"I have loved you with an everlasting love...And I know the plans I have for you says the Lord"
Jeremiah:29-31
The Leaven of Grace
Grace is a principle of life. Final glorification has flowed from the love of the Father and has been bestowed upon the baptized by the Holy Spirit. The person has been sealed by the indwelling of the Spirit who now gives the baptized a new direction and a new mind, the “mind which is in Christ Jesus.” The Holy Eucharist is precisely this new mind. Jesus said, I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this Bread he shall live forever, and the Bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. In the Eucharist is realized the whole essence and meaning of creation, of the redemption and of the return to the Father. Here is realized the whole essence of Christianity: “God is made Man in order that man might become God.” This means that the kernel of our spiritual life shines forth in this most intimate reunion with God. “Man becomes by grace what God is by nature.” This is what we mean, as I’ve stated several times, by man’s deification or his theosis. It is indeed the divinization of the whole human being and the realization of immortality that God grants us in the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ…. Because of this union with Christ the Christian becomes fully alive with the Holy Spirit, and with the infinite power of the Love that breathes life wherever it enters. The measure of our communication in this Life is the measure of our possession of it. The Christian now knows with certainty that the anointing of the Good News of Christ cannot be done by words alone. Verbalization about his faith will not convince anyone. His faith is a life. Life must be lived, and its radiation gives life. The sign of credibility, especially in our own days, can only be acts which are not done simply to project some kind of good image, but which proceed from an interior conviction which inspires heroism in the service of others. Holy Communion, which is Christ himself—living, teaching, inspiring—becomes this fire which sustains the Christian in such a life. Archbishop Joseph M. Raya The eucharist, pledge of our resurrection
If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven. We are his members and we are nourished by creation, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall. He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body. The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of man and when they receive God’s word they become the eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness. From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus |
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I'm not really a writer, but it's on my long list of aspirations to become one. The first on the list is to become a great Saint! My hope is to share knowledge and inspiration as we walk together during our pilgrim journey on earth and guide each other, hand in hand to the gates of Heaven... If you for find this website helpful please consider making a donation today! Archives
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