Devotion

Giving Thanks for the Holy Eucharist

St Peter Julian EymardGive thanks therefore to God the Father for having given you His divine Son not only as Brother in the Incarnation, as Teacher of truth, and as Savior on the Cross, but especially as your Eucharist, your bread of life, your heaven already begun.

Thank the Holy Ghost for continuing, through the priests, to produce Him daily on the altar, as He did the first time in Mary’s virginal womb.

Let your thanksgiving ascend to the throne of the Lamb, to the Hidden God as a sweet-smelling incense, as the most beautiful hymn of your soul, as the purest and tenderest love of your heart.

Thank Him in all humility of heart, like Saint Elizabeth in the presence of Mary and the Word Incarnate; thank Him with the vibrant ardor of Saint John the Baptist when he felt the closeness of his divine Master, hidden like himself in His mother’s womb; thank Him with the joy and generosity of Zacheus when he received the visit of Jesus in his house; thank Him with the Holy Church and the heavenly court.

In order that your thanksgiving may never cease and go on forever increasing, do what is done in heaven. Consider the goodness, the beauty ever old and ever new of the God of the Eucharist, Who for our sake is consumed and reborn without ceasing on the altar.

Saint Peter Julian Eymard

Devotion

Corpus Christi Mass and Procession 2016

Corpus ChristiThe Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the celebration of the Lord’s institution of the Holy Eucharist, will be commemorated on Sunday, May 29, 2016 with High Mass at 2:00 p.m. followed by an outdoor procession with the Holy Eucharist.

The hymns written for the feast written by Saint Thomas Aquinas, and others, will be sung by the St. Gregory Schola.

Sacred Liturgy

Holy Trinity

Pieta with Trinity detailToday, we celebrate the feast of the most Holy Trinity. This doctrine  reveals to us the relationally in the Godhead made known through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. But don’t make the mistake by saying that we are required to believe in the Trinity as an article of faith. The Trinity is not a mere point of our Christian belief.  Saint Paul tells us that we are meant to be living union with God; living in union is not a matter of article of a belief system. The Apostle who demonstrates that our union is made possible through prayer, that is, being in relation with God. Hence we pray to God  “The Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit” (Eph 2: 18–22). Hence,  our Catholic faith “arises from man’s deepest experiences with God. It comes from the genuine living knowledge of those who have come to know God in faith.”

But all this comes from “Pentecost, as Jesuit Father Steve Bonian teaches that at  “Pentecost [when] the Spirit manifested the Father and the Son, with the great love between them, that spills into our world as our salvation.

“God’s graciousness as a most-loving Trinity is beautifully expressed in the joyous greeting in the letter of Saint Paul today: From Christ we receive “grace”; from the Father “love”; and from the Spirit “fellowship”. We are made members of God’s household; we are the divinely adopted children of God through Christ; his Spirit dwells in us; now we are “temples of his holy Name!”.