My Favorite Week of the Year: Weekly Message for 6-13-17

Dear Digital Pilgrim, Pax Christi:

I love being Catholic. I mean, think about it. Our liturgical calendar puts the feast of the Holy Trinity and the feast of Corpus Christi in very close proximity. The mystery of the Holy Trinity, that God is Three Divine Persons and one Divine Nature, is one of the most unfathomable mysteries of our faith. Every time we try to put our heads around it, it escapes us. Of course, that doesn’t mean it has nothing to say to us – it certainly does, as is made abundantly clear in Fr. John Pietropaoli’s recent Retreat Guide, The Mystery of Eternal Love. But grasping the truth of God’s own nature is infinitely beyond our limited human powers of perception, and when we contemplate the Trinity, we feel
that distance.

But then, on the other hand, the sacrament of our Lord’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, what we celebrate on Corpus Christi, brings God near to us in a truly wonder-full way.  The infinite and eternal Divinity actually comes to dwell, sacramentally, in the tiny, fragile, plain host. We can hold him the palm of our hands.  We can receive him into our very lives. In the Eucharist, the infinitely distant God – the eternal “Other” of so many religious traditions – makes himself wildly present, graspable, available. Amazing. That is something we explore in depth in another Retreat Guide on the Eucharist, Food for the Journey.

That the liturgical calendar brings these two celebrations into such close proximity symbolizes the wisdom of our Church. Like a good mother, she always knows how to give us what we need – a dizzying glimpse of eternity is marvelously complemented by a healthy dose of the Incarnation.

For those reasons, this is one of my favorite weeks in the liturgical year. And while I am adoring our Lord in the Eucharist this week, especially on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, I will also be praying for you. Here at RCSpirituality we pray every day for the digital pilgrims who use our resources to help their spiritual journey, and also for the digital missionaries who support us so that we can keep making those materials available. It’s because of you that we can keep evangelizing the digital continent with the Good News about an infinite God who loves us so much that he gives his very self as food for our souls.

Thank you and God bless you!

In Him,

Fr. John Bartunek, LC S.Th.D.
contact@rcspirituality.org