Corpus Christi Blog

Happy Easter!

The reality of the glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to our Catholic faith and something to be joyfully celebrated. Today, I want to reflect on how the story of the first Easter highlights the dignity of women through the person of Mary Magdalene.

Before I begin, I would like to establish that Jesus’ entire ministry revealed the dignity of women. First and foremost, his public ministry started at the behest of his blessed mother at the wedding feast of Cana, even after telling her that his "hour had not yet come” (Jn 2:4). From the very start, we see a 30-year-old man attentive and obedient to his mother in a patriarchal society. While he is the one doing the ministry work — in this case, changing water into wine — we see the feminine genius quietly and subtly orchestrating things behind the scenes, not seeking the spotlight for herself.

It is now the final Sunday in Lent and Palm Sunday. Next week is the joyful celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. First, we must journey through this dark Holy Week because, without the Passion and Crucifixion, there can be no Easter. We all go through dark times in our own lives. Afterwards, we can often recognize how God was working through it all, providing us with our own little easters to celebrate. Just as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before his Passion, we will all fare better when we stay close to God while carrying our crosses. This leads us to the final virtue of St. Francis in this Lenten series.

How is your Lent going? Some years, we have good Lenten seasons where we feel spiritually strong and resilient and experience positive effects from prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Some years, our Lent is not as good, and we fail to resist the temptations Satan throws our way in his attempts to distract us and derail our pursuits of growing in holiness. If this Lent has been more of a struggle for you, particularly in regards to practicing the virtues of St. Francis of Assisi, I want to offer some encouragement.

We are now at about the halfway point of our Lenten journey with St. Francis. As we have explored the depth with which he embraced a life of virtue and abandonment to God, I hope you have felt inspired and encouraged to pursue your own life of virtue and holiness. If, on the other hand, you have been tempted to feel discouraged because it seems impossible to obtain St. Francis' mastery of virtue, remember that our spiritual life is always a journey, not a destination, and even some of the greatest saints, including Francis, have a sinful past. No matter how small the steps, keep moving forward! We will now turn to another of the saint's great virtues as described by St. Bonaventure.

This Lent, we have been reflecting on the virtues that St. Bonaventure described in his book about St. Francis of Assisi, so that we might strive to embody them on our own journeys of holiness. The first virtue we covered was austerity and how Francis practiced forms of physical penance to tame the desires of the flesh and yoke them to the suffering of Jesus for the salvation of souls. Then, we looked at humility and obedience and how these virtues glorify God by recognizing that any gifts a person possesses, or any authority placed over him, is only because God has willed it to be so. We have now reached the Third Sunday of Lent, focusing on the virtue of poverty embraced by St. Francis.

Chapter Seven: Of His Love of Poverty, and the Wonderful Provision Made for All His Wants by God

Last week, I discussed how St. Francis lived an austere life by seeking ways to practice self-control and detachment from physical and worldly comforts. This week, as we continue our Lenten journey with St. Francis according to St. Bonaventure, we will examine two more virtues in which the great saint excelled.

Chapter Six: Of His Humility and Obedience, and How the Divine Majesty Granted All His Prayers

The Catholic Encyclopedia defines humility as: “A quality by which a person considering his own defects has a lowly opinion of himself and willingly submits himself to God and to others for God's sake.” Modern culture argues against having a low opinion of oneself. It encourages building one's self-esteem by recognizing one's self-worth and accepting the praise that goes with a job well done in whatever situation it occurs. This position lacks the Christian understanding that humility requires extreme self-awareness, recognizing our sinfulness, and, therefore, unworthiness before God. Jesus promises a reward for authentic humility, saying, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11). So, humility is something for which we must strive because it is required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

Once again, we find ourselves in the liturgical season of Lent. This is a time to focus on our growth in holiness and virtue through prayer, penance, and almsgiving as we anticipate the suffering Jesus endured to reconcile us to the Father. As the inspiration for this year's Lenten reflection series, I am using The Life of St. Francis of Assisi, by St. Bonaventure.

St. Francis (1181-1226) was a wealthy businessman who, by his own admission, led a sinful life and desired earthly glory above all else. His conversion was slow and occurred through a series of events, but eventually, he fully accepted God’s will for his life. He embraced poverty, became an excellent preacher, was ordained a deacon, and founded the Franciscan order – none of which he originally set out to do.

St. Valentine's Day is this week, and while it may be fun to celebrate with hearts, gifts, and romantic dinners, it is also an excellent time to reflect on Christian love in the context of marriage.

The Sacrament of Marriage is a beautiful gift from God intended to provide us lifelong companionship and access to the grace that flows from the sacramental bond. However, marriage also comes with a considerable amount of responsibility. St. Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church…” (Eph 5:25). Paul speaks directly to husbands here because it is embedded in a larger context that emphasizes the differences between men and women. Still, the call for spouses to love one another is universal.

We live in a world plagued by moral relativism, where even the word “morality” can be controversial. As Catholics, we are blessed to have guides in the Magisterium and Scripture for properly forming our consciences, knowing right from wrong, and living a moral life, along with gentle and loving remedies for when we get off track. However, the world at large rarely adheres to the Church’s guidance on moral issues, claiming we follow arbitrary rules imposed by a distant, non-existent, or irrelevant God. Likewise, often Church and biblical teaching is considered antiquated and even unapplicable to an ever-evolving society and set of circumstances. Hence, we see growing confusion and disagreement over right and wrong.

Suffering is an unavoidable part of the human condition. We see suffering all around us and experience it personally across the spectrum, from catastrophes to minor daily annoyances. Suffering can manifest bodily, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, affecting all aspects of our lives. Our modern world tells us to avoid suffering at all costs and to instead seek comfort by any means necessary, such as taking a pill to alleviate pain, seeking divorce when marriage becomes difficult, or giving up in a situation that does not provide immediate satisfaction. The world sees suffering as a senseless evil to be avoided if possible or at least something completely meaningless. However, as Catholics, we know that personal suffering has immense value and is, in fact, redemptive and salvific for ourselves and others. Let's now explore how the great mystery of redemptive suffering works and how we might better allow our suffering to serve the good of ourselves and others.

This week, we will explore an ancient form of prayer called Lectio Divina, or divine reading, which facilitates a dialogue with God in which a person can hear what God is saying to them through scripture. We know that all of scripture, while written with human hands, is the inspired Word of God in which he not only speaks to all of humanity, but also to each one of us on a personal level.

As we are still at the beginning of a new year, both secular and liturgical, I will spend this week and next highlighting two specific types of prayer to encourage everyone to deepen their prayer lives. This week, I will explain the Liturgy of the Hours.

The Liturgy of the Hours — also known as the Divine Office or Breviary — is a public liturgical form of prayer that has been practiced throughout the centuries, dating back to the Desert Fathers in the 5th century. The Liturgy is designed to sanctify the entire day. The Church continually offers praise and thanksgiving to God by saying prescribed prayers at specific hours of the day — invitatory psalm (dawn or 3 am), office of readings (anytime), lauds (6 am), terce (9 am), sext (noon), none (3 pm), vespers (6 pm), and compline (9 pm).

Happy feast of the Epiphany!

The word epiphany comes from the Greek epiphaneia, which means "appearance" or "manifestation." Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the world, represented by the magi, who traveled from distant lands to pay homage to the newborn king.