“Five Thoughts on Loving the Church”: John Cavadini

some lovely stuff here:

1) The closer you get to the Catholic Church, the closer you get to the Wounds of Christ.

The Church is a communion in the blood of Christ. Contemplating the mystery of the Church is contemplating the blood of Christ, for “the Church is born primarily of Christ’s total self-giving for our salvation, anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist and fulfilled on the Cross” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 766). “The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus” (Lumen Gentium 3). “For it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth the ‘wondrous sacrament of the whole Church’” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 5).

Meditating on the mystery of the Church is meditating on the Wounds of Christ from which His Precious Blood flowed, from which the communion constituting the Church flowed. Meditating on oneself as a member of the Church is meditating on one’s dwelling near, at, and even in, the Wounds of Christ, an intimacy that is of such an infinite depth and so unspeakable a closeness that one’s only response is “Thank you Lord!”

more–I love also the “solidarity in sin vs solidarity in Christ” stuff