by Faith Central & Steve Welsh
“I … am already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.
From now on the Crown of Rrighteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the Just Judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for His Appearance. …”
“Jesus said to the Twelve:
‘Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed ….
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
* * *
Even all the hairs of your head are counted. …
* * *
Everyone who acknowledges Me before others
I will acknowledge before My Heavenly Father. …”
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”89 John was “filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb”90 by Christ himself, whom the Virgin Mary had just conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth thus became a visit from God to his people.91
718 John is “Elijah (who) must come.”92 The fire of the Spirit dwells in him and makes him the forerunner of the coming Lord. In John, the precursor, the Holy Spirit completes the work of “[making] ready a people prepared for the Lord.”93
719 John the Baptist is “more than a prophet.”94 In him, the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah.95 He proclaims the imminence of the consolation of Israel; he is the “voice” of the Consoler who is coming.96 As the Spirit of truth will also do, John “came to bear witness to the light.”97 In John’s sight, the Spirit thus brings to completion the careful search of the prophets and fulfills the longing of the angels.98 “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. and I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God…. Behold, the Lamb of God.”99
“When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child
she gave birth to a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard
that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her,
and they rejoiced with her.
When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child,
they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,
but his mother said in reply,
‘No. He will be called John.’ …”
“‘My soul, give thanks to the Lord, all my being, Bless His Holy Name'” (Ps. 103 (102), 1).
1. With these words of today’s liturgy, dear brothers and sisters, I wish to address myself, together with all of you, to the God of Love. And I wish to do so through the mystery of the Heart of Christ.
I choose these words because they speak of our human heart – what the Psalm refers to as “all my being”. It is precisely this that we have in mind when we speak of the “heart”: our whole being, all that is within each one of us. All that forms us from within, in the depths of our being. All that makes up our entire humanity, our whole person in its spiritual and physical dimension. All that expresses itself as a unique and unrepeatable person in its “inner self” and at the same time in its “transcendence”.
The words of the Psalm – “My soul give thanks to the Lord, all my being bless his holy name” – say that our human “heart” addresses God in all the unimaginable majesty of his divinity and his holiness and, at the same time, in his wonderful “openness” to mankind: in his “condescension”.
In this way “heart” meets “Heart”; “heart” speaks to the “Heart”. …”
“… ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me,
for I am Meek and Humble of Heart;
and you will find Rest for yourselves.
For My Yoke is Easy, and My Burden Light.”
“Jesus said to His Disciples:
‘… When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one to him as well.
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand him your cloak as well. …'”
“… 1324 The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”136 “The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.”137
1325 “The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.”138
1326 Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all. …”
“The Eucharist is given to us as a challenge and a promise. That’s how Jesus presents it in today’s Gospel. …”
Catholic TV Mass for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Sunday, June 18, 2017, from Heart of the Nation in Wisconsin. [Click here for Mass Readings]