{"id":17036,"date":"2019-03-07T08:37:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T13:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/?p=17036"},"modified":"2023-03-07T09:11:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T14:11:07","slug":"choosing-life-through-clinging-to-christ-along-the-way-of-the-cross-thursday-after-ash-wednesday-march-7-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/choosing-life-through-clinging-to-christ-along-the-way-of-the-cross-thursday-after-ash-wednesday-march-7-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Life through Clinging to Christ along the Way of the Cross, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, March 7, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Father\u00a0Roger J. Landry<br \/>\nVisitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan<br \/>\nThursday after Ash Wednesday<br \/>\nMemorial of SS. Perpetua and Felicity<br \/>\nMarch 7, 2019<br \/>\nDt 30:15-20, Ps 1, Lk 9:22-25<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-17036-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3.7.19-Homily-1.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3.7.19-Homily-1.mp3\">https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3.7.19-Homily-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The\u00a0following points were attempted in the homily:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Throughout Lent, we focus first and foremost on God\u2019s desire to save us and to recognize, as we heard yesterday with St. Paul, that \u201cnow<em>\u00a0<\/em>is the day of salvation,\u201d this Lent, today is the time to respond. \u201cGod so loved the world,\u201d St. John tells us in his most famous passage, \u201cthat he sent his only Son so that all who believe in him might not perish but might have eternal life.\u201d God does not want us to perish. He didn\u2019t even spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, as St. Paul reminds us in Romans, so that we might not perish but have life to the full. But God\u2019s will is not enough, because he willed to make us free. We need to respond to that offer. \u00a0Todays\u2019 readings, on our second day in\u00a0the pilgrimage of Lent, are about the choices we are called to make in response to that offer and to the grace God gives us that St. Paul appealed yesterday that we wouldn\u2019t take in vain. The choice is framed by Moses in today\u2019s first reading. The Israelites were drawing toward the end of their 40 year pilgrimage in the desert. Moses had led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, accompanied them through the desert for four decades and now they were on the opposite side of the Jordan from the long-awaited Holy Land. God had told Moses that he would die before crossing, so Moses in today\u2019s first reading, was giving as a sort of last will and testament, a summary of what God had done for them and taught them. As the long experience of their time in the desert had taught them, however, God\u2019s wondrous actions were not enough. The ten plagues weren\u2019t enough. Their passing through the Red Sea on dry land wasn\u2019t enough. The manna from heaven, the daily quails, the water from the rock the theophanies associated with giving the Ten Commandments were not enough. None was sufficient to keep many of the Jews faithful. Many of them complained that they should have remained in Egypt, others made a golden calf, even Aaron the high priest fell into the clutches of a wavering faith. So Moses want to urge them to choose and choose wisely. He framed the decision facing them as it truly was, a decision of life and death:\u00a0\u201cToday I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.\u201d\u00a0He reminded them that the choice for God is a life-giving choice, a choice full of blessing; and that the choice against God, even if it might seem at first a choice that leads to life and happiness, is actually fatal. This is not something, of course, that they recognized. Throughout the desert they complained that they had left their fleshpots in Egypt behind just to perish in the desert by following the Lord. Along the way, many times they thought that the choice for God was a choice for death. But it was a choice for life. And those who sought the counterfeit path of turning their hearts away from God, of refusing to listen, of adoring and serving other gods, never made it out of the desert.<\/li>\n<li>That\u2019s the choice that faces all of us in Lent as we enter not into a 40 year but 40 day journey. Lent historically and actually is a catechumenate, an ecclesial preparation for baptism at the Easter Vigil or, for those of us who have already been baptized, a 40 day renewal of the meaning of our baptism. Like the Jews, we have been set free from the slavery of sin and death, passing through the waters of baptism like the Jews passed through the Red Sea. We are presently in the desert with Jesus for these 40 days looking with him toward the eternal promised land that is anticipated in the celebration of Easter. It\u2019s a time for us to focus on the graces of our liberation and the choice God has given to our freedom between life-giving fidelity through \u201cloving him, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments,\u201d through \u201cheeding his voice and holding fast to him\u201d or the path that leads to death under the seduction of bringing life.<\/li>\n<li>The contrast between these two paths is highlighted in today\u2019s Psalm, which is the first of all the Psalms and the one that in a sense orients the praying of every psalm. It describes the \u201cblessed man\u201d who \u201cdelights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night\u201d as like a \u201ctree planted near running water that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves never fade.\u201d He receives life and is able to give life from his contact with the \u201cliving water\u201d of God. On the hand, the \u201cwicked\u201d man, the one follows \u201cthe counsel of the wicked, \u2026 walks in the company of way of sinners, [and] sits in the company of the insolent\u201d as \u201clike the chaff that the wind drives away.\u201d There are no roots, no substance, no life. The Psalm says, \u201cthe way of the wicked vanishes.\u201d That\u2019s the choice facing us as we begin Lent.\u00a0Tahe question comes to us: Isn\u2019t this choice a no-brainer? Who, after all, would consciously choose\u00a0<em>death\u00a0<\/em>over\u00a0<em>life?\u00a0<\/em>It\u2019s like the choice between eating filet mignon or tree bark.\u00a0But in the Gospel we see why the choice, though conceptually simple, is morally challenging.<\/li>\n<li>But before we get there we should stop to reflect on St. John Paul II\u2019s insights about this passage within the context of the Gospel of Life that you, Sisters, live, announce to the world and help others to live. In\u00a0<em>Evangelium Vitae\u00a0<\/em>28, St. John Paul says, that we need to be \u201cfully aware that we are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the \u2018culture of death\u2019 and the \u2018culture of life.\u2019 We find ourselves not only \u2018faced with\u2019 but necessarily \u2018in the midst of\u2019 this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life. For us too Moses\u2019 invitation rings out loud and clear: \u2018See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. \u2026 I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live\u2019 (Dt 30:15, 19). This invitation is very appropriate for us who are called day by day to the duty of choosing between the \u2018culture of life\u2019 and the \u2018culture of death.\u2019 But,\u201d St. John Paul II emphasizes, \u201cthe call of Deuteronomy goes even deeper, for it urges us to make a choice which is <em>properly religious and mora<\/em>l. It is a question of <em>giving our own existence a basic orientation and living the law of the Lord faithfully and consistently<\/em>: \u2018If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live \u2026 therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days\u2019 (30:16,19-20).\u201d Choosing life must become a whole way of life. And then St. John Paul II finishes by reminding us that that choice of life is <em>ultimately a choice of a Person who is the Resurrection and the Life<\/em>: \u201cThe unconditional choice for life reaches its full <em>religious and moral meanin<\/em>g when it flows from, is formed by and nourished by faith in Christ. Nothing helps us so much to face positively the conflict between death and life in which we are engaged <em>as faith in the Son of God<\/em> who became man and dwelt among men so \u2018that they may have life, and have it abundantly\u2019 (Jn 10:10). It is a matter of faith in the Risen Lord, who has conquered death; faith in the blood of Christ \u2018that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel\u2019 (Heb 12:24).\u201d<\/li>\n<li>So with that choice of a person in the desert of Lent, we turn with faith to the Gospel, where Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life incarnate, tells us that the path of life is paradoxically a path of self-denial. Just as he was going to \u201csuffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes and be killed\u201d before being raised to unending life on the third day, so \u201cif anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself\u2028 and take up his cross daily and follow me.\u2028\u201d He gets even more explicit about that paradox: \u201cFor whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,\u2028 but whoever loses his life for my sake will save.\u201d In order to obtain life, we need to die to ourselves. We need to lose our life for the sake of God and the Gospel in order to retain it. In the choice between self-denial and self-affirmation, we think that the latter is the path of life, but it really is the former. In the path between the Cross and the comfy recliner, we think the latter is the path of life, but it is the former. In the path between following Christ to Calvary and going to Club Med, we think that the latter is the path of life, but it is the former. The path of life doesn\u2019t seem to be life-giving and the path of death on the contrary does. But that\u2019s what we have to grasp. There\u2019s a choice between forfeiting oneself to gain the whole world or forfeiting the whole world to gain oneself.<\/li>\n<li>This is why living a good and holy Lent is so important. Lent is meant to help us to make the choice for real life, to help us to walk in the footsteps of Christ, to plant ourselves in his living water in the midst of the desert so that we may grow to eternity. But we need to make the full and conscious choice for life, which requires the full and conscious choice to deny ourselves, pick up our Cross and follow Christ. The three Lenten practices, when we choose to live them generously, are all geared to do this. All three teach us self-denial: fasting denies the dominion of our lower appetites, almsgiving denies our selfishness, prayer denies our egocentrism. Each, in a sense, is a Cross that leads to our self-death, because at times giving into our cravings, spending what we have on ourselves, and using our time for our own pursuits seems the path of life but they\u2019re not. And each helps us to follow Christ in his own fasting, giving of himself to the point of death, and prayer. But for these to occur, we really must choose bold resolutions that can help facilitate these spiritual fruits, rather than soft ones that even if we keep them won\u2019t really lead to the crucifixion to the worldliness that is necessary in order to experience the life that Jesus wants to give.<\/li>\n<li>Today we have two great saints who chose to follow Jesus along the way of the Cross in this way, who entered into Christ&#8217;s death so that they might rise with him, who became trees that gave fruit like the grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying. SS. Perpetua\u2019s and Felicity\u2019s stories are particularly relevant for the Sisters of Life, because they were both young mothers, martyred in the northern African city of Carthage. But they were spiritual mothers, too, for the early Church and still for us today, breastfeeding us on their heroic faith. The account of their martyrdom is one of the great hagiological treasures of the early Church, because Perpetua wrote of their sufferings in detail the day before their death, and eyewitness accounts of their martyrdom were immediately spread around the early Church. These accounts were so highly regarded by the early Christians that St. Augustine needed to remind them that they should not be treated during Mass with the same reverence as the readings from Sacred Scriptures. Perpetua was a 22 year-old newlywed and mother of a small child and Felicity was a young married slave pregnant with her first child. They were arrested as catechumens and baptized in prison awaiting execution. They both knew that to profess Christianity was a \u201ccrime\u201d punishable by death, but they were undeterred.\u00a0Perpetua\u2019s father, an old man and a pagan, tried all means imaginable to get his daughter to save her life by saying a prayer and making a small sacrifice to the pagan gods. He first begged her to have mercy on his white hair. As deeply as Perpetua loved her father, Perpetua replied, \u201cI cannot call myself by any other name than what I am \u2014 a Christian.\u201d She knew the faith was a treasure and she wasn\u2019t going to be ashamed of it. She observed Jesus\u2019 teaching that we must pick up our Cross and follow him, we must become like the grain of wheat and fall to the ground and die, we must \u201close\u201d our life in order to save it, we must acknowledge Christ before others and he will acknowledge us before the Heavenly Father. Her father in desperation tried violently to shake her, but he wasn\u2019t able to shake her of her fidelity. Finally he brought her much-loved baby boy, saying, \u201cLook upon your son who cannot live after you are gone,\u201d and throwing himself at her feet begged her with tears not to bring such dishonor on their whole family. Perpetua wrote of how much she grieved for her father and family, but entrusted herself to God, whom she knew loved her family even more than she did and would take care of them should she die for love of him. When she was led before the procurator of the province, Hilarian, he tried all the same tactics of the threats of torture, of the pain of her father, of the ruin that would come to her son. But none worked. Upon his query, \u201cAre you a Christian,\u201d she answered resolutely, \u201cYes, I am.\u201d\u00a0 She was sentenced to be killed by wild boars, cows, leopards, bears and gladiators in a spectacle for bloodthirsty soldiers.\u00a0Alongside her on the altar of the arena was Felicity. Because she was pregnant when captured, she feared that she might not be able to give the supreme witness of her love for Christ, because in general Romans did not execute women who were pregnant lest they execute a child for the \u201ccrime\u201d of the mother. She asked some clandestine Christians, however, to pray for an early childbirth and her prayers were answered. She gave birth to a girl whom two of her fellow Christians adopted. As she was being led into the ampitheater, she was singing triumphal psalms and rejoicing that she had so quickly passed \u201cfrom the midwife to the gladiator, to wash after the pangs of childbirth in a second baptism.\u201d She was to be baptized in the same baptism of blood for which Jesus once longed and said, \u201cThere is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!\u201d (Lk 12:50). She was renewing her baptismal commitments as she was heading to the fulfillment of baptism. She was, to quote St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, being baptized into Christ\u2019s death so as to share in his resurrection. The procurator set a savage cow upon Felicity and Perpetua. The cow violently threw Perpetua down on her back, tearing her tunic and disheveling her hair. Perpetua got up and quickly pinned her hair, since letting one\u2019s hair down in the ancient world was a universal sign of mourning. In the meantime, the cow had gone after Felicity and had brutally tossed her on the ground. Perpetua ran over to her and helped her up the cow ran away. They stood awaiting another attack, but none came. They turned to the crowd and shouted to the Christians among them, as great teachers and observers of the wondrous gift of faith, \u201cStand fast in the faith and love one another, and do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.\u201d They gave each other the kiss of peace, and since the cow wouldn\u2019t kill them, the gladiators were dispatched to pierce them with a sword and send them to God. They then completed their earthly journey of faith soon after their baptism. Their faith came to perfection, as did their hope and love. And they gave the ultimate witness of keeping Christ\u2019s words and teaching others to do the same.<\/li>\n<li>Today, with Moses, Jesus and the Church place before us, like he did before SS. Perpetual and Felicity, this choice between life and death, between a blessing and a curse, between the fruitful tree and the chaff. God so loves the world that he gives us his only Son continuously in our participation in his life-giving death and resurrection in the Eucharist, as we opt to lose our life with him so as to be saved by him forever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The readings for today\u2019s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<h4>Reading 1<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/deuteronomy\/30:15\">DT 30:15-20<\/a><\/h4>\n<div>Moses said to the people:<br \/>\n\u201cToday I have set before you<br \/>\nlife and prosperity, death and doom.<br \/>\nIf you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,<br \/>\nwhich I enjoin on you today,<br \/>\nloving him, and walking in his ways,<br \/>\nand keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,<br \/>\nyou will live and grow numerous,<br \/>\nand the LORD, your God,<br \/>\nwill bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.<br \/>\nIf, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,<br \/>\nbut are led astray and adore and serve other gods,<br \/>\nI tell you now that you will certainly perish;<br \/>\nyou will not have a long life<br \/>\non the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.<br \/>\nI call heaven and earth today to witness against you:<br \/>\nI have set before you life and death,<br \/>\nthe blessing and the curse.<br \/>\nChoose life, then,<br \/>\nthat you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,<br \/>\nheeding his voice, and holding fast to him.<br \/>\nFor that will mean life for you,<br \/>\na long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore<br \/>\nhe would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h4>Responsorial Psalm<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/psalms\/1:1\">PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 AND 6<\/a><\/h4>\n<div>R. (40:5a)\u00a0Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.<br \/>\nBlessed the man who follows not<br \/>\nthe counsel of the wicked<br \/>\nNor walks in the way of sinners,<br \/>\nnor sits in the company of the insolent,<br \/>\nBut delights in the law of the LORD<br \/>\nand meditates on his law day and night.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.<br \/>\nHe is like a tree<br \/>\nplanted near running water,<br \/>\nThat yields its fruit in due season,<br \/>\nand whose leaves never fade.<br \/>\nWhatever he does, prospers.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.<br \/>\nNot so the wicked, not so;<br \/>\nthey are like chaff which the wind drives away.<br \/>\nFor the LORD watches over the way of the just,<br \/>\nbut the way of the wicked vanishes.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h4>Gospel<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/luke\/9:22\">LK 9:22-25<\/a><\/h4>\n<div>Jesus said to his disciples:<br \/>\n\u201cThe Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected<br \/>\nby the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,<br \/>\nand be killed and on the third day be raised.\u201d<br \/>\nThen he said to all,<br \/>\n\u201cIf anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself<br \/>\nand take up his cross daily and follow me.<br \/>\nFor whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,<br \/>\nbut whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.<br \/>\nWhat profit is there for one to gain the whole world<br \/>\nyet lose or forfeit himself?\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/JesusCarryCross.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-17037\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/JesusCarryCross.jpg?resize=300%2C205&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Father\u00a0Roger J. Landry Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan Thursday after Ash Wednesday Memorial of SS. Perpetua and Felicity March 7, 2019 Dt 30:15-20, Ps 1, Lk 9:22-25 &nbsp; To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below:\u00a0 &nbsp; The\u00a0following points were attempted in the homily:\u00a0 Throughout Lent, we focus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11309,1063,3,5],"tags":[2806,242,4902,4906,4904,7910,1795,4899,4901,2466,3613,316,4900,1857,2093,2529,1765,3207,4905,11439,4903],"class_list":["post-17036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-2019-year-i","category-audio-homily","category-homily","category-year-i","tag-almsgiving","tag-baptism","tag-blessed-man","tag-blessing-and-a-curse","tag-catechumenate","tag-choosing-life","tag-cross","tag-dt-3015-20","tag-exodus","tag-fasting","tag-jews","tag-lent","tag-lk-922-25","tag-losing-our-life-to-save-it","tag-moses","tag-pilgrimage","tag-prayer","tag-ps-1","tag-self-denial","tag-ss-perpetua-and-felicity","tag-tree-planted-near-running-water"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Choosing Life through Clinging to Christ along the Way of the Cross, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, March 7, 2019 - Catholic Preaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/choosing-life-through-clinging-to-christ-along-the-way-of-the-cross-thursday-after-ash-wednesday-march-7-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Choosing Life through Clinging to Christ along the Way of the Cross, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, March 7, 2019 - Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Father\u00a0Roger J. Landry Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan Thursday after Ash Wednesday Memorial of SS. Perpetua and Felicity March 7, 2019 Dt 30:15-20, Ps 1, Lk 9:22-25 &nbsp; To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below:\u00a0 &nbsp; The\u00a0following points were attempted in the homily:\u00a0 Throughout Lent, we focus [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/choosing-life-through-clinging-to-christ-along-the-way-of-the-cross-thursday-after-ash-wednesday-march-7-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-03-07T13:37:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-07T14:11:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/JesusCarryCross-300x205.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. 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