Corpus Christi Blog

So ready or not, here we are beginning the Season of Advent, the time of waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.    Both of our 1st and 2nd readings use the word ‘wait’.  Our 1st reading says, “No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him.”  What this is saying is that God will do something mighty, something we could not even imagine, if only we wait for him.  And our 2nd reading promises that in Jesus Christ we are enriched in every way, “so that we are not lacking in any spiritual gift as we wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  There it is again; wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are to wait until Jesus reveals himself. 

Our Church liturgical calendar is meant to guide us each year through a journey, a journey of life in which there are peaks and valleys.  Throughout the year we remember and enter grandly into great high feast days, as well as journey through the valleys, the ordinariness and routine of life through ordinary time.  But this journey that the Church calls us to is not just a journey of this life, but it is a journey growing closer to eternal life.  Today we conclude Ordinary Time with a great high feast- the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.  After this feast of Christ the King, we enter back into the time of preparation called Advent for the great event which is the beginning of time, the beginning of a new life itself, Christmas.

On Nov. 9th we celebrate the Feast called Dedication of Lateran Basilica in Rome, this year it happens to fall on a Sunday, and so once again we interrupt Ordinary Time in order to celebrate a feast.  The Basilica is named after St. John Lateran and was built during the reign of Emperor Constantine and consecrated in the year 324.  Even though the Pope lives near St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran is the Cathedral Church, or in other words it is the Church where the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, has his Cathedra or “chair” from which he teaches.  This is similar to one at St. Simon and Jude where the Bishop Olmsted’s teaching chair is located  If you haven’t been to Rome or seen the Lateran basilica, or weren’t able to come to the Catholicism DVD series last Thursday where we saw pictures of it, Lateran Basilica is absolutely beautiful and teaches us so much.  I have had a chance to visit the beautiful Basilica on one of my trips to Rome.  There are giant statues of all the Apostles where the columns are, which hold up the Church; greatly symbolizing the truth that the Church is built upon the Apostles.  Then up by ceiling are paintings of all the Pope’s showing the Apostolic succession of shepherds Christ has called to lead his Church. 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, yesterday the Church celebrated All Saints Day, in which we celebrated all the souls who are in perfect union with God in Heaven.  Try and imagine what being in perfect union with God might look like.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus prays that we might be one as the Father and He is one.  To be one with and in God, means to share completely in His divine nature.  We were made by God to live forever in union with God.  But through sin, death entered the world, and because of sin we are not capable of living in perfect union with God.  And that is why in God’s love Jesus was sent and became human.  Jesus, who never lost the divine nature, took on our human nature, even to the point of suffering and dying for our sins.