March 16
Color: Red
Intent: Commemoration of the Martyrdom of the Holy Esclaremonde and the Holy Cathar Martyrs of Montségur in AD 1244.
COLLECT
Remember them, O Lord in Thy kingdom. The faithful who did not adore the Beast and whom the Beast has slain. The faithful who served Thee because they could do no other, who lived in an age when the right to seek Thee was bought with their lives. Remember those who gave more than they could, more indeed than they possessed; more then they ever should have given. They could do no other. Mercy, Lord on all the burned ones of this world. Mercy on all who loved beyond this world. On all who have loved. On all who have had some true thing to love. Amen.
LESSON
The Lesson is taken from the sacred texts of the Cathars:
Holy Father, Thou just God of all good souls, Thou who art never deceived, who dost never lie or doubt, grant us to know what Thou knowest, to love what Thou dost love; for we are not of this world, and this world is not of us, and we fear lest we meet death in this realm of an alien god. Pharisees, seducers, you who sit at the gates of the Kingdom; you who hold back others who would enter, yet will not go in yourselves; and because of this I pray to the Holy Father of all good souls, who has the power of salvation, and through the merit of the saved causes our souls to germinate and flourish, and for the sake of the virtuous grants life to those in iniquity; the Holy Father who will continue to do so as long as there are good men in the world, till none of my little children are left. For all those that acknowledged the mastery of Lucifer, and fell from Paradise, and come from the seven kingdoms, they rose up on a sky of glass, and for every one that rose aloft, another fell and was lost; and for this cause God came down from heaven with the twelve apostles and took a phantom shape in Holy Mary.
GOSPEL
The Gospel is taken from the Gospel according to the Cathars:
A certain woman came to the Son of God and said that her daughter was frenzied; and the Son of God placed his hand on her daughter’s head and healed her — which healing is nothing else than this; that the soul of the daughter went out of her body and that he healed the soul. For the Son of God did not free them from bodily infirmities but only from sins which are the infirmities of the soul. And this is why the Son of God was a good healer, because he drew souls to liberation. For the Son of God was none other than one of the heavenly spirits who knowing the dreadful sorrows and penalties which one needs suffer who should desire to come among men and uplift the human race, nevertheless told the Father that he himself desired to be his son, and to fulfill all things which were written in the Father’s book, however grievous they might be. Then he descended from heaven and appeared as a newly born babe in Bethlehem.
The following invocation of the Saints may be used for the Mass commemorating the Martyrdom of the Cathar Martyrs:
We call upon the immortal names of the holy martyrs of the Light: Esclaremonde de Foix, the great light of the true church, Bertrand Marty, holy bishop and teacher, bishops Peter of Carcossone and William of Albi, all the holy women and men who died for the true and ancient light; by them and in their name we unite ourselves with the martyrs and just ones that were and are and are to come. Amen.