All things have their season, and in their times all things pass
under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and
a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to
heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a
time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter
stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far
from embraces. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a
time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep
silence, and a time to speak.
UPDATES: Non-subscribers can access items emailed during Lent at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/tribulaton-times
VATICAN.VA: MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR LENT 2018
ALETEIA: Begin Lent with this powerful prayer to St. Michael the Archangel
NCR: Formulating a Plan of Life for Lent and Beyond
LENTEN READING: Padre Pio read this book four times!
ANNOUNCEMENT: Beginning Saturday Feb. 17, 2018, Radio Maria (https://radiomaria.us/how-to-listen/)
offers a new one-hour weekly program entitled, “Learning to Live in the
Divine Will”, hosted by Fr. J. Iannuzzi, STL, STD.. Archives will
be available at https://radiomaria.us/programs/.
Reverend George William Rutler, S.T.D.:
There are different theories as to why Schubert did not finish the
Unfinished Symphony. If his Symphony in B minor lacks two movements, it
has two, and explaining why it began is as challenging as explaining
why it did not end. Mozart did not finish his Requiem for the simple
reason that he died. That also is why Thucydides did not finish his
history of the Peloponnesian War, Raphael’s incomplete Transfiguration,
Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” which was left for Titian to complete, and
Dostoyevsky’s unrealized chapters for “The Brothers Karamzov.”
A Roman soldier’s sword prevented Archimedes from resolving a
mathematical problem. Chaucer did not finish his “Canterbury Tales”
because he had to go back to work as a clerk in the Port of London, and
Spencer did not finish the last six books of “The Faerie Queen” for
political reasons. Coleridge could not complete his “Kublai Khan”
because someone awoke him from a laudanum stupor. Perhaps the arrival
of Alessandro de Medici caused Michelangelo to quit Florence, without
finishing the statue which still puzzles experts who are not sure if it
is Apollo or David. We do know that Donatello deliberately used his
“non finito” technique to give a kind of emerging vitality to his
figures.
Artists rarely think that they have completed a work. Tolkein, for
example, kept re-writing “The Silmarillion.” At least they have an
intuition, a mental sense, of what should be realized with paint or
pen. But if life has no goal, there is nothing to complete. Chesterton
said that man has always been lost, but modern man has lost his address
and cannot return home. Far different was Saint Paul: “I have fought
the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2
Timothy 4:7)" His faith was trust that life has a goal, and it is
realized in the eternal existence offered by the Creator who made us in
his image. “In Him you have been made complete. (Col.2:10)”
The days of Lent are like signposts toward the goal. Meanwhile, we are
“works in progress,” The question is, “Can these bones live? (Ezekiel
37:3)" When Ash Wednesday is coincident with St. Valentine’s Day, there
is a stark contrast between love and sentiment. The martyr Valentine
loved so much that he sacrificed his life for the love of God. To
reduce him to some sort of cupid, is never to finish the picture. The
world’s greatest Lover shouted from the cross: “It is finished!” That
“teteletai” is an accounting term meaning “paid in full.” The Son cried
out to the Father that he had paid the debt incurred by human pride. It
is what every composer, painter, writer and scientist wants to be able
to say, but can only be said satisfactorily when Christ is seen “face
to face, and not as a stranger. (1 John 3:2)”
Easter 2018 Dates
February 14 - Ash Wednesday
March 25 - Palm Sunday
March 29 - Maundy (Holy) Thursday
March 30 - Good Friday
April 1 - Easter Sunday (Western Christianity - Roman Catholic, Anglican Communion, Protestant Churches, etc.)
April 8- Divine Mercy Sunday
April 8 - Orthodox Easter Sunday (Orthodox Christianity - Eastern Orthodox Churches)
LENTEN SABBATICAL
The TRIB
TIMES will not
be updated again this year
during the Lenten season, extending to the first week after
Easter. My computer time will be limited to 30
minutes
each morning and evening during Lent. I will read all emails I receive,
and will answer all that I can, time permitting. I may also
occasionally
email non-reformatted news articles to Trib Times subscribers that I
find
to be of particular interest. But barring a major event (admittedly not unlikely these days), the Trib
Times
web page itself will not be updated.
I
apologize to all who have recently subscribed but
will keep your email information for use after my return. God
willing,
the next issue of the Trib Times should be shortly after Divine Mercy
Sunday, April 8, 2018. Please keep me in your
prayers, and be
assured that
I will do the same.
I recommend the
following links to keep up
with unfolding events:
Catholic
News
http://www.ewtnnews.com/
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/
http://www.catholicnews.com/
Signs of the Times
http://www.spiritdaily.com/
https://www.lifesitenews.com/
http://www.lifenews.com/
Readings & Meditations for Lent &
Holy
Week
http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/index.html
http://www.lentreflections.com/
http://dynamiccatholic.com/bestlentever/
Catholic Commentary
Courageous Priest
Statements of Archbishop Chaput
Crisis Magazine
Aleteia
Newer
subscribers may also be interested in a meditation
that first appeared in the Trib Times in 2004, The
Pain of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
G.K. CHESTERTON:
“But when fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to
recover the candour and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and
objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least
to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only
by seeing it as unnatural. Things that may well be familiar so
long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar
when familiarity breeds contempt. For in connection with things so
great as are here considered, whatever our view of them, contempt must
be a mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke the
most wild and soaring sort of imagination; the imagination that can see
what is there.”
LINK TO DONATE TO AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED: https://secure3.convio.net/acn/site/Donation2;jsessionid=1B6D0D927CE5E03CD247F9BC016AAE5D.app322b?idb=1588471532&df_id=1240&1240.donation=form1&idb=0.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 22- "On the many forms of vainglory"
12. People of high spirit bear offence nobly and
gladly, but only the holy and righteous can pass through praise without
harm.
Links 
E-mail
Dr. Zambrano 
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