Rite to Light, Life and Love: An Update
J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R.*
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| The Coronation of the Virgin Ambrogio Bergognone's Masterpiece (c. 1515) |
Recent searches on the Eucharist
and Light, Life and Love
provided some interesting results:
We begin with Cardinal Roger Mahoney, Archbishop of Los Angeles who seems right on the mark with the following sermon during the Year of the Eucharist:
http://www.archdiocese.la/archbishop/homilies/eucharist-052605.html
Saint Madeleine Sophie Parish Bellevue, Washington
http://www.archdiocese.la/archbishop/homilies/eucharist-052605.html
Saint Madeleine Sophie Parish Bellevue, Washington
Thursday, May 26, 2005
"In our celebration of the Eucharist and in our ongoing mission of witness and evangelization, the Incarnation continues in our own time and place. The light, life, and love of God who has come to the world in fragile flesh continues to come among us in the simple earthen realities of bread and wine. There God is hidden, seen only by those who look in faith, hope and love for the pouring out of God’s gift in the Eucharist. Receiving this gift helps us to be a Holy People who pour forth the life, light and love of God in a world so broken, in a Church with plenty of tensions and struggles."
"In every situation we are to testify to Christ as the Light. This we do in the turmoil of our daily and often quite humdrum lives, as we struggle to find ways to confront the suffering of nations, races, and classes, as we face the many faces of death in our own time and place. The testimony is this: The power of love prevails over all evil. So that we might become a purer light to pierce the dark of night, a more credible witness to the Eucharist as a “Sign of Unity, Bond of Love,” which gives shape to our plan for mission, proclaiming in word and deed the Good News of Jesus Christ."
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Seems right to say here that if one tries to describe the complete Truth of the Holy Eucharist one must use the words: light, life and love.
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Next, we see a Reformation Age Protestant Dr. Owen (1654) take on the 3 L's relation to communion. Notice how it is wrong (relative to man's total depravity) and yet right relative to describing communion with the words light, life and love:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/communion.i.i.html
"By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with GOD. He is light, we are darkness; and what communion has light with darkness. He is life, we are dead; he is love, we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us Men in such a condition, having neither CHRIST, nor hope, nor GOD in the world; " being alienated from the life of GOD through the ignorance that was in them." Now, "two cannot walk together unless they be agreed." Whilst there is this distance between GOD and man, there is no walking together for them in any fellowship or communion. Our first interest in GOD was so lost by sin that there was left to us (in ourselves) no possibility of a recovery. As we had deprived ourselves of all power for a return, so GOD had not revealed any way of access unto himself. Not any work that GOD had made, not any attribute that he had revealed, could give the least light into such a dispensation."
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/communion.i.i.html
"By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with GOD. He is light, we are darkness; and what communion has light with darkness. He is life, we are dead; he is love, we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us Men in such a condition, having neither CHRIST, nor hope, nor GOD in the world; " being alienated from the life of GOD through the ignorance that was in them." Now, "two cannot walk together unless they be agreed." Whilst there is this distance between GOD and man, there is no walking together for them in any fellowship or communion. Our first interest in GOD was so lost by sin that there was left to us (in ourselves) no possibility of a recovery. As we had deprived ourselves of all power for a return, so GOD had not revealed any way of access unto himself. Not any work that GOD had made, not any attribute that he had revealed, could give the least light into such a dispensation."
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Isn't it sad how from the Protestant perspective, the word and concept of communion so often leads to the conclusion that people as holy as the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist had no close relations (no communion) with God until Jesus died on the cross with our sins.
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Finally, we found a beautiful little reflection on the end of life by the Irish priest, Fr. Tommy Lane:
"When we respond at each moment of our lives to the call of God, we prepare ourselves to enter into the Lord’s rest; As baptized we try to be aware of the presence of God in each moment of our lives, like the sunflower that keeps following the sun all day long. God is not just at the end of our life, waiting for us there; God is with us at every moment of our lives. However in the final moment of our lives, we will see God’s love and everlasting light. In this Eucharist we pray for Paddy that perpetual light may shine upon him."
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Fr. Tommy is a star!
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Sincerely yours in Jesus and Mary,
Mike Rizzio
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Sincerely yours in Jesus and Mary,
Mike Rizzio
Imitate Mary
Become like Jesus
Live for the Triune God
Seek the Light of Our Lord Jesus Christ
See you on the High Ground!
* - J.M.J. + O.B.T. + M.G.R. stands for:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph;
O Beata Trinitas;
St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael
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