Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia!

It's been a busy month since St. Patrick's Day! I've not been fulfilling my bloggerly duties! Since there's been no outcry, I can only imagine you have been holding in your loss! ;)

It is Eastertime, 50 days to focus on the resurrection!

Here's an excerpt from the Second Reading of today's Office of Readings, cut and paste from .

It was the Lord’s will that his gifts should remain with us, and that we who have been redeemed by his precious blood should constantly be sanctified according to the pattern of his own passion. And so he commanded those faithful disciples of his whom he made the first priests of his Church to enact these mysteries of eternal life continuously. All priests throughout the churches of the world must celebrate these mysteries until Christ comes again from heaven. Therefore let us all, priests and people alike, be faithful to this everlasting memorial of our redemption. Daily it is before our eyes as a representation of the passion of Christ. We hold it in our hands, we receive it in our mouths, and we accept it in our hearts.

It is appropriate that we should receive the body of Christ in the form of bread, because, as there are many grains of wheat in the flour from which bread is made by mixing it with water and baking it with fire, so also we know that many members make up the one body of Christ which is brought to maturity by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, and since it was fitting that he should fulfil all justice, he entered into the waters of baptism to sanctify them. When he left the Jordan he was filled with the Holy Spirit who had descended upon him in the form of a dove. As the evangelist tells us: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.

Similarly, the wine of Christ’s blood, drawn from the many grapes of the vineyard that he had planted, is extracted in the wine-press of the cross. When men receive it with believing hearts, like capacious wineskins, it ferments within them by its own power.

- From a sermon by Saint Gaudentius of Brescia, bishop

May we be united into one body by Christ! May the Eucharist we receive lead us into Christ, to become Christ, and to bring Him to the whole world!

God Bless,
Fr. Ben