A Note From Fr. Brady
It’s probably an understatement to say that the last few years has been a whirlwind for most of us. In and out of the Church, there has been so much happening on so many levels, some good, some bad. In our parishes on the local level though, this weekend marks the unofficial official beginning of the parish phase of the Eucharistic Revival that the Catholic Church in the United States is entering. I’m confident that this will be a great opportunity for us. While the official parish phase started in June of this summer with the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi Sunday), our diocese unofficially aimed at starting the parish phase this weekend with the diocesan Eucharistic Congress. While our Congress unfortunately had to be postponed, we will still be moving forward with our Eucharistic Revival on the parish level.
Maybe the Eucharistic Revival is something you’ve been hearing a lot about recently…or maybe not. Regardless, my prayer is that this can be a time of intentional revitalization in our parishes of belief in the True, Real, Substantial Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. However, we also know that simply believing is not enough. After all, St. James tells us in the Sacred Scriptures, “Faith without works is dead.” While I pray that this year can be a time of bolstering our faith in the Real Presence through learning, I also pray that it can be a time of bolstering how we live as a result of that belief.
What, then, are some of the good works that flow from belief in the Real Presence? We first start with good works done for God since He must be the center of our lives in all that we do. Without Him at the center, all our good works would be empty. Good works done for God include, but are not limited to, daily personal prayer, wearing your “Sunday best” to Sunday Mass, going to confession, prayerfully preparing to receive Holy Communion and remembering to keep the one-hour fast beforehand, etc.
Then, because we are grafted onto the vine that is Christ, we can express our faith through good works for our neighbor just as Christ has done for us:
giving a simple smile or compliment to someone you don’t really like, helping those in need including the poor, the elderly, and the sick, inviting someone to Mass, forgiving an enemy.
As a small way to assist our growth in faith and love for Christ truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, I will be focusing my Sunday homilies for a while on walking through the Mass: what is the Mass, what does it mean, why it’s important, etc.
May the heart of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament draw us evermore closely to conformity with him.
Fr. Brady Keller
