Sunday, February 5, 2017

Radical newness! ...

"Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more
than standing in your garage makes you a car."  - GK Chesterton

"Sunday is thus the day when Christians rediscover the eucharistic form
which their lives are meant to have."  Sacramentum Caritatis, 72

tfsimon-novak378-big.jpg (763×742)

"Christianity's new worship includes and transfigures every life: 
'Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God'
(I Cor 10:31).  Christians, in all their actions, are called to offer
true worship to God. Here the intrinsically eucharistic nature of
Christian life begins to take shape.  The Eucharist, since it embraces
the concrete, everyday existence of the believer, makes possible,
day by day, the progressive transfiguration of all those called by grace
to reflect the image of the Son of God (cf. Rom 8:29ff).

There is nothing authentically human - our thoughts and affections,
our words and deeds - that does not find in the sacrament of the Eucharist
the form it needs to be lived to the full.  

Here we can see the full human import of the radical newness brought by
Christ in the Eucharist:  the worship of God in our lives cannot be relegated
to something private and individual, but tends by its nature to permeate
every aspect of our existence.  Worship pleasing to God thus becomes a
new way of living our whole life, each particular moment of which is
lifted up, since it is lived as part of a relationship with Christ and as
an offering to God.  The glory of God is the living man (cf. I Cor 10:31). 
And the life of man is the vision of God."

Sacramentum Caritatis,
Apostolic Exhortation, 02/22/07
Part III, section 71
Pope Benedict XVI

Full text:  Sacramentum Caritatis
A wonderful Lenten season meditation for nurturing your
Eucharistic life... share with another too!
ASH WEDNESDAY is March 1, 2017

Painting:  Paris by TF Simon

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