Let Us Give Thanks...

Conversion is a day by day experience, as I was reminded to me in a homily a week ago, and day by day I know more why I continue to return... With the eyes of faith I recall the words of Peter: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68-69)

But this isn't a begrudging answer or a return based on fear or weariness, even when I fail... It isn't as though it is a crutch. Why go to Mass then? Why return in community to the Eucharist?

Indeed, the Eucharist is having eyes for forever. It is the onward look towards Eternity, wrapped in a love deeper than the depths of the human heart. It is a Thanksgiving, rightly called so, because we do not earn it, but we are given it in our feebleness. It strengthens; it fortifies. It gives us new life... All because of HIS words... "I am the Bread of Life."

Let us "give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever!" -Psalm 107:1

Today I give thanks "for his mercy endures forever" (Psalm 107:1), and His beauty is ever before me, whether before me at home or in Rome.

The beauty I seek, that I yearn most deeply for, is before me always. It is his mercy that endures forever and my heart is glad, glad for a shepherd whose voice I hear from the ends of the earth to home. My heart is glad for Him Who Is and for the gifts of Him.

My heart is glad for the gift of love for ones that are His, and I pray I may recall this even when that love is tested and purified, most especially when all that I desire is before me at the Altar of Salvation, at the Table of His Great Love, at the Banquet of the Great Communion of His Love. May I place it all upon the altar with the unblemished gifts and the works of our hands—all of it!

He purifies because He loves, and He loves because He wants us, all of us, to have life more abundantly.

Let us love through Him. Though Him, With Him, In Him... Now and Forever. Amen.

—Sunrise from the Coast of Italy, May 2, 2014