You know well enough that our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions,

nor even at their difficulty, but at the love by which we do them.

St Therese of Lisieux

Everything in your life that flows out of love has come to you from God. Everything in your life that is good has been initiated by God. God has done everything for you, He is everything to you, and He is enriching other lives through you. His generosity is overwhelming, His blessings are limitless, His love is endless.

No one has favored you more than God. He has removed every stain of your sin, He has cleansed all the defilement of your iniquity, and He has silenced every voice of condemnation that hung over your head. He has saved you, redeemed you, and justified you.

All of God’s grace abounds toward you, all of Christ’s riches are made available to you, and all spiritual blessings are provided for you. In Christ, you have received the treasures that can never be taken away, the hope that can never fade away, and the life that will never pass away.

As you walk with Jesus day by day, you will find that your thankfulness to Him is an ever-increasing symphony of praise, building into a lifelong crescendo of gratitude that flows from your heart to His.

You, who have so little, have received so much, because He has been so generous.

There are so many riches that He has given to you; so many answers to prayer that He has granted to you; so many kindnesses that He has manifested to you; so many joys that He has provided for you; so many mercies that He has extended to you; so many benefits that He has showered upon you.

Everything you have has come from Him, and that is the reason why your heart can be so grateful.

Thank Him today for - His Supremacy in all things, His Word, sending His Son, the gift of salvation, living in you as Holy Spirit, the Cross, the Resurrection, the angels He deploys to your side, the songs He sings over you, the patience He has with you.

Thank Him for - Being your best friend, being your Dad, being your God, being the Way, the Truth and the Life, being Light itself, being your shelter, being your coach, being your teacher, being your defender, being your judge, being your advocate, being your mentor, being your, melody that you harmonize with.

Thank Him today for - Defining love, rendering justice, extending mercy, offering grace, washing you clean, cheering you on, chastening as needed, accepting you, endorsing you, guiding you, equipping you, empowering you, sheltering you.

Thank Him today for – Eyes to see (spiritual and natural), ability to see in color, ears to hear (spiritual and natural), ears to hear without aides, taste buds to savor your meals, a nose to filter the air you breathe and smell fragrances of Life, hair to keep you warm, skin to hide your frame, internal organs that do His bidding, lungs for respiration, breathing without any medical device assistance, equilibrium and balance to keep you from falling over, hands/fingers to embrace, grab, type/write, strum with, feet to stand, legs to walk and spine to hold you upright.

Thank Him for - the ability to read and understand what you read, a mind to think with, a heart to feel with, a spirit He communes with, a soul given with will, dreams you dream, visions He gives you, the manifestation of His presence in tangible ways.

Thank Him today - that you didn’t need help getting dressed, you were able to brush your teeth, the ability to swallow, flexibility and range of motion without a walker, cane or crutch, that fact that you can sit without back pain.

Thank Him today for - Clean running water to drink and bathe in, clothes to wear, place to work, schools to study at, freedom to worship Him openly and go to church without persecution, heat to cook with, electricity to use, a house to live in, all scientific inventions, technological breakthroughs and advancements, knowledge, wisdom and understanding in medicine.

Thank Him today for - People to love, people who love you, your Dad and Mom, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, your friends, your enemies (where would we be without Judas), your spouse (if you have one), your children (if you have any), your pets (if you own any), your employer, boss and colleagues, the means by which He provides, your professors, teachers, coaches and leaders.

Thank Him today for - The nation of Israel and Jerusalem the apple of His eye, our Jewish heritage and all the Jewish patriarchs, the Jewish people (salvation comes by way of the Jews), the Holy Scriptures and all those who were martyred for translating scriptures in different languages, the missionaries worldwide who’s name will never be known on earth but is in heaven.

Thank Him today for – Our Christian President, our Christian founding fathers and the institution of government, Democracy, Freedom and the soldiers who fight to maintain it, you being born/living here, His protection over our land, His mercy covering our sins of immorality, injustice and violence.

Thank Him today for - The forgiveness of your sins, that He pursued you until you said “yes,” the peace that passes all understanding, the smiles that have come to your face because His joy is in your heart, the comfort of His presence that has quieted your heart and calmed your fears, the hope that is in you because He has promised to always be with you, the place in heaven that He has reserved and has prepared for you.

Thank Him today because - He formed you and made you, He has given you the breath of life, He has given you this day, He is working in you to become all that He has intended you to be, He is working everything in your life together for the good, He is using your difficulties and trials to conform you to His image.

Thank Him today with - Words of exaltation. Songs of celebration. A heart of strong devotion. Thoughts of deep reflection. Acts of admiration. Claps of loud ovation.

By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,

that is,

the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His Name.

this article discovered here

I only know the names of two angels, Hark and Harold.

~~~Gregory, 5

Everybody’s got it all wrong. Angels don’t wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it.

~~~Olive, 9

It’s not easy to become an angel! First, you die. Then you go to Heaven, and then there’s still the flight training to go through. And then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes.

~~~Matthew, 9

Angels work for God and watch over kids when God has to go do something else.

~~~Mitchell, 7

My guardian angel helps me with math, but he’s not much good for science.

~~~Henry, 8

Angels don’t eat, but they drink milk from Holy Cows!!!

~~~Jack, 6

Angels talk all the way while they’re flying you up to heaven. The main subject is where you went wrong before you got dead.

~~~Daniel, 9

When an angel gets mad, he takes a deep breath and counts to ten. And when he lets out his breath, somewhere there’s a tornado.

~~~Reagan, 10

Angels have a lot to do and they keep very busy. If you lose a tooth, an angel comes in through your window and leaves money under your pillow. Then when it gets cold, angels go south for the winter.

~~~Sara, 6

Angels live in cloud houses made by God and his son, who’s a very good carpenter.

~~~Jared, 8

All angels are girls because they gotta wear dresses and boys didn’t go for it.

~~~Antonio, 9

My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got a big head start on helping me while she was still down here on earth.

~~~Lynn, 9

Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal sick animals and pets. And if they don’t make the animals get better, they help the child get over it.

~~~Vicki, 8

What I don’t get about angels is why, when someone is in love, they shoot arrows at them.

~~~ Sarah, 7

Anne Marie was one of those people who truly lived the commitment and calling of being Christ’s follower.  She had raised her family and kept a home by dint of sacrifice.  As she edged into her retirement years, they fully reflected a life of faith.  Even with health challenges of her own, including cancer, she attended to the forgotten among us, with regular visits to those in need - the hungry, those in hospitals as well as nursing homes.

Her get-well cards for those she knew well and loved with a Christian heart were starling.  They were homemade spiritual bouquets.

“I have remembered you:

in 9 Masses

in the reception of Eucharist 9 times

in 9 rosaries

in the Way of the Cross 9 times

in Eucharistic Adoration 9 times

and offered them for your intentions”

and so on.  Each unique.  And each, life-giving.

“I was a girl in Catholic school the last time I experienced anything like this” one elderly woman exclaimed.  She had experienced wave after wave of disabling illnesses.  And that little card and greeting said so much to her.  She was not alone but part of a larger body - the Body of Christ.  Held before the Lord in prayer (reminding her that she was, of course, held gently and lovingly by her heavenly Father at all times.)

A wonderful gift.  Thoughtful and steeping in reality as much as any gift could be.

Now is a wonderful time to revive your own experience of the spiritual bouquet.  You learn the needs of others in a myriad of ways; arrange the “bouquet” in the way best suited to the gift recipient.

Fill it with spiritual gifts offered throughout the Advent season.  Embellish it with real or silk flowers, perhaps presented in a small basket, gathered in the festive cellophane wrapping used for artsy gifts and baskets.

Give a Spiritual Bouquet to your parents, if you are privileged to have them with you still.  Remember a sick or shut-in friend with a Bouquet.  And give them liberally to the young.  Their questions, their sense of wonder will grow as a learning experience in faith, as they unwrap your spiritual gift.

Be sure to invite the children in your family to create their own Spiritual Bouquets at Christmas - wonderful gifts for parents and grandparents.  They will delight in your instruction, in sharing a project with you.

The Spiritual Bouquet will make for a memorable gift of love for the recipient in addition to you and your family.

Author Unknown

At no other time has The Church had so many possibilities of proclaiming Jesus, thanks to the development of social communication.  For this reason, The Church today is called to make the Face of her Bridegroom shine forth with her more radiant holiness.

Pope John Paul II

O GOD OF LIFE AND LOVE, You have given us the gift to participate with You to bring new life into the world.  But, all too often, the mother’s womb, which should be a nursery of life, becomes instead a place of it’s destruction.

 

Help us to remove this evil and ensure respect for all life made in Your image and likeness, called to fulfill its promise on this Earth, and destined to find a home with You for all eternity.

 

We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our God, Our Savior, and Our ALL.

Amen.

 

 

Evangelization, Conversion and the Crisis of Faith

 

Fr. C. John McCloskey. III. and Russell Shaw

Ignatius Press 2007

Page 59

 

A SERMON FOR OUR TIMES

 

I have a dream that one of these days a conscientious new pastor is going to get up in the pulpit of his church and say something like this:

 

“My dear brothers and sister in Christ:

” I want you to understand that my associates and I are here above all to preach, to administer the sacraments, and to catechize. We do these things for you, our parishioners, so that you can do a better job of bringing Christ - and being Christ - to your families and your neighborhoods, to the people where you work and go to school, to your community, your nation, your culture, your world.

 

” That being the case, I’m here to tell you not to worry about it if you don’t have the time to get heavily involved doing things in the parish - lay ministries, committees, all that. Those things are good, and we priests welcome the participation of those among you who are able to lend a hand in that way. But doing things in the parish isn’t your first and most important job as Catholic lay people.

 

“Your job is to go out and change the world - to do what it takes to place Christ at the summit of all human activity and to help more and more people know Him and accept Him and love and serve Him.

 

” That’s what it’s all about. Please let us priests know how we can help you laity do it better.”

 

Jesus Christ, Who wishes to lead a soul to the Eucharist as to her sovereign grace, prepares her by a certain grace of sentiment which at first may be little appreciated. On First-Communion Day the feeling of happiness caused by the presence of Jesus is the first call; without the soul’s knowing it, this initial grace grows imperceptibly, very much like the germination of a seed in the earth. Well cared for, it later develops into a need, a disposition, a habit of thought, an instinct. Everything then points to the Eucharist; if the Eucharist is missing, everything is missing with it. A soul under the influence of this grace directs her piety, her virtues to the Blessed Sacrament. She experiences the need of Holy Mass and Communion. She feels drawn to enter churches to see the tabernacle. Something continually impels her in that direction. What is that power? The sovereign grace which, after having educated her, has become the mother of all her other graces, the moving principle of all her actions. She says: “I feel drawn to the Blessed Sacrament. It is not a sacrifice for me to be in Its presence. In fact, I am happy only there.” It could not be otherwise, for she is living according to her special grace…

 

… he that receives Holy Communion several times a week is drawn in a special way by the Eucharist; his sovereign grace is eucharistic. He must, therefore, turn all his other practices of piety to the Eucharist as to their mother and queen; he must foster them with the Eucharist, instill the eucharistic spirit into them.

 

The sap of a tree lies in the heart of it; it is protected by the wood and the bark. Everything in the tree tends to preserve it during the winter frosts, because it is the life of the tree.

 

Well, your sovereign grace is the sap of your spiritual life. It will make all the branches of your life fruitful. Preserve it and defend it as the heart, the soul of your supernatural life.

St. Peter Julian Eymard

 

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In her Magnificat, Our Lady says, “All generations shall call me blessed.”  When you pray through the Magnificat, you see all the Beatitudes coming to life in her beautiful exhortation of thanksgiving.  When we live her Magnificat, we will share in that blessedness.  We too will be called blessed.  We too will be happy, happy, happy.  We need to be happy! There is a strength that comes with joy.   That does not mean that there will not be sorrow, but joy and sorrow are friends.  They can live side by side in the human heart.  Our Lady knew sorrow; she also knew joy.  In her litany we say that she is the cause of our joy.  We want to be the cause of other people’s joy as well.  If the world needs anything today it needs joy.

The Lord gave me an image one time of a very busy street. It could have been any big city.  I was just watching the people coming and going.  The sidewalks were packed and hardly anybody paid attention to anybody else. It was all hurry, hurry, hurry!  I asked the Lord, “What is it that You want me to do in this image?”  He said, “Look at their faces.”  I said, “Lord, they are not happy! There isn’t any joy.”  He said, “No. They haven’t any wine.  They need the New Wine.  They need the Spirit.”  The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Intercessors need joy because we need strength for the combat that we are in all the time.  It is gift and it is fruit. We may be treading the wine press one day, yet we are still experiencing joy right along with it.  Jesus said that when the birthing has occurred, when that grace comes forth and is given, there is no joy like it.  There is no joy like it.  The intercession lifts and you know you are not treading the wine press.  You know that someone has received Jesus.   Pentecost has happened for somebody somewhere.

We are her offspring.  We are part of that generation that is blessed.  We are the blessed fruit of her heart.  All that Mary is, she wants for us so that we may sing with her every day a new song unto the Lord - a new song.  It is the Spirit playing on our heart-strings.  It is always new when God is involved.  He does not repeat Himself.  Have you ever noticed that in faces?  When we are in airports it is wonderful to watch the people come and go.  You never see anybody look alike.  How can God do that?  Wouldn’t you think that He would run out of ideas?

Mary gave herself totally.  She gave everything.  She gave everything that she was, everything that she had, everything that she really is.  And she received a hundredfold.  She received the fullness of life and the fullness of light, the fullness of love.   She received the fullness of the Trinity. She said that God had made her the most blessed of all and that her spirit rejoiced in God, her Savior.  She truly knew that the Lord was with her.  Joy is always the infallible sign of the presence of God.  Satan can imitate almost everything else.  He can imitate a false peace.  He can imitate prayer languages; he can imitate certain healings.  He can do so much imitation but he cannot imitate joy because joy is God Himself.  It is the presence of God Himself.

Can you imagine what it will be like when the Church really goes into the desert again, really becomes contemplative again and really starts receiving the enfleshment of the Word, being fed, experiencing the joy?  Can you imagine the evangelization that will go forth?  People are drawn to happy people.  Joy is contagious.  You will be able to walk down the street and say, “What do they have?”  That is what drew us, in the cloister, to the Charismatic renewal in the first place.  Bishop Joseph McKenny came and was so filled with joy.  It was wonderful to see a Bishop at the altar who was happy.  You cannot camouflage joy, can you?

We want to be people of joy.  We want to be Pentecost people.  At Pentecost, Our Lady was with the disciples so that they could have the same experience in the Upper Room which she had at the Annunciation. Out of the climate of silence, authentic prayer really begins.  Here is where revelation and contemplation comes.  As we are fed, we become quieter, more silent.  We start to gaze.  The more we gaze, the more we become like that at which we are gazing.

 

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “Lady Wisdom Sings Her Own Praises,” Omaha, NE 2005

 

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Archbishop Burke with Thomas McKenna

Note: In June Archbishop Raymond L. Burke was appointed by the Holy Father to serve as the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura.    The Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is the administrative appellate tribunal of the Holy See and, consequently, the highest judicial authority of the Catholic Church besides the Pope himself.

The Holy Eucharist: A Right or a Gift?

Examining the pastoral aspects of Canon 915 and respect for the Holy Eucharist.

Interview by Thomas J. McKenna

August 2008

Your Excellency, in today’s world there seems to be a lax attitude regarding the reception of the Holy Eucharist. Why do you think this is and do you feel that this affects the faithful in the way they lead their lives as Catholics?

One of the reasons I think that this laxity with regard to the Holy Eucharist has developed is that there has not been sufficient emphasis on Eucharistic devotion. Especially worship of the most Blessed Sacrament, through processions, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, extended times of adoration and 40 Hours Devotion. Without devotion to the Blessed Sacrament people quickly lose Eucharistic faith.

We know that there is a high percentage of Catholics who do not believe that the Eucharistic species are the Body and Blood of Christ. We know too that there is an alarming percentage of Catholics who do not participate in Sunday Mass. Another aspect is a loss of the sense of connection between the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance.

In the past, perhaps there was an exaggerated emphasis to the point where people thought that each time they were going to receive Holy Communion, they had first to go to Confession, even though they had not committed an unconfessed mortal sin. But now people go to Communion regularly and perhaps never, or very seldom, go to Confession. They have lost the sense of their own unworthiness to approach the Sacrament and of the need to confess their sins and embrace repentance in order to receive Holy Communion worthily.

Also connected with this is a sense that has grown up from the civil sphere, which is that receiving Holy Communion is a right, that I, as a Catholic, have a right to receive Holy Communion. It is true that once we are baptized and reach the age of reason we should be prepared for Holy Communion, and, as often as we are well disposed, we should receive Holy Communion. On the other hand we never have a right to Holy Communion. Who could claim that he has a right to receive the Body of Christ? This is all an act of God’s immeasurable love. Our Lord makes Himself available to us in His Body and Blood for Holy Communion. But we can never say that we have the right to Him, that we can demand to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.

Each time we approach, we should approach with a profound sense of our own unworthiness.

These would just be some of the elements which I think have entered in and explain the lax attitude toward the Holy Eucharist, in general. We see this even in the way people dress for participation in Mass. For example, we see during Mass people going up to receive Holy Communion not folding their hands and even sometimes visiting with others along the way.

Some, even at the time they are actually receiving Holy Communion, do not show the proper reverence. All of these are indications of the need of a new evangelization regarding Eucharistic faith and practice.

There are laws of the Church to control inappropriate actions by the faithful for the good of the public. Could you please comment on this and explain to what degree the Church and the hierarchy have an obligation to intervene to clarify or correct issues.

With regard to the Holy Eucharist for instance, there are two canons in particular that have to do with the worthy reception of the sacrament. Canons 915 and 916. They have in mind two goods. One is the good of the person himself. To receive the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily is a sacrilege. To deliberately receive Holy Communion unworthily, when one is in the state of mortal sin, is a sacrilege. So, for the sake of the person himself, the Church has to instruct us that each time we are going to receive Holy Communion, we should first examine our conscience. If we have a mortal sin on our conscience, we should first confess that sin and receive absolution, and only then approach to receive the Sacrament.

Many times, our serious sins are hidden and only known to ourselves or maybe one or another person. In that case, we have to be the one to monitor the situation and discipline ourselves not to approach to receive Holy Communion. But there are other cases in which people are committing grave sins knowingly and publicly. An example is a public official who knowingly and willingly supports actions which are against the Divine and Eternal moral law; for instance, to publicly promote procured abortion, which is the taking of innocent, defenseless human life. A person who is sinning in this way publicly is to be admonished not to receive Holy Communion until he has reformed his life. If a person, who has been admonished but persists in serious or mortal sin in a public way, receives Holy Communion, then the minister of Holy Communion has the obligation to refuse Holy Communion to that person.

Why? First of all, for the sake of the salvation of the person himself, lest he commit a sacrilege. But, secondly, for the sake of the whole Church, lest there be scandal in two ways. Number one, scandal regarding what our disposition should be to receive Holy Communion. In other words, people would be led to think it is alright to be in the state of mortal sin and to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. Or it could be scandal, in a second way, in that people think that the public act which this person is committing, which everyone thinks is a serious sin, must not be so serious because the Church permits that person to receive Holy Communion.

If you have a public figure who is openly and deliberately supporting abortion rights, and that same person approaches and receives Holy Communion, what are people to think? They could be led to imagine that some how it is alright to support publicly the taking of innocent and defenseless lives in the womb. So the Church has these disciplines and they are very ancient. They actually go back to the times of St. Paul. But, throughout the Church’s history, She has always had to discipline the reception of Holy Communion which is the most sacred treasure we have in the Church.

It is the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ.

The Church has always had to discipline the reception of Holy Communion so that, number one, people do not approach and receive Holy Communion unworthily to their own serious moral harm; and number two, the faith in the Eucharist is always respected, and members of the Church are not led into confusion, or even error, regarding the sacredness of the Sacrament or of the moral law.

There are instances of Catholic public officials who attend Mass, receive the sacraments and publicly declare they are Catholic, but who, in practice, support legislation that is contrary to Catholic morality. Some of them, as a type of disclaimer, state that they feel that they are not doing anything wrong according to their conscience and that it is a private matter. Can you please comment on how this is erroneous and how forming one’s own conscience is not something subjective?

It is true that we must act in accord with the dictates of our conscience. But our conscience has to be properly formed. Our conscience must conform to the truth of situations. Conscience is not some sort of subjective reality where I make up for myself what is right and good. Rather, it is an objective reality where I conform my own thinking to what is true.

Sometimes people speak about their primacy of conscience in the sense that they say, “what ever I decide in my conscience, that is what I should do,” and that rules the day. Of course that is true as long as the conscience is properly formed. I like something that Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, has said. “Rather than talk about the primacy of conscience, we should talk about the primacy of truth,” the truth of God’s moral law to which our conscience needs to be conformed.  Once it is properly informed, then of course, conscience has the primacy that is ascribed to it.

Some people say that it is a right to receive Holy Communion and that no one else has the right to tell another not to receive the Sacrament. Not even a bishop, priest or minister. What would you respond to them?

In responding to this question, the first thing that needs to be said is that the Body and Blood of Christ is a gift of God’s love to us. It is the greatest gift, a gift beyond our ability to describe. No one, therefore, has a right to the gift. Just as we don’t have a right to any gift that is given to us. A gift is freely given out of love and that is what God is doing for us every time we are able to participate in Mass and approach to receive Holy Communion. So to say that I have a right to receive Holy Communion is not correct.

If one means by this that, if he is well disposed and the Mass is being offered, he has a right to receive Holy Communion in the sense that he has a right to receive.  Yes, that is true. Now, regarding the reception of Holy Communion, there is Our Lord Himself who is involved. There is the person who is receiving Holy Communion. Then there is the minister of the Sacrament, the one who has the responsibility to make sure that the Sacrament is distributed only to those who are properly disposed.

Certainly the Church does have the right to tell someone who persists in public grave sin that he may not receive Holy Communion because he is not well disposed.  That right of the minister to refuse to give Holy Communion to someone who persists in public and grave sin is safe guarded in the Code of Canon Law, under canon 915. Otherwise the minister of Communion would be put in the situation of violating his conscience regarding a most serious matter, when he sees a notorious sinner coming to receive Holy Communion to the scandal of everyone, and he is somehow told he does not have the right to refuse to give Holy Communion, in such a circumstance.

That simply would be wrong.

The enforcement of compliance with Church law by a bishop, priest or even a Vatican office oftentimes seems to be perceived by some as a mean act or even bullying of the faithful. Many people seem to forget that the Church considers that when a person in not in a worthy state to receive the Holy Eucharist, generally it is because they are in a state of mortal sin which is very serious and directly related to their eternal salvation. It seems that when a bishop or priest enters into dialogue or takes disciplinary measures with a sinner, it is a mercy. That this is an outreach of the bishop or priest which is an obligation they have to the faithful under their care. To try to bring them back into the fold. For this reason the Church has these laws. Can you please comment on this aspect of ministry?

I certainly agree with this.  It is the greatest act of charity to prevent somebody from doing something that is sacrilegious that is, to warn them, and then actually refuse to be party to a sacrilege.  It is analogous to a parent whose child wants to play with fire and the parent refuses to let him.  We would not say that somehow the parent is being unkind to the child by disciplining him. We would say this parent is truly a loving parent. In the same way the Church, in Her love, prevents people from doing things that are gravely offensive to God and gravely damaging to their own souls.

Your Excellency, some say that when a member of the Catholic hierarchy publicly admonishes a Catholic, who holds a position of public office, he is using his influence to interfere in politics. How would you respond to this?

The Bishop or Church authority, it could be the parish priest, who intervenes in such situations, is dealing solely with the good of the soul of the politician or public figure who is involved. This has nothing to do with trying to influence public policy and has to do with the state of the soul of a politician or public official who happens to be Catholic and, therefore is held in the public sphere to follow the divine moral law. If he does not, he should be admonished by his pastor. So, to try to silence a shepherd from doing what is for the good of the soul of a member of the flock by telling him that it is interfering in politics is simply ridiculous and wrong.

This also flows from something that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI recently addressed with the bishops of the United States and, that is, the desire of certain people in our society to relegate religious faith completely to a private sphere and to say that it has nothing to do with the public square. That is simply wrong. We have to give witness to our faith not only in that part of our lives that we live in the privacy of our homes, but also in our public interaction with others to give a strong witness to Christ. So we have to break down that idea that somehow our religious faith is some completely private matter and has nothing to do with our public life.

this article discovered here

 

It is a duty to pray both for him who is in affliction and him who is in relief from it,

for him who is in dangers and him who is in prosperity,

for him who is in relief and much prosperity,

that these may remain unmoved and without vicissitude and may never change;

and for him who is in affliction and his many dangers,

that he may see some favorable change brought about to him

and be transported into a calm of consolation.

Saint John Chrysostom

Why did Our Blessed Lord use bread and wine as the elements of this Memorial?

First of all, because no two substances in nature better symbolize unity than bread and wine. As bread is made from a multiplicity of grains of wheat, and wine is made from a multiplicity of grapes, so the many who believe are one in Christ.

 

Second, no two substances in nature have to suffer more to become what they are than bread and wine. Wheat has to pass through the rigors of winter, be ground beneath the Calvary of a mill, and then subjected to purging fire before it can become bread. Grapes in their turn must be subjected to the Gethsemane of a wine press and have their life crushed from them to become wine.

 

Thus do they symbolize the Passion and Sufferings of Christ, and the condition of Salvation, for Our Lord said unless we die to ourselves we cannot live in Him.

 

A third reason is that there are no two substances in nature which have more traditionally nourished man than bread and wine. In bringing these elements to the altar, men are equivalently bringing themselves.

 

When bread and wine are taken or consumed, they are changed into man’s body and blood. But when He took bread and wine, He changed them into Himself.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

 

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