Mar 8 Sun - What is the "living water" Jesus promised?

 

Mar 8 Sun
What is the "living water" Jesus promised?

Jesus asked the Samaritan woman to give him a drink. She was amazed by this. How can He, a Jew, ask a Samaritan woman for anything? For centuries, Jews and Samaritans had lived in implacable enmity. But Jesus showed himself superior to this prejudice. For Him, the distinctions of nation and race do not count, nor does the distinction between man and woman.

"But tired though His body is, Jesus' thirst for souls is even greater. So, when the Samaritan woman -the sinner- arrives, Christ, with His priestly heart, turns eagerly to save the lost sheep, forgetting His tiredness, hunger, and thirst."

From natural water, Jesus elevated the conversation to the higher plane of revelation, the truly living water.

The woman said to Him, "Give me this water, so that I will no longer thirst, nor will I have to come here to draw it."

Then Jesus revealed to the woman that He is, in fact, the very source of living water. This shows that the journey of faith in Him begins with the recognition of His divine mission, sent by God.

Our Lord knows that human beings are thirsting for God, and that the waters of this earth cannot quench that thirst. The things of the earth can only provide temporary satisfaction, and they leave a bitter aftertaste.

Jesus Christ has come to bring us the water of life, grace, happiness, and joy. Thus, He promised her living water.

Water signifies the Holy Spirit's action in Baptism. Our birth into the divine life is granted to us through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit is also personally the living water welling up from Christ crucified as its source and rising in us to eternal life.

The woman bursts into an emotional act of faith: "Lord, I see that you are a prophet." She then went and told the inhabitants of her city that she had found the Messiah and invited them to "come unto Jesus."

After the words, "Give me that water," Jesus does not hesitate to indicate the way of conversion and good works. "Go, call your husband." This is an invitation to examine one's conscience, to search the depths of one's heart.

Jesus helped this woman discover her need for salvation and prompted her to ask about the path that leads to it. This is a true and proper "examination of conscience." He helped her name the sins of her life. That is why the Lord urged her: "You are right; you have no husband. You have already had five, and the one whom you have now is not your husband."

The five husbands symbolize the five senses; material or scientific knowledge alone does not lead us to faith. The present husband represents our reason; faith is above reason, but not in contradiction.

Believing in God (faith) means receiving His revelation with full obedience, accepting the plan of God, and allowing ourselves to be guided by His Wisdom.

Mar 7 Sat - Is it good to use one’s freedom?

 

Mar 7 Sat
Is it good to use one’s freedom?

If God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat of the tree, why did He put it there? Since He is all Wisdom, He must have had a reason to place that forbidden tree in the garden.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil reminds us of the limits that man, as a creature, must freely accept and respect with trust.

Now, to “freely accept and respect with trust” is something the Devil cannot do. He wants all created gifts to have no limits, without a Creator or Giver. He refuses to recognize or respect his limits as a creature. I will not serve; I will not observe limits.

Thus, the Devil always divides us from others and us from ourselves.

Misery loves company, so the Devil wants to reproduce his mindset in others. His first victims were Adam and Eve. He asked, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” 

He’s not asking to get an answer. He’s suggesting that limits are absurd and anyone who sets them is an enemy. 

Adam and Eve took the bait. They reached beyond their boundaries, and in so doing, they fell.

The Devil had the same game plan when he approached Jesus in the desert. If the Devil cannot understand the blessing of being a creature of God, then the limitations of the Incarnation were absolutely incomprehensible to him.
 
Yet we believe that the Incarnation is not a fiction or make-believe. God really did confine and limit Himself to our human nature – to be born of a woman, to experience exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and sorrow, and even to be tempted.

The Devil cannot grasp the eternal Son’s joyful dependence on God the Father. Nor can he understand the Son’s joyful embrace of our created human nature. For Satan, divine power means doing whatever you want – not serving anybody. It certainly doesn’t mean setting limits for yourself through humility.

We live in a culture that rejects limits and embraces the demonic concept of freedom. Some think that to be free, we must break all limitations, even those of our human nature. For these individuals, freedom requires that a husband and wife be released from their union, a mother be liberated from her unborn child, a boy become a girl, and our souls be uploaded into machines.

In the desert, the Incarnate Lord shows us the true path. By humbling – limiting – Himself in our human nature and trusting in His Father, He overcomes the Devil’s temptations. He has done so for us to enjoy the “glorious freedom of the children of God.” 

Why, my Lord, have you granted us freedom, this privilege which we can use to follow in your footsteps but also to offend you? 

We must understand that when we use freedom properly, it directs us towards the good; and when misused, it turns us away from the Love of loves. 

Personal freedom should lead us to ask: 'What do you want from me, Lord, so that I may freely do it?'

With some excerpts from Fr. Paul D. Scalia

Mar 6 Fri - Does love include sacrifice?

 

Mar 6 Fri
Does love include sacrifice?

“Lent should suggest to us these basic questions: Am I advancing in my faithfulness to Christ, in my desire for holiness, in a generous apostolate in my daily life, in my ordinary work among my colleagues?" 

God expects our free response. Each one of us, silently, should answer these questions, and see that we need to change if Christ is to live in us, if Jesus' image is to be reflected in our behavior. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Christ is saying this again to us, whispering it in our ears: the cross each day. Not only in time of persecution or when we have the chance of martyrdom, but in all circumstances.

“Conversion is the task of a moment; sanctification is the work of a lifetime. The divine seed, which God planted in our souls, needs to grow, to yield results which coincide with what God wants. Therefore, we must be ready to begin again, to find again - in new situations - the light of our first conversion. And that is why we must prepare with a deep examination of conscience, asking our Lord for his help, so that we'll know him and ourselves better. If we want to be converted again, there's no other way."

To be transformed into Christ, we must know and love him.
So, let us always pray, seeking a divine dialogue that makes us one with Jesus Christ.

“When you love someone a lot, you want to know things about them. We meditate on the life of our Lord, from his Birth in a manger to his Death on the Cross, and then his Resurrection. And we hold our Lord's life in our memory as if it were a film. So, without needing a book, just by closing our eyes at any moment, we can contemplate him, and live with him and with our Blessed Lady, who is his Mother and ours, and with the holy women, and the Apostles. We call up his image, not as if we were watching a film, but as if we ourselves were actually part of that film, by virtue of our love."

To set out and follow Jesus, we must meditate on all that our Lord has done for us, and fill ourselves with a desire to respond, and follow him without hesitation or indecision. 

Love is paid back with love; we must give our life for Jesus Christ, who came down from heaven by the weight of his Love.

True love leads to joyous sacrifice. “Love is sacrifice; and sacrifice for Love is joy."
Does my love possess these qualities? Do I gladly bear small difficulties for love of Jesus Christ? In times of weariness or suffering, do I trust our Lord? Do I endure small but real sufferings in good spirit? If not, I have yet to fall in love with Christ. I need to speak more with him and prove my good dispositions through small acts of love.

Mar 5 Thu - What do we offer in the Mass?

 

Mar 5 Thu
What do we offer in the Mass?

In the Offertory, the priest asked the Lord to accept the bread and wine as a token of the gift of our persons. Now, the Consecration has taken place, and the bread and wine are no longer there (only the looks remain); they have been changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This Christ we offer to God.

The Roman Canon formulates the oblation or offering with words that echo the biblical sacrifices:

“[Father,] Look with favor on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek. 

Abel offered the first born of his flock and God looked with favor on Abel and his offering. His brother Cain could not stand his attitude and thus slew him, like Jesus put to death on the Cross by his brothers out of hatred. 

God was also well pleased with the sacrifice offered by Melchizedek. The Church has always recognized in this sacrifice a figure of Christ’s sacrifice.

We ask God to look favorably on this holy sacrifice, the purest of all victims, and one of much greater value.

“Take your son,” God told Abraham, “your only child Isaac, and offer him as a burnt offering.” Abraham and his son Isaac set out together. Isaac spoke to Abraham, “Father, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “My son, God himself will provide the lamb.” 

When they arrived at the place, Abraham put Isaac on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham took his knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord stopped him, “Abraham, do not harm the boy. God knows you have not refused your son, your only son.” Then looking up, Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. He took it and offered it in place of his son. 

Another day, a different son, the Son of God, will offer himself on the cross, and He will not be spared. 

A note of doubt comes when we focus on the human side of our personal offering which is added to Christ’s and is incorporated into it. The Victim offered is infinitely holy, but what about the hands that offer it? We will be more or less pleasing to God, depending on whether we are saints or mediocrities. It is by our correspondence to his grace through personal struggle that we humbly attract God’s merciful gaze. We ask him to give us his grace to foster in ourselves those dispositions that He wants to find in each of us. 

The efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice on our own souls depends on our dispositions and perseverance. In this prayer, God’s adoration on earth is united to that in heaven. It is a reminder that what we celebrate here in signs will find its fulfillment in heaven, our true homeland. We ask God to receive our sacrifice so that our participation through Communion may be fruitful.

Mar 4 Wed - Why do we say that the Church is the mystery or sacrament of salvation?

 

Mar 4 Wed

Why do we say that the Church is the mystery or sacrament of salvation?

The Church’s universal mission is born from the command of Jesus Christ, and is fulfilled in the course of the centuries in the proclamation of the mystery of God and the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son, as saving event for all humanity. 

The Church is what God wanted her to be: the people of God the Father, the Mystical Body of God the Son, and the temple of God the Holy Spirit. She is a “mystery,” the visible sign of the invisible reality of God’s salvation. The Church is not a dark or incomprehensible reality, but the visible manifestation of God’s plan for humanity.

The term “mystery” does not mean something hidden or enigmatic, but a reality that was previously concealed and has now been revealed. 

The invisible side of the mystery is the divine plan to unite all creatures in Jesus Christ, accomplished in his death on the cross.

Yet the Church is the mystery made perceptible; this is experienced especially in the liturgical assembly, where diversities are irrelevant and what prevails is unity in the same love of Christ.

In this analogical sense, the Church is also called “a sacrament.” Christ instituted his Church as the universal sacrament of salvation. Through her, He joins all people closer to himself. Nourishing them with his own body and blood, He makes them partakers of his glorious life.

Thus, Christ, our salvation, acts through the seven sacraments of his Church. These are the signs and instruments of the Holy Spirit to distribute the grace of Christ (the Head) onto the Church (his Mystical Body). Thus, the Church contains and distributes the grace that she signifies. 

The Church is both invisible and visible at the same time. As an invisible reality, the Church is the communion of each human being with the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit, and with all others, who equally participate in the:

- divine nature,
- Passion of Christ,
- the same faith, and
- the same spirit.

The Church on earth is also a visible reality, a visible communion of faithful who converge in the:

- teaching of the apostles,
- the sacraments, and
- the same hierarchical order.

Just as Christ is one in two natures, the Church is also one single reality with a dual composition. She is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities; present in the world, but as a pilgrim; her human side is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, and in this present world, she looks forward to that celestial city yet to come.

This social organization of the Church is in line with man’s nature and deepest needs as a social being that is essentially dependent on others.

In a world marked by fragmentation and division—where humanity is fractured, and human beings are unable to get together on their own—the Church presents herself as the concrete expression of God’s plan: she unites people with God and with one another through the action of Christ.

Mar 3 Tue - Does the Law of God fit human nature?

 

Mar 3 Tue
Does the Law of God fit human nature?

Yes, the Law of God perfectly fits human nature, as it is rooted in the rational structure and inclinations of that nature itself, guiding humanity toward its true fulfillment, while grace elevates it to supernatural ends. Pope Leo emphasized: God’s commandments are not oppression, but liberation.

Catholic teaching holds that the Eternal Law—God's wisdom governing all creation—is participated in by men through the natural law, which aligns seamlessly with human inclinations toward the good. Thus, human virtues are "rooted in human nature," and reason discerns the natural moral law to achieve happiness and the common good.

"Although grace is more efficacious than nature, yet nature is more essential to man, and therefore stronger."

The natural law is not imposed externally but emerges intrinsically from what it means to be human—preserving life, seeking truth, fostering society, and striving to follow God. It is accessible to all through reason, even without faith, enabling common moral ground. 

The revealed Divine Law perfects, without contradicting, nature. The positive divine law (Scripture's Old and New Covenants) builds upon and clarifies the natural law, respecting its order while healing sin's misrepresentations. 

Grace does not destroy nature but fulfills it: "The life of grace must respect the structure of nature and its diversity of goods." Revelation aids knowledge obscured by vice or habit, as "vicious customs and corrupt habits" can blot out precepts from the heart. For instance, basic precepts like "do not kill" are immediately evident, while others require wise instruction or divine teaching.

"The supernatural end must speak to the aspirations of the natural end... [and] fulfill and elevate the whole teleological edifice of human behavior."

Jesus' teaching on marriage refers to creation's "beginning," invoking this natural law inscribed in nature.

Yet man faces challenges in fulfilling himself: sin and ignorance.
Human nature, wounded by sin, can obscure natural law's clarity, leading to moral blindness. Yet, this does not mean the law ill-fits nature; rather, revelation and grace restore vision: "Apart from grace, we will not keep the moral law. Not keeping the moral law impedes us from seeing God." Christ reveals human nature fully, enabling self-knowledge and friendship with God.

Pope Leo emphasized that God’s commandments are not a source of oppression but rather a condition of liberation and flourishing.

The Ten Commandments thus appear, in the long journey through the desert, as the light that shows the way; their observance is understood and fulfilled not so much as a formal adherence to precepts but as an act of love toward the Lord of the covenant. Therefore, the law given by God to His people is not in contrast with their freedom; on the contrary, it is the condition for its flourishing.

The Lord's commandments are not oppressive laws but His method for humanity to find fullness of life and freedom.

Mar 2 Mon - Will I ever read these headlines?

 

Mar 2 Mon

Will I ever read these headlines?

Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

You may have missed some of the biggest stories about the Ten Commandments this week. Astute Catholics will make the connection.

Our top story tonight: Child straightens up room and puts away his toys without being told.

This just in: Baby shares toy with sister.

First grader caught on video saying, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

A teenager reported to having turned down the mobile phone at a meal.

11-grader football star passes the ball to a 'nerd'. Public astonished.

Husband skips sports bar. Goes straight home for dinner with family.

Breaking news: Mother and father hold family meeting. Tell kids: “I can’t force Confession. But under this roof, you’re at Mass on Sunday.”

Husband buys wife roses after ten years of marriage. On sale.

Top story: Wife stops complaining, realizing: “I must give good example, too.”

Stranger than fiction: Father teaches children to pray.

CCTV surveillance footage reveals regular visits of high school boys to the school chapel.

Investigation reveals that class funds were used to buy food for the homeless.

News update: Parents warn teens to avoid occasions of sin with members of the opposite sex.

Here’s the latest: Young man resists the impulse to click on an immodest picture. Instead skips the trash.

Developing story: Young couple breaks up relationship after hearing long-lost phrase: lewd and lascivious conduct.

An anonymous shopper thanked the cashier who served her, informed the supermarket chain spokesman.

Young lady slaps boy who made untoward advance. More at eleven.

Young father of a child born out of wedlock flips hamburgers to support him.

Young couple enjoys dinner and a movie. Go home separately.

Happening now: Young person afflicted with chronic temptations self-identifies as a child of God.

Man allows another employee to take credit for his success.

In continuing coverage: Cut off in traffic. Man does not curse or retaliate.

Employee speaks honestly with boss.

Stock Exchange broker avoids insider trading.

In the headlines: Congressman votes against legislation because it violates the Constitution. Alienates constituents.

Journalist reports the facts of a news story without spin.

Unfolding story: Congressman loses election because of pro-life stance. Explains: “They did not want me. They needed me.”

Late-breaking details: Man goes to Confession after 50 years.

Making headlines today: Man faithful to his wife in marriage until death.

Followed by this story: Priest celebrates 50 years of sacred ministry.

Finally, a miracle: Priest prays Divine Office on schedule. Hears Confessions on time.

Now, on to our main story: Holiness is ordinary fidelity. Grace makes the ordinary heroic.

And this is what holiness looks like:

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32)

This Lent, make fidelity your headline—by quietly living the Commandments. 

With some excerpts from Fr. Jerry Pokorsky

Mar 1 Sun - Why the Transfiguration?

 

Mar 1 Sun
Why the Transfiguration?

With the Transfiguration, Christ wanted to strengthen the apostles’ faith in the face of his coming Passion.

By extension, Christ’s glory, briefly revealed on the mountain, shows the hidden glory of his Body the Church that radiates in the sacraments.

When we receive the sacraments of the Church, we participate in the Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John saw the radiance of the Son of God. In the sacraments, we receive that radiance, God’s grace. With the apostles, we have “the hope of glory.”

The voice of the Father bids the apostles to “listen” to his beloved Son. To listen to Christ means both to grasp what He says and to carry it out. We can do so with the help of grace, bestowed on us in Jesus Christ.
Grace is the help God gives us to respond to our vocation of becoming his adopted sons, as children of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. 

The first effect of grace is a ‘new identity’: it makes us children of God. The holy life God calls us to is not any life we may wish. His design or plan is that we should become “his adopted sons” sharing in “the intimacy of the Trinitarian life.” That is our divine vocation. This is impossible to attain without God’s help. And that help is grace.

Grace precedes, and prepares the free response of man. Grace responds to the deepest yearnings of human freedom, calls freedom to cooperate with it, and perfects freedom. 

What does my freedom yearn for? Does it want to choose perfect happiness forever?
Yet we know from experience from our fallen human nature that our freedom is not that free. It needs to be healed and helped.

This is why God’s grace does not replace our freedom or overpower our freedom. Instead, grace guides our freedom, if we say yes to it. Grace is there before we make a choice, gets us ready to make that choice, and draws that choice out of us.

What is my response to grace?

Recall St. Paul’s advice: “Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”

In our ordinary life, we will experience some hardship without looking for it. And we will bear some additional hardship if we are faithful to our Lenten resolutions.

Let us be very aware that we have the strength that comes from God to bear these difficulties through the sacraments we have received: Baptism, Confirmation (if we have received it), Matrimony (if we are married), Holy Orders (in the case of a priest or deacon), the Holy Eucharist, and Confession, if we need it.

Our lives will be conformed to the will of God,  
- if we bear the small hardships that come our way 
- if we cooperate with God’s grace.

For a little while, we are under a kind of dark cloud, but God’s “own design” is for us to be gloriously transformed, like Christ on the mountain, forever.

Feb 28 Sat - Does God want me to be perfect?

 

Feb 28 Sat
Does God want me to be perfect?

God calls everyone to holiness, without distinction of profession, age, and social standing, in each one’s walk of life.

“You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48), we read at the end of today’s Gospel. During these forty days of preparation for Easter the Church reminds us in many different ways that God expects much more of us -He expects a serious determination on our part to struggle for holiness.

Our Lord speaks not only to the Apostles, but to all those who really want to be his disciples. Our Lord has great demands to make on each one of us, according to our own circumstances. The Master calls us to holiness, without any distinction of age, profession, race or social standing. There are no followers of Christ who do not have a Christian vocation, a personal call to sanctity. 

By divine inspiration, this teaching about the universal call to holiness is, since 1928, one of the central points of the preaching of St. Josemaría, who has reminded us again in our own times, in all possible ways, that, through Baptism, every Christian is called to the fullness of Christian life: to holiness.

The Second Vatican Council has declared anew this ancient evangelical doctrine for the whole Church: a Christian is called to sanctity in the very place that he occupies in society.

Today we can ask ourselves whether it would be enough for us to want to be ‘merely good’, without having to make a determined effort to be saints.

We can and we must exert effort to attain to sanctity, with an increasing love for God and for other people for God’s sake, through everyday things which we do over and over again, with apparent monotony. 

“Sanctity for the vast majority of men implies sanctifying their work, sanctifying themselves in it; and sanctifying others through it. Thus, they can encounter God in the course of their daily lives.”

Sanctify work: do it well, faithfully fulfilling the virtue of justice and constantly striving to improve professionally.

Sanctifying ourselves at work: This will lead us to make it an occasion and place for dealing with God, offering it to Him, and living human and supernatural virtues. 

Sanctifying others through work: Work can and should be a means of making Christ known to many people if we are exemplary in our Christian way of acting, full of naturalness and firmness.

The Church reminds us of the urgent task of being present in the world, to bring all earthly realities to God. This is what the first Christians did. This will only be possible if we remain united to Christ through prayer and the sacraments. The Lord spent his life on earth doing good. A Christian must be "another Christ." This is the great power of Christian witness. Let us ask Our Mother to help us be witnesses of her Son as we strive to seek holiness in our personal circumstances.

Feb 27 Fri - Why should I go to confession?

 

 

 Feb 27 Fri
Why should I go to confession?

Lent is the most opportune time for considering how we receive the sacrament of Penance, that meeting with Christ, who makes himself present in the priest. In it, He welcomes us as the Good Shepherd, He heals our wounds, He cleanses us and strengthens us. 

When we go to receive this sacrament, we must think of Christ above all else. We must make sure He is the center of this sacramental act. We need to look at Jesus much more than at ourselves. We must keep our eyes on his goodness rather than on our own wretchedness, because interior life is a dialogue of love in which God is always the point of reference.

Every contrite Confession is a drawing near to the holiness of God, a rediscovery of one’s true identity, which has been damaged by sin, a liberation in the very depth of one’s self and thus a regaining of lost joy, the joy of being saved, which the majority of people in our time are no longer capable of experiencing. It is up to us to help others to be aware of, to experience, a sense of loss of God, so that they may draw close to him, for He is waiting for them.

The desire that we have to make Christ the center of our Confession is important if we are to avoid routine.

Previously, we need to make a good examination of conscience.

We must go to Confession to ask for absolution for our faults as we would beg for alms that we would not deserve. But we go with confidence; trusting, not in our merits, but in his mercy, which is eternal and infinite and always ready to forgive. 

He asks us only to acknowledge our faults; to humbly and sincerely acknowledge our debt. That is why we go to Confession — so that the person who takes God’s place and acts on God’s behalf can forgive us for him. It is not so much that he should understand or encourage us. We go to ask for forgiveness. That is why accusing ourselves of our sins does not consist simply in recounting them, because it is not a question of an historical account of our transgressions, but of sincerely and truly accusing ourselves of them: I accuse myself of ... 

St. Josemaría used to advise us that our Confession should be: concise, concrete, clear, complete.

Concise: Confession with few words, just the words that are needed to say humbly what we have done or have failed to do, without any unnecessary elaboration or adornment.

Concrete: Without digression, without generalities. The penitent will declare his sins, the time that has elapsed since his last Confession, the surrounding circumstances that have a bearing on his faults so that the confessor can judge, absolve and heal.

Clear: A Confession where we make ourselves understood.

Complete: Integral Confession, without leaving anything out through a false sense of shame so as not to appear bad in the confessor’s eyes.

The sincere Confession of our faults always leaves great peace and joy in the soul.

Feb 26 Thu - Why do we refer to Christ’s Passion and Death in the Mass?

 

Feb 26 Thu
Why do we refer to Christ’s Passion and Death in the Mass?

The Mass is the sacramental memorial of Christ’s Passion and Death.
A part of the Canon, called Anamnesis or Memorial, comes after the acclamation of the Consecration. In it the Church calls to mind the Lord’s Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven.

We have just been asked to “proclaim the mystery of faith.” And what is this mystery? Precisely the redeeming sacrifice of Christ celebrated in these rites.

We are now reminded that the Church is acting in memory of our Lord and obeying his explicit command: “Do this in memory of me.” We are mindful of Christ’s mandate and profess fidelity to Christ’s express indication. Thus, the Church declares that the Eucharist is a sacramental reenactment of Christ’s death on Calvary and not an attempt to “add to” the sacrifice of the Cross.

Pope Saint John Paul II wrote: “This sacrificial value is expressed earlier in every celebration by the words with which the priest concludes the presentation of the gifts, asking the faithful to pray ‘that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.’ … Thus, by virtue of the consecration, the species of bread and wine re-present in a sacramental, unbloody manner the bloody propitiatory sacrifice offered by Him on the cross to His Father for the salvation of the world.”
 
We are not mere spectators; rather, we play an active part: we offer. But we should make a distinction here. The common priesthood of all baptized persons empowers us to offer the Mass. On the other hand, the priest, having received the sacrament of Holy Orders, possesses the ministerial priesthood that empowers him to celebrate the Mass.

Lay people are members of the people of God, which is ‘holy.’ United to the entire Church, we now offer Christ’s sacrifice with the desire that it becomes the center of our daily life and apostolic eagerness. Meanwhile, “the Church presses forwards amid persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, announcing the cross and death of the Lord until He comes.”

We not only announce what happened in the past but also prophesy what is to come: the final fulfillment of the kingdom, the light that knows no setting.

The Third and Fourth Eucharistic Prayers show:

- The expectation of the coming of the Lord is explicitly stated. 
- The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is stressed, showing that Christ is the direct object of the offering.
- An element of thanksgiving has been added to that of memorial.

Following the footprints of Jesus, our life should become a prolonged Mass. Here is a summary or program of life by which we can achieve this ideal:

- To remember Christ’s passion and death. It delivered us from the real evil, sin; and merited for us all true good.
- To experience constantly the joy of his resurrection.
- To proclaim his resurrection and ascension, through our words and deeds.
- To center our day on this holy sacrifice, while we look forward to Christ’s coming.

Feb 25 Wed - What kind of priests does the Church need today?

 

Feb 25 Wed
What kind of priests does the Church need today?

In a letter to the priests of Madrid and the entire Church, Pope Leo XIV outlined his vision of the “type of priests that the entire Church needs at this time.”

Let's ask God for priests at the measure of the Heart of Christ. Such priests, he wrote, are godly, men who are in the world but not of it, and characterized by fraternal charity. They are faithful to the living Tradition of the Church guarded by the Magisterium, celebrate the sacraments with faith and dignity, and go to Confession themselves. They appreciate the diversity of charisms and spiritualities within the Church. Above all, they are men of prayer centered on the Eucharist, on the altar, and in the tabernacle.

The Pontiff analyzed how many people, especially the young, are searching for deeper meaning.
In the hearts of many people, especially young people, a new restlessness is opening up today. The exclusive concern for well-being has not brought them the expected happiness; a freedom detached from the truth has not generated the promised fullness; and material progress, by itself, has not succeeded in fulfilling the deep desire of the human heart.

The priests the Church needs are certainly not men defined by the multiplication of tasks, but men configured to Christ, capable of sustaining their ministry from a living relationship with Him, nourished by the Eucharist, and expressed in a pastoral charity marked by the sincere gift of self.

The priesthood, in its most authentic nucleus, is being ‘alter Christus’ -another Christ.

The Pope said that priests should be:

- Christ centered: The priest is never an end in himself. He must refer his whole life to God, without usurping His place.

- Being in the world, but not of the world: Priestly life is marked by commitments that allows the priest to belong entirely to God without ceasing to walk among men.

- Living fraternity: Knowing that we are responsible for one another, resisting the individualism that impoverishes the heart and weakens the mission.

- Faithful to Catholic teaching: When the priest remains anchored in the living Tradition of the Church, and guarded by the Magisterium, he avoids building on the quick sands of partial interpretations.

- Focused on the Sacraments: These are the real and effective force of the priestly ministry. The priest must celebrate the sacraments with dignity and faith. “But do not forget that you are not the fountain, but the channel, and that you also need to drink of that water. Therefore, do not cease from going to Confession, to always return to the mercy you proclaim.”

- Appreciative of the Church’s different charisms and diverse spiritualities.

- Centered on the Eucharist: “Here is what gives meaning to what you do every day and from which your ministry springs. On the altar, through your hands, Christ’s sacrifice is actualized in the highest action entrusted to human hands; in the tabernacle, He whom you have offered, is entrusted once again to your care. Be worshippers, men of deep prayer, and teach your people to do the same.”