Kathryn Lopez
1. Fr. Roger Landry:
We Christians should be able to say, “What people has a God so near it as the Lord is to us in the holy Eucharist?” That we would be able to say with wonder and gratitude to be able to have the Lord with us, for example, in Eucharistic adoration, that we could come to spend time with him and have him, as Cardinal Ratzinger says, reveal the meaning of our existence to us, that we’re that loved. But our wonder and gratitude should go even further. We’re not only able to draw near to God who through the incarnation has come close to us. We can actually receive him on the inside. We can enter into Holy Communion with him. St. John Vianney used to say that if we had been given a thousand wishes by God we should never had asked him to take on our nature, share our life totally, die on the Cross for us, rise from the dead, and give us his own body and blood to consume, but what we would never have dreamed request, he in his loving mercy has in fact done. Not only should we never forget that gift, but we should seek to live always in conformity with it and teach others to do the same!
2.
In 195 days, the Franklin Pkwy will welcome #PopeFrancis and the world at @WMF2015 #WorldMeetingofFamilies pic.twitter.com/TgqaTda8cD
— Patrick Brown (@PTBatCCUSA) March 11, 2015
the Cross of Christ should be shocking! It should be, as Saint Paul wrote, a scandal, a stumbling block. The pagans could scarcely imagine that the divine could love us so; the moderns would reject that we need such moral remedy. The Cross would force the pagans to reconsider love; the Cross would force the moderns to reconsider sin. And our own present culture the Cross as invisible, irrelevant or as neutered. In other words, it regards the Cross as something that may be handled safely and without consequence. But it should take daring to lift high the Cross of Christ! When we see the Cross, we should be startled and frightened, as if we found a ticking bomb or a child playing with a loaded gun. We must be startled and frightened and awestruck as we look upon the Cross—for the Cross of Christ has unimaginable power. During this season of Lent, may we come to look at the Cross of Christ and see it as if for the first time.
5.
His #mercy endures forever, even after #abortion… http://t.co/LxsvpAN7eG #Prodigalson #ProdigalDaughter
— LuminaPAH (@LuminaPAH) March 10, 2015
6. From the priest’s side of the Confessional.
7. My first thought, I confess, was that this is the ultimate in #OPPower named-dropping tweeting:
Dear friends, I have returned home after a blessed week in Rome where I attended several audiences with Pope Francis. pic.twitter.com/VKKHdLFOIP
— Archbishop Fisher OP (@AnthonyFisherOP) March 11, 2015
(Someone, somewhere, probably in a Dominican convention or priory, smiled.)
7. From Saint Theophilus of Antioch, via today’s Liturgy of the Hours:
A person’s soul should be clean, like a mirror reflecting light. If there is rust on the mirror his face cannot be seen in it. In the same way, no one who has sin within him can see God.
But if you will you can be healed. Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart. Who is to be the doctor? It is God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom. Through his Word and wisdom he created the universe, for by his Word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their array. His wisdom is supreme. God by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he arranged the heavens, by his knowledge the depths broke forth and the clouds poured out the dew.
If you understand this, and live in purity and holiness and justice, you may see God. But, before all, faith and the fear of God must take the first place in your heart, and then you will understand all this. When you have laid aside mortality and been clothed in immortality, then you will see God according to your merits. God raises up your flesh to immortality along with your soul, and then, once made immortal, you will see the immortal One, if you believe in him now.
8. Dominican Brother Athanasius Murphy, O.P.:
To deepen our love for Jesus is to have Him dwell more deeply in us, like a tree of love planted inside us. But in order for this tree to grow, we need to be emptied of earthly love and attachments. This can only be done by sacrificing these earthly loves by the grace God gives us. This is how God cleanses us to have a deeper love for Him, and this is how our Lenten penances and sacrifices take on a deeper, interior meaning.
(I interviewed Br. Athanasius during another liturgical season for National Review Online here.)
9.
"…for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative." | #dailyeSpiration from Fulton J. Sheen pic.twitter.com/yFw38mHquW
— Steubenville (@go2steubenville) March 11, 2015
10.
Look intently at the image of Christ crucified and see who God reveals himself to be.
— FrSteveGrunow (@FrSteveGrunow) March 8, 2015
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