For those Glorious Dead of conflict in the preservation of peace and freedom, dona eis requiem sempiternam!
The XXIII Sunday after Pentecost is celebrated outside of this dispensation and our liturgical notes focus our minds toward the conclusion of the church year.
So as we approach the end of the liturgical year, the Church now discusses the only conditions under which Jesus bestows human peace and Divine Life. After all, have not His words and life shown him to be a God, not "of affliction," but "of peace?" Has he not brought us "back" to His own "blessed Land" from our own "captivity" (Introit) in which "through our weakness we become entangled" (Prayer)?
Have we not become "enemies of the Cross," bringing about our own "destruction," as the Epistle describes it? The Epistle advises, however, that we first of all "stand fast in the Lord" and "be of one mind in the Lord" with one another in order that He might "reform the body of our lowness" in personal and public life and be delivered from the "depths" (Gradual). Christ will turn around to help us anywhere on the road of life if we only touch "the hem of His garment" in faith. But if we surround ourselves with a multitude of creatures and created things who laugh their Creator to scorn, "making a tumult," He will only come in when we put them out (Gospel ) . Hence, when we "pray" (Communion), our chief petition should be for an "increase of our service" to God (Secret), and to "overcome human dangers" so as to share in the "Divine" life.
Today is Feast of the Holy Four Crowned Martyrs, names unknown, but church is Rome on Coelian Hill, is named in their honour. Although not commemorated in Masses using the 1962 Missal, pray to them for strength against the evils that confront us.