139 part i: sunday meditations for the entire year ing him by his right hand, then handing him a little staff to lean on, and eventually taking it back and telling him to walk without any guide or support. Thomas à Kempis teaches what should be done in such circumstances, exhorting us to stir up hope and prayer. “We must not despair,” he says, “when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently, that He may see fit to help us, for according to the words of St. Paul, ‘with the testing he will also provide the way out’ as well as with tribulation, ‘so that you may be able to endure it’ (1 Cor 10:13).”35 SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF EPIPHANY36 Before Holy Communion 1. “And when [H]e was twelve years old” (Lk 2:42). When you hear that the 12-year-old Jesus is going with His most holy parents to the Temple of Jerusalem, admire His piety and recall your own conduct, deeds, and behavior when you were of a similar age. That was the time when you started offending God, loosening the restraints of your wanton youth, and falling into all sorts of evil and transgressions. Oh, what a contrast 35 Ibid., Bk. I, Ch. 13, § 7. 36 The Octave of Epiphany (along with a number of other Octaves) was suppressed by the decree Cum hac nostra aetate by the Sacred Congregation of Rites under Pope Pius XII on Mar. 23, 1955. [Cf. R. Kevin Seasoltz, The New Liturgy: A Documentation, 1903 to 1965, Herder and Herder, New York 1966, pp. 203209.] At that time, and continuing up until 1969 when the liturgical calendar was changed again for the Novus Ordo, the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph was celebrated on that particular Sunday. (I.e., the Feast of the Holy Family was celebrated on was the same Sunday until 1969, but pre-1955 that Sunday was called the “Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany,” and then from 1955-1969 it was called the “First Sunday after the Epiphany.”) [Cf. Rev. F.X. Lasance and Rev. Francis Augustine Walsh, The New Roman Missal: In Latin and English, Reprint of 1945 ed., Christian Book Club of America, Palmdale 1993, p. 178. Cf. The Roman Catholic Daily Missal: 1962, Angelus Press, Kansas City, MO, 2004, p. 236.] In the current liturgical calendar, the Feast of the Holy Family occurs on the “Sunday within the Octave of Christmas,” or, if there is no Sunday in that Octave it occurs on December 30. [Cf. The Roman Missal, English trans. according to 3rd typical ed., Catholic Book Publishing Corp., New Jersey 2011, p. 39.]
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