Occlusion

Adam and Eve

Written on the 1st Day of the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

God's grace is the method by which we can be saved in our temporal life on earth. Sin occludes us from grace, like the Moon sometimes eclipses the Sun. And when we are cut off from the warmth and life giving radiance of grace we wilt and die. When you are in the depths of winter, you can barely imagine the heat and warmth and light of the sun. So you huddle before an artificial source of warmth, some object, another person, a created thing. It is only when the season changes, your world thaws and the glorious Sun rises again that you remember the joy of warmth and wonder how you ever lived without it. This is freedom. Freedom from sin. Sin and occlusion from grace forces you into the world, it forces you to look for gratification in created things, becoming the serpent that feeds on itself with a hunger that cannot be satisfied, swallowing its own tail. When you pray you begin to open the door to grace, or you start to pull back the curtain, bit by bit, until the light floods in and burns away the darkness. In avoiding sin you truly begin to see the world with new eyes. I remember thinking recently, that I hadn't seen something in a certain way since I was a child. A street with winter trees moving in the wind, a rusty iron railing. It just was what it was, truly beautiful, looking at it through the eyes of a child, God's miraculous world. Being free from sin is the truest temporal Freedom which Christ grants us in the world. The less we sin the more we acknowledge the sins of our past and wish to confess and become free of them also. God shows us all this in His endless Love and kindness, our lives in His grace foreshadowing what we must finally become.

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Communication

Crucifix - Michelangelo

Posted on the 7th Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

The Crucifix as the symbol of our Faith is unlike any other religious symbol. In fact it is not a symbol but the demonstration of the core belief of our Faith. It is at once shocking and beautiful, like the Truth at the heart of the one true Faith. Naked humanity was lifted up from the earth and nailed to a Cross. The central and essential Sacrifice of our Catholic Faith. Hanging and suffering with humanity, Divinity, God Himself. No crescent moon, no six pointed star, or complex imagary charged with 'meaning' has this power of directness. No explanation necessary. Here is God in the form of Jesus Christ. Here is the Sacrifice that Redeems humanity. It is not a symbol but a snapshot. The moment of our salvation frozen in time so that we may never forget. It is also a unity. Man and God and Cross. Taking any of these elements away takes away that redeeming moment. It shows us all our final end. That all of us in the end will be removed from the earth and nailed to the Cross of our suffering until we die.

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Latin Extraction

A Mass being offered for the souls in purgatory

Posted on the 6th Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

P: Lavabo inter innocentes I will wash my hands among
manus meas: et circumdabo the innocent, and will
altare tuum Domine. Ut audiam compass Thine altar, O Lord.
vocem laudis: et enarrem That I may hear the voice of
universa mirabilia tua. praise, and tell of all Thy
Domine dilexi decorem domus wondrous works. I have loved,
tuae, et locum habitationis O Lord, the beauty of Thy
gloriae tuae. Ne perdas cum house, and the place where
impiis Deus animam meam: et Thy glory dwelleth. Take not
cum viris sanguinum vitam away my soul, O God, with
meam. In quorum manibus the wicked; nor my life with
iniquitates sunt: dextera men of blood. In whose hands
eorum repleta est muneribus. are iniquities: their right
Ego autem in innocentia mea hand is filled with gifts.
ingressus sum: redime me, et But as for me, I have walked
miserere mei. Pes meus stetit in my innocence; redeem me,
in directo: in ecclesiis and have mercy on me. My foot
benedicam te Domine. Gloria, hath stood in the right way;

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost. As it
was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be; world
without end. Amen.

Suscipe sancta Trinitas P: Recieve, O holy Trinity,
hanc oblationem, quam tibi this oblation offered up by us
offerimus ob memoriam to Thee in memory of the
passionis resurrectionis et passion, resurrection, and
ascensionis Jesu Christi ascension of Our Lord Jesus
Domini nostri: et in honorem Christ, and in honor of
beatae Mariae semper virginis, blessed Mary, ever a virgin,
et beati Joannis Baptistae, of blessed John the Baptist,
et sanctorum Apostolorum Petri of the holy apostles Peter and
et Pauli, et istorum, et Paul, of these, and of all
omnium Sanctorum: ut illis the saints, that it may be
proficiat ad honorem, nobis available to their honor and
autem ad salutem: et illi pro to our salvation; and may
nobis intercedere dignentur in they whose memory we celebrate
coelis, quorum memoriam on earth vouchsafe to
agimus in terris. Per eumdem intercede for us in heaven.
Christum Dominum nostrum. Through the same Christ our
Amen. Lord. Amen.

THE ORATE FRATRES
Orate, fratres, ut meum P: Brethren, pray that my
ac vestrum sacrificium sacrifice and yours may be
acceptabile fiat apud Deum well pleasing to God the
Patrem omnipotentem. Father almighty.
Suscipiat Dominus S: May the Lord receive this
sacrificium de manibus tuis ad sacrifice at thy hands, to
laudem et gloriam nominis sui, the praise and glory of His
ad utilitatem quoque nostram, name, to our own benefit, and
totiusque Ecclesiae suae to that of all His Holy
sanctae. Church.

THE SECRET PRAYER

Per omnia saecula P: World without end.
saeculorum.
Amen. S: Amen.
Dominus vobiscum. P: The Lord be with you.
S: Et cum spiritu tuo. S: And with thy spirit.
P: Sursum corda. P: Lift up your hearts.
S: Habemus ad Dominum. S: We have them lifted up unto
P: Gratias agamus Domino Deo the Lord.
nostro. P: Let us give thanks to the
S: Dignum et justum est. Lord our God.
S: It is meet and just.


P: Vere dignum et justum est, P: It is truly meet and just,
aequum et salutare, nos tibi right and profitable, for us,
semper, et ubique gratias at all times, and in all
agere: Domine sancte, Pater places, to give thanks to
omnipotens, aeterne Deus. Thee, O Lord, the holy One,
Qui cum unigenito Filio tuo, the Father almighty, the
et Spiritu Sancto, unus es everlasting God: Who,
Deus, unus es Dominus: non together with Thine
in unius singularitate only-begotten Son and the Holy
personae, sed in unius Ghost, art one God, one
Trinitate substantiae. Quod Lord, not in the singleness of
enim de tua gloria, revelante one Person, but in the
te, credimus, hoc de Filio Trinity of one substance. For
tuo, hoc de Spritu sancto, that which, according to Thy
sine differentia discretionis revelation, we believe of Thy
sentimus. Ut in confessione glory, the same we believe of
verae, sempiternaeque Thy Son, the same of the Holy
Deitatis, et in personis Ghost, without difference or
proprietas, et in essentia distinction; so that in the
unitas, et in majestate confession of one true and
adoretur aequalitas. Quam eternal Godhead we adore
laudant Angeli, atque distinctness in persons,
Archangeli, Cherubim quoque oneness in essence, and
ac Seraphim: qui non cessant equality in majesty: Which
clamare quotidie, una voce the angels praise, and the
dicentes: archangels, the cherubim also
and the seraphim, who cease
not, day by day crying out
with one voice to repeat:

THE SANCTUS
Sanctus, Sanctus, P: Holy, holy, holy, Lord
Sanctus, Dominus Deus God of hosts. The heavens and
Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et the earth are full of Thy
terra gloria tua. Hosanna in glory. Hosanna in the highest.
excelsis. Benedictus qui Blessed is He Who cometh in
venit in nomine Domini. the name of the Lord. Hosanna
Hosanna in excelsis. in the highest

========================================

P: Corpus Domini nostri Jesu P: May the Body of Our Lord
Christi custodiat animam meam Jesus Christ keep my soul unto
in vitam aeternam. Amen. life everlasting. Amen.

P: Quid retribuam Domino pro P: What shall I render unto
omnibus quae retribuit mihi? the Lord for all the things
Calicem salutaris accipiam, that He hath rendered unto me?
et nomen Domini invocabo I will take the chalice of
Dominum, et ab inimicis meis salvation and will call upon
salvus ero. the name of the Lord. With
high praises will I call upon
the Lord, and I shall be
saved from all mine enemies.

P: Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu P: May the Blood of Our Lord
Christi custodiat animam meam Jesus Christ keep my soul unto
in vitam aeternam. Amen. life everlasting. Amen.

P: Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce Qui P: Behold the Lamb of God,
tollit peccata mundi. behold Him who taketh away the
sins of the world.


P: Domine, non sum dignus, P: Lord, I am not worthy
ut intres sub tectum meum: that Thou shouldst enter under
sed tantum dic verbo, et my roof; but only say the
sanabitur anima mea. (Three word, and my soul shall be
times) healed. (three times)


COMMUNION OF THE FAITHFUL

P: Corpus Domini nostri Jesu P: May the Body of Our Lord
Christi custodiat animam tuam Jesus Christ keep your soul
in vitam aeternam. Amen. unto life everlasting. Amen.

P: Quod ore sumpsimus Domine, P: Into a pure heart, O
pura mente capiamus: et de Lord, may we receive the
munere temporali fiat nobis heavenly food which has passed
remedium sempiternum. our lips; bestowed upon us in
time, may it be the healing
of our souls for eternity.

P: Corpus tuum, Domine, P: May Thy Body, O Lord,
quod sumpsi, et Sanguis, which I have received, and
quem potavi, adhaereat Thy Blood which I have drunk
visceribus meis: et praesta, cleave to mine inmost parts:
ut in me non remaneat scelerum and do Thou grant that no
macula, quem pura et sancta stain of sin remain in me,
refecerunt sacramenta. Qui whom pure and holy mysteries
vivis et regnas in saecula have refreshed: Who livest and
saeculorum. Amen. reignest world without end.

Amen.

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Certainty

Immaculate Heart of Mary

Posted on the 5th Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

I am beyond any doubt, certain of the truths of our Faith. I cannot explain where this certainty comes from, and I have never felt such certainty over anything really before, including much of what is before my own eyes here on earth. This kind of certainty is called Faith I think. It is a powerful and beautiful gift. I know that it comes from outside of me, via Gods grace, because no thought process, or logical reasoning has lead me to this certainty. I Believe. A strange thing happened about mid way through my conversion, during the time I had decided to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, and emabarked on the RCIA programme, before I was formally recieved into the church at Easter Vigil 2006. I awoke, in the early hours of a winter morning, saying over and over to myself, 'I Believe. I have Faith. I have no doubt at all. This is the Truth!' It was a strange and powerful and beautiful thing. It was the very moment, I guess, that I became Catholic. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I am not in the habit of waking up in the small hours with 'eureka' moments. I don't even have dreams I can remember. This was strong and powerful, unequivocal and supernatural. God gave me Faith that morning. The Faith that both literally and figuratively, woke me from my sleep.

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Mystery

Christ with the Doubting Thomas - Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Posted on the 4th Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

I was a late convert to Catholicism. Ironically though, I feel I have been a Catholic all of my life, in everything but name. The Catholic Church has called to me for as long as I can remember. In subtle ways She has always been there, gently insisting, through all of my doubting, my not knowing, my mistaken beliefs and non beliefs, She was there, our Blessed Mother, calling for the wayward sheep, calling me back home, into the fold where the Good Shepherd awaits. When I look back on my doubt, it seems shallow and thin. A hollow thing. I was interested in what science had to say about the universe, and still am to some extent. There is a lot of breadth to lose oneself in in science, in the minutae of astronomy for example, the intricate theories and structures of the quantumn world. In as sense it was doubt which brought me to Faith. Doubt that I could really ever know anything for sure. This seems to laughable to me now, knowing what I now know. The certainties that are more real than real to me now because of my Faith. Science was the closest thing to my religion back then. What this mode of thought leaves you with is a searching mind and a desire for truth. Primed for revelation. The more uncertainties there are, the greater the desire for certainty becomes. And she was there, Our Lady, insisting that I look. And when it happened, when the conversion came, it was like someone reaching out, grabbing hold of me. Another person, not an idea or theory, or belief. Converting wasn't something I 'did', it was 'done' to me. A real tangible person came into my life, throwing me the lifeline of the seed of Faith. And that seed of Faith set fire to my soul and my life changed forever. You cannot arrive here through reason, thought, human effort. It is an inexplicable mystery and because of our nature as created things, a mystery it must always remain. Revel in the Mystery. In the Real Presence of Our Lord on earth, in the tangible presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary in your life.

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Heresy

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Tower of Babel. 1563. Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Posted on the 3rd Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

Because we have a little bit of technology, we think we know something. We think we now are able and entitled to question, even the absolutes of our created universe. This questioning is ultimatley futile, as any good scientist will tell you. But what we have, reminds me a lot of the magician behind the curtain in the film: 'The Wizard of Oz'. He was just a little guy with his ridiculous levers and dials and pushbuttons. And his fraud was pretty much transparent in the end. We are this little man, with our own ridiculous dials and pushbuttons, our unnecessary and useless addons to life which, in its own right, is transcendent and sacred in its beauty. The noise and smoke and mirrors show we put on until we lose awareness of the world and live in a stupid, hollow, empty idea of it. The culture of death: efficiently depriving even life itself of Life. How we have lost the ability to think. How an anarchic challenging of the fullness of truth has become a replacement for thought. Our technology now does our thinking for us and all we have left is our need to kick against what we feel constrains us. Like an infant pushing against the reins that save its life. Like spoilt, immature young adults who sincerely believe they know better than their elders. There is nothing to change or develop or adapt. We are the same sinners we were over 2000 years ago and need the same Divine Gift to save our fallen nature. Christ came, His Holy Sacrifice on the Cross changed our living breathing world for all eternity. We are asleep in a drowsy idle dream in darkness. We must awake into the New Day or die forever in darkness.

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Faith

Roman Catholic Angel Statue

Posted on the 2nd Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

Faith. It is a much misused word. It is often used in general terms, sometimes in place of the word 'religion' or 'belief'. Faith is more an activity than a thought process. It is the active, living bridge between the natural world in which we live, and God's supernatural Kingdom. It is the mechanism we have been given to bridge the gap. Where our finite sphere of reason and activity reaches its limit, there Faith carries us across the void. Faith is implanted in us by Christ, the seed within, given to us all as a free gift by virtue of His Sacrifice. Prayer, Scripture and especially Holy Communion activate this Faith within us, allow us to see with new eyes, hear with clarity the sublime truth of the living Word. Faith is a word of true beauty, the beauty of the supernatural world it joins us to, grafts us onto, as we remain weak humans lifted up and given new nature by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith at once binds us, and sets us truly free.

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Communion

Jesus with Mary & Martha window - St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church - Atlanta

Posted on the 1st Day of the 31st Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

Sunday Holy Communion. The church was fairly full and quite noisy. Someone coughing badly, lots of people with colds. But there was a great silence today when the Priest consecrated the Host and His Precious Blood. It was very quiet, for a long time, the atmosphere seemed charged and electric in our ordinary little church. Then I heard a baby chuckle in the midst of the silence. It was a real happy, delighted sound. Like a clear bell. The kind of sound that just makes you smile. A golden sound. For some reason I had a mental image of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother present in the church. Walking gracefully, invisibly, past the rough wooden pews and hunched, kneeling people, the baby catching sight of them, chuckling delightedly as they pass.

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Grace

BlessedVirgin Mary statue - Presentation of Mary Academy

Posted on the 7th Day of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

Today, it's the 4th of November. Tomorrow, here in the UK we celebrate Guy Fawkes night. Guy Fawkes, by the way, was a Roman Catholic, but that's another story. Bonfire Night actually celebrates his grisly demise at the hands of the British Government. I still take my daughter to see the fireworks though, because she loves them, but secretly I'm rooting for Guy Fawkes, the guy in the bonfire, as it were. So I'm standing here in a freezing cold field. Public Guy Fawkes celebrations are always on the Saturday, even when Nov 5th falls on an alternate day. In a freezing cold field with my daughter who is wearing a wooly hat. Cursing myself again (I do this every year) for thinking it is warmer than it is, forgetting that I will be standing there for almost an hour and it will both get and feel colder as time goes on. We queue for hotdogs and soup.

The old ladies manning the soup tent, they are here every year, giving up their own time to do this. For some reason I half watch them as we are standing in the queue. Grey, dowdily dressed, invisible. But tonight they are not invisible and for some reason I am fixated by them, their almost invisibility. The harsh lights from the soup tent fall on them, one goes off and back on and one of them says "Let there be light!" or something similar. They all chuckle and carry on serving the customers, most of whom look through them, as if they are transparent. The closer I get, the more I watch, spellbound, as if I am seeing into some kind of hidden, secret place. Seeing people no one else can see. They are old, frail, but immediate and vital. Grace fills every movement as if the hand of Our Lady was resting on each of them as they stood there or moved around in the soup tent, in the cold, in the chatter of the queue, the harsh arc lights, the noise of a petrol driven generator, smells of soup and hotdogs. What makes them invisible also gives them humiliy, they have nothing to prove, they are just there, working in the soup tent, doing what they are doing, nothing more, nothing less. Harsh golden light falls across their faces and I am forced to think of Angels, the old ladies as Angels and Angels all around them. Hidden, unseen, invisible.

We pay for our hotdog and soup and wander off to the bonfire. At least good old Guy is warm. As usual, the fireworks are on the way to becoming spectacular without really making it. My daughter has forgotten her scarf, so she pulls my arm around her neck and cuddles it to keep warm. The sky is alive with fireflies, sparks and bright trails of different colours. Smoke and fire rises to the sky as Grace pours down upon us in all our God filled days.

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Humility

Mary Weclomes Souls into Heaven

Posted on the 6th Day of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

At Mass and in the presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament, we are guests. We don't really belong there in the sense that we are not, usually, worthy to be in the presence of Holiness. We are the guests to the wedding feast, the ones whom the servants were told to bring from the street corners, the beggars, the unclean. God welcomes us, broken humanity, and we must have the knowledge of ourselves as we really are in His eyes, when we are in his presence. Because we don't really belong there, in and of ourselves and our own efforts alone. Despite this, God becomes a Victim for us, He places Himself Last of all in the wedding feast of His Sacrifice. In humility we must recognise the greatness of this free and eternal Gift. God's infinite Humility in His giving Himself away to us like this, must be a template for our own humility.

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Divide

Crusader Shield

Posted on the 5th Day of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

In a very real way, the truth is a shield. But it is also a sword. The thing about the truth is, is that it can't be altered, it is not relative, cannot be changed. You place that seed of truth in your soul, everything else changes, but not the Truth. Where there was once reconciliation and compromise, relativism, now there is division, conflict, it is how we develop in our spiritual life. But in our world we have an obsession with reconciliation, unity, compromise, commonality. Brotherhood based on truth is true brotherhood, therefore brotherhood in Christ is true brotherhood. Anything else is just sympathy, empathy, loose understanding upon which no real action can be based. Christ altered history, reality and truth itself, through His Holy Sacrifice on the Cross. There is no compromise in that. It changed everything, forever. An Eternal Sacrifice. Therefore, instead of looking for commonality and relationship, we should instead seek to spread truth. Christ called us to be a light to the world. The light of Truth. The only, unchanging, non negotiable Truth. Therefore the truth divides us. Sheep from goats. Like a warrior it conquers us. In battle the truth takes away the ground from under us, divides us from ourselves and from our sin. We cannot truly reconcile. All things coming together means we are joined again to sin and evil because sin and evil are in the world. Truth seperates us from this. The move towards 'oneness' is a feature of the culture of death. It is the battle against truth where all things are mixed and rendered relative to all other things. We must seek the Holy Truth that divides us because that truth is the light and like the light it is divided from darkness. The Truth is not grey twilight but the unbearable brightness of the star of Heaven, in which there is no place for darkness. When the Word enters the soul, all things follow from it. When the Word enters the soul, there is winnowing and seperation:

"I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!" ... "Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.."

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All Saints Day 2006

All Saints

Posted on the 4th Day of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

1st November 2006. It's one of the few Holy Days of Obligation still remaining (apart from Sunday of course). I am called into a late meeting at work. As the minutes tick away and the meeting drags on, I watch the clock. It ends in time for me to reach the All Saints Mass, but without a comfortable margin. I drive like an insane person the 20 miles or so to my parish church. 'This can't be right!' I keep thinking. I am driving dangerously to fulfill my Holy Obligation. It's a dilemma, but I really don't want to miss the Holy Mass. I get to few enough as it is. Tonight, I tell myself, God trumps the speed limit. It's like my life is to small for everything packed into it.

Lunchtime was the same, another meeting, running over, I dash to the Adoration Chapel near work in time to recite the Divine Mercy Chaplet, dash back to work again.

This is how my day felt. But the reality was actually different. Looking at the clock, knowing rush hour traffic. I knew I had to make haste, to say the least, to get to Mass, or to the Adoration Chapel in time. All my experience told me: 'Your late, the meeting ran over, you need to really push it to get to where you need to go in time!' So off I ran, recklessly, dangerously.

However, at lunchtime, after my hasty Divine Mercy Chaplet and dash back to work, I found I was back at work much earlier than usual. Somehow there had been no need to rush. In the evening, I arrived, bedraggled, at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on the Solemnity of the Feast of All Saints. I sat and waited in the cold church for a good ten minutes before the Mass began. My fear had been: pews full, no hymn books, Mass already starting as I walk in. The reality was the exact opposite.

Ironically for an All Saints day homily, Father was quite scathing about what he described as the 'top' Saints. I winced as he began to snipe at them, in general terms, as if they were filmstars or politicians and wondered what they could ever have possibly done to offend him. I learned to forgive Father some time ago, his eccentric mix of liberalism and traditionalism. His homilies often seemingly hostile, his liturgy, by contrast, always by the book, no adlibs, nothing missing nothing added. Now I just look into the middle distance or at the candles flickering around Our Lady, or at her smile as she holds the Infant Jesus toward me in her arms, outstretched, welcoming. Usually something good jumps out of each of Father's homilies anyway. Saint Faustina said this once about a confessor she had difficulty with, that he would, in the end, say the thing that she needed to hear, as if God was speaking through him. The day itself had been a homily for me. It showed me that all my rushing here and there was in vain and made no real difference to anything. The superhuman (ie: all too human) over effort I extend which gets me nowhere, without the grace of God. His grace, His Life, is all that makes anything good possible.

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Courtship

Immaculate Heart of Mary

Posted on the 3rd Day of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

Unfortunately I was a late convert to the Church. This has meant that, although my daughters have spent their entire education in the Catholic School system, they are ambivalent toward the Faith at best. I am trying to change this. They are too old now for me to simply dictate what they believe. Sometimes I lose ground, other times I gain it. But I pray that the seeds of truth in their hearts will grow and bear fruit.

I try not to despair of their future in this secular, materialist world. What gives me confidence is that I know God chases us. Our whole lives are the roller coaster affair of a courtship. When you suddenly come into the Faith and convert, as I did, you see this for what it is. Ever since I was a child, He was there, running after me, present in all of the things of this world as all things proclaim Him. You cannot avoid it, you can only live as if in a dream, denying this truth, believing in the laughable, empty vanity which is our shallow, material culture. Where for the blink of an eye, because we have the pitiful crutch of technology, we see ourselves as gods.

In the clamour, the noise, the distraction, He is there. Like a persistent joyful child, running after us, tugging at our garments, always saying: 'Look at me, LOOK!"

I know He will chase my daughters too. He will run after them in desperate love and all they have to do, one day, is say 'Yes, enter my heart'. Because He will never give up. He will send situation after situation, person after person, insistence after insistence, sign after sign. This is what life is. It is the sum total of the signs, the insistence, the heavenly courtship.

A beautiful child running madly toward you through the crowd, eyes fixed on you and you alone, face radiant, beaming with love and excitement, because it's you. She throws herself into your arms as only a child can, knocking you to the ground, turning your life upside down forever.

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Holy Bride

St Agnes

Posted on the 2nd Day of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - (Year B)

Holy Mother Church is Christ's Bride here on earth. She is the pure, virginal beautiful bride, veiled, spotless, dressed in the whiteness of purity. Upon her can be found no blemish, no fault. Her arms open wide to welcome us, shameful in our sin. In her bosom we rest, She knows no blemish except for ours. Holy Mother Church, Bride of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In her arms she cradles the Lamb.

In our imperfections, we gather around the Bride. The gentle virgin who cradles the Lamb in her arms. We love her dearly. She watches us compassionatley us as we stumble in our sin. Her arms open wide, always welcoming. In the emptiness of desolate urban churches she can be found, smiling, weeping, waiting. In the desert of souls in the heart of a city. In the silent moments when we forget who we are pretending to be. Always waiting, spotless, without the stain of sin.

At Holy Mass she reaches out gently to us, beckons to show us the way. Chasing us in our emptiness like a giddy child. There always, the silent virginal bride. The whiteness of her purity where I lay my head, on the softness of her bosom, beside the Lamb.

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