THE GLORIFIED BODY: One of the side-effects of moving Corpus Christi to Sunday, rather than Thursday, is that this year it coincided with DC’s gay pride weekend. Two celebrations, two parades; I’ve been mulling over the coincidence, and nothing’s cohered yet, but here are a few notes about things I found suggestive.

* the body as sacrifice, to be offered up entirely to God–lifted high on the Cross, exaltation gained only through submission and humiliation–the monstrance vs the parade float….

* love defined, or at least demonstrated, as an exchange of sacrifices–Christ’s for us, and ours when we give our lives to Him. I kept thinking about this stuff while reading Nocturnes for the King of Naples: In that book, lost love appears to suffuse the entire world, every object, memory, possibility. For Christians, sacrificial love (though not lost love) in fact suffuses the world.

* identity–“Catholic” so often is treated as an identity-category, like being black or being Irish or being gay, something you can have ownership of, something defined solely by the members of the community. To what extent do we have Catholic pride instead of Catholic faith?

…Not sure what else to say, so I’ll stop here for now, and add more if I (or you all) have more to add.