2nd Sunday in Boring Time

Ever since an old acquaintance explained to me the concept of Boring Time, I've never felt like referring to it by any other name.

In any case, by a happy coincidence that even Bugnini didn't efface, the Collect this Sunday is the same as that for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, so I felt rather at home when at early Mass at Carmel to-day; again, Fr Kene was the celebrant, again the nuns sang the Kyrie and Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei in Latin plainchant, and I was able to hear a solid homily, assist at the tremendous Sacrifice, and receive its fruits in Holy Communion.

The other orations of the Mass were also noteworthy; the oratio super oblata was the Secret for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost in the old Missal, and the post communio was the Postcommunion for Friday after Ash Wednesday in the same (changing only tua to una).

In order to the better pray the Mass, I read along in the Latin of Eucharistic Prayer III, which I find orthodox and acceptable, though I wish for the Roman Canon and not some recent composition based on a suggested model by Dom Cipriano Vaggagini, however learned.

Fr Kene preached quite well on the universal vocation to holiness, which is God's perpetual call to each one of us in our state here and now to do His Will by living a moral life and acting as His instruments to call others also to heed the same still, small Voice, just as we ourselves have heard His Call through intermediaries deployed in our path by Divine Providence that we may be saved.  Thus he expatiated on the call of Samuel in I Kings (I Samuel) iii, and its more perfect image in the call of the first Apostles by Our Lord in St John i, 35-42.  In particular, he exhorted us to fly fornication, as St Paul so counsels in I Corinthians vi, 13-20.  

I was amused, let us say, to note that - as Paul VI desired - the passages for the Lesson and the Epistle have been edited to remove the more earthy and distressing verses; which of course are just the lessons we really need!  So God's judgement upon the iniquitous house of Eli are omitted (I Kings iii, 11-18), and the stark words of the Apostle (I Cor. vi, 15b-16):

Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  Never!  Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For, as it is written, "The two shall become one".

The much-vaunted ultra-copious lectionary of the Novus Ordo is I think foolishly bowdlerized.  How stupid, in our oversexed shameless culture!