Posts Tagged ‘Eucharist’
There is a great hymn, an antiphon actually, written by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Office of Corpus Christi. It is O Sacrum Convivium and it serves as a wonderful summary of Eucharistic theology that is worth our attention. With that in mind I’d like to make a brief reflection on some of its compact [...] Read the rest of this entry »
One of the unique events of this Eucharistic Congress in Dublin is the Pilgrim Walk. Noting the revival of people’sinterest in pilgrim walks, the Congress committee created the route around seven of the oldest churches in Dublin. Readers of this blog from the Archdiocese of Washington know of the annual Seven Churches Walk sponsored by [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Today, On the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Church of Ireland opens its doors to the world as it hosts the 50th International Eucharistic Congress. As with the first 49 congresses, Popes have called congresses for three main reasons: promote an awareness of the central place of the Eucharist in the life and mission of [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Too many people think of Holy Communion as a ritual, rather than a transformative, life giving reality. Jesus spoke clearly of how Holy Communion, the partaking of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, would give us new life and raise us up: For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and [...] Read the rest of this entry »
It was almost 15 years ago. I was At Old St. Mary’s here in D.C. celebrating Mass in the Latin (Extraordinary Form). It was a solemn high Mass. I don’t suppose I thought it any different than most Sunday’s but something quite amazing was about to happen. As you may know the ancient Latin Mass [...] Read the rest of this entry »
This Sunday in many places features the (moved) Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Our Lord. While you may puzzle over my title, allow me to explain it later. On a Solemn feast like this many things occur that might be preached and taught. Allow three areas for reflection: The Reality [...] Read the rest of this entry »
One of the great human inadequacies is rendering proper and adequate thanks to God. Perhaps the biggest problem is that we don’t even know 90% of what he does for us. It is hid from our eyes. A further problem is that we tend, in our fallen condition, to be wired to magnify our distresses [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Getting into Spiritual Shape About two months ago, I did a blog entry on “spiritual cross training.” I made an analogy between my goal of training for a 5K and training for spiritual fulfillment. I also mentioned that the friend I was training with rarely went to church and when I invited him to a [...] Read the rest of this entry »
The Gift of the Eucharist My parish has a gift that I must admit, I never really appreciated until recently. This is how God opened my eyes. Last month, a young, newly ordained priest was celebrating his first Mass at the parish. I did not know him at all but, he grew up in the [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Some people put more faith in Tylenol than they do in Holy Communion. That’s because when they take Tylenol they expect something to happen. But many people don’t really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion. In fact this is a problem that is present for many in regard to all the Sacraments [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s Gospel of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13ff) does more than present a resurrection appearance. It also presents the Mass in seminal form as I will show. In doing this Luke and the Holy Spirit teach us that the Mass is the essential and most vivid way that we encounter [...] Read the rest of this entry »
The Last Supper could never be called a disaster since the Lord Jesus was there. But in terms of everyone else and their behavior it was nothing short of a disaster. Indeed it was so awful that one could hardly have faulted the Lord for saying, “That’s it Father, I’ve had it with them, I’m [...] Read the rest of this entry »
