Catholic Beauty: Living as the Mystical Body of Christ

I recently had a family friend ask me why I was so drawn to the parish of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston and the Ordinariate's Anglican Use Mass of the Latin Rite. I have no specific ties to Anglicanism and am cradle Catholic. However, it is precisely because I am Catholic that I am drawn to all of it, most especially the families wrapped in Our Lady's mantle for it. It is said from medieval times that England was—and still is—Mary's Dowry. To be Catholic is to be drawn in with anything that has that authentic beauty. It is imperative that we seek out authentic beauty and nurture it. Beauty is a compelling thing, but beauty also is most especially a person: Christ with His Mass through the Eucharist, in its varied reverent forms, are a reflection of Him, as His angels and saints are, as are those who show virtue in this life and extol the same.

The beauty of the holy ones and the holy places make all of the counterfeit examples dross in the same brilliant dazzling light. It makes the Mass, the prayers, and the devotionals all the more attractive. It furthers the desire to emulate and be near those who are "very members incorporate" of His Mystical Body, the Church.

Certainly, if I do all the good works He has prepared for me to enter into and avoid those near occasions of sin for the even nearer occasions of grace and endless beauty, I will not prosper for my own glory but His. It is all His after all, even if I am given the smallest amount for my use.

How can I be burdened with worry about what others have then? I speak of this as a projection; I am not even near this slightest perfection. How can I be even worried in the slightest when another is entrusted with something of great beauty or is entrusted with a beautiful love of another? I cannot question the heart of a cheerful giver, most especially the most cheerful of all givers and Father of all givers, the Almighty Himself.

So I cannot question, but I can still behold the beauty. Is this not the definition of a Christian? To behold the Beauty of Christ in all His forms? Love demands to be given, and we must give even when we are weary. The Beloved needs it, and He does not delay in giving us the love we need as our daily bread.

May we see this beauty as the Beloved and seek out to be Lovers in the ways God is generously calling us to be in our day to day movements of grace to one another. Let us not shy away from this Cross we are to bear with Him. Amen.

O the depths of His Presence... and the distance.

"Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ: and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom. And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen." - The Post-Communion Prayer in the Anglican Use Liturgy of the Latin Rite

The Presence of the Lord: "Ite Missa Est"

Oh, this Presence! What shall I say of this? This is more than a binding of flesh and blood. It is submission to the greater Mission. It is an outward sign of an inward reality of Love. There is more to this than can be seen by our own eyes.

To be privileged to be given the opportunity to bring the Presence and to not betray Him or His love... It truly is the better portion and is given as a undeserved gift without any reward but His glory. This is Love.

This Presence remains with us even after we leave the Mass. We are "sent forth" ("ite missa est") to bring such a gift, such a pure gift. We become the outward sign of the inward reality. But why? Why do we leave this behind so easily? Why do we forget to love more purely? If we truly loved the Other more than words can describe and want what is ultimately the best for them, why do we hide such a profound gift as though it is a blemish instead of a blush? Is it because we are afraid of that Love's power? It is not without trial and rejection. No, His very love was rejected far worse! Is it that you do not believe because of others' human failures? Do not do this! For have you not seen with your own eyes His divine success?

To love is to be vulnerable, as C.S. Lewis once said, and that love is without question a test in trust. What if the beloved does not love? Love anyways. Love anyways but love in far more inventive ways. If by their rejection out of foolishness it becomes a game of responses out of shrewdness in love, do not be unlike the old widow before the judge and persist in seeking a just judgement. If such an incompetent judge can, out of sheer personal relief, issue a just judgement, how greater is the One who judges justly in Heaven? Love anyways! There are so many little rejections that must take place to say YES to HIM.

Do not grow weary of the endurance required for this Love if it is to be a seal set upon your heart (cf. Song of Songs 8:6). Do not betray the deep consolations He has given you in times of peace during those storms of desolation and half truths. They are greater than the storms we must traverse.

Let us not be like the foolish virgin who on the way ran dry of her oil and snuffed out her lamp waiting on the Bridegroom to pass by. We have all that we need for the way. Remain in Him.

If one loves another deeply with the depths the Lord has uniquely provided each to persist against all sorts of trials that image His trials born because of His love for us (cf. 1 John 4:18-19), then let us as that one do all the good works that He has prepared for us to enter into (cf. Ephesians 2:10) and do so without mental reservation. His sacrifice lacks nothing but our very own participation in it. Let us not stray from our cross but daily carry it after Him.

May He be present to each us and thus through the Church He established for Himself and washed in the water of His word "to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless" (cf. Ephesians 5:27).

May His love reign supreme.

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." - Ephesians 5:21-33

This Is the Eucharist

I do not deserve this. He has placed all the choicest gifts before me, has given me more than I need, has showered me with His mercy. All that I see before me, I do not deserve. He has given me His very self. However, He has given me His very self not to hoard or hide but to share and celebrate. This is when I recall what I saw months ago at Mass during the Eucharist: a father with his son proceeding forward and, before reaching the priest, genuflected in such a way that it echoed what every good father does—He knelt with his children before the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. He offered his son as an unbloody sacrifice. He sacrificed through the sweat and tears of the toil and labor he had to do to provide for his son. And there he was offering it before Him in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. I am not worthy of this. And, yet, these things do not come to me in a whisper of temptation from some loftier goal; rather, this is the loftier goal for me from Him. He is to come under my roof. This is the discernment of spirits: there remains no unease or disquiet from each revisit to this moment, only peace, only holy rapture. He has given me another gem along the Way. I do not deserve this, but He gives it to me ever the same. He has given His Word, and my soul has been healed. This is the Eucharist.

Let Man Not Divide

The secret to love is not the falling in love... but the rising. The former is easy and takes little effort. The latter requires the act of will, a "Yes" to mean "Yes" and a "No" to mean "No." The first is easier to counterfeit; the last near impossible to fake. We are lost in the feeling of falling when in reality we were already fallen but raised by Christ. So if it is to be falling, make sure to rise with the morning. Love awaits.

Fidelity is more than saying "yes" to the One; it is saying "no" to everything that is not of the One. This is the secret of Christian marriage in its mirroring of the marriage between God and Man. It is a dying to self and a gift that, from the outside, is incomprehensible but, from the heart of it all, is worth dying for. It is the fait accompli of life... It is reason to offer sacrifice. It is the fatal attraction that unsticks heart from hand and allows the new life of communion as One.

At the same moment it validates the complementary nature of the two different worlds and invalidates every other attempt to merge two worlds too similar for the sacrificial self. Love requires this sacrifice in order to be complete, and Love requires this sacrifice in order to be more than simply a feeling but an honest, sincere act of will to love without end.

Love requires this authentic act of self to remain in fidelity until the end of the bond, one being in the temporal life which ultimately must point to the other one: the Eternal.

Love requires nothing less than everything. Let man not divide. No decision otherwise, whether civil or social, can divide what God has joined together. Amen.

I Believe in Love: "Ti Voglio Bene"

In everything seek the Lord. Have I? This is, for me, the ever burning question. It is the one that leaves me up at night or up again very early in the morning, unable to fall back to sleep.

Hatred is a terrible sin that hardens the heart, but even greater a sin and more invidious is that of envy. If hatred can be called a sin of wishing ill of another or of destruction of what is good, then envy is the wholesale desire to possess a good inordinately for oneself, a spiritual gluttony that manifests far more easily and passes any censor or filter of the heart. It is not merely a shadow of worry but a constant danger lest we refuse to love as we ought in its proper time and place with the prudence that the heart knows. Envy breaks down the rule of compassion and foists up a ruler whose heart is possession and want. It has no place at Love's table.

So, I believe in Love. But do I believe in the totality of Love? It isn't enough to not have hatred, though this is a sort of proto-love. We must also "wish good unto others." Or as the Italians have a phrase: "ti voglio bene." It is a phrase that comes originally from Latin which means loosely, "I care so much of you that I wish the best for you," or more closely: "I want your good." It is among the many translations for the English, "I love you."

It is of little surprise they use these words for their Beloved. So must I.

So must I, as I read this past weekend's Gospel reading on Saturday: "Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one." (cf. Matthew 5:37) So must I, as I saw others do this weekend in speaking their vows and thus undertaking them, if not yet fully understanding what those vows fully mean. To take courage and say "yes" and truly mean it is far worth every "no" that is meant so as to have another ready to believe in Love and act forthrightly to live it and to "make good to the Lord all that you vow." (cf. Matthew 5:33, Psalm 50:14) So must we believe in Love. Amen.

"But for the Grace of God Go I..."

Remembering that you are forgiven is a relieving truth. Even greater is the truth that you have that gift for others. Love is not lost in the loosing act of forgiveness but in the binding of the unforgiving act of a hard heart towards self and others. This is the most debilitating action one can choose; it is a failure to forgive, a détente of false peace when true peace is attainable and promptly accessible if one only acts. It is a failure of proper perspective and self-worth.

But for the grace of God go I... Grace because I could not persist in hope by my affliction alone. Hope because hope sees through the thin veneer of the present. Affliction because the present has not been made the future at once. Love because Love does not count the hours against the Beloved until the words are spoken: "Forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Guard jealously the forgiveness you've been given. Do not let it be taken away willingly or in piecemeal to doubt or temptation. You have sought forgiveness, and it has been given to you. Do not let temptation hold its sway to the lies and its progenitor.

You have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Do not sully your bright white garment. Do not sin. His gift is greater than the temptation at hand to fall. Remain close to Him. His grace is sufficient.

Grace Abounds

When dealing with a life bereft with poisonous temptation, as though living in a foggy swamp of noxious fumes, let us not grow weary in prudent combat against despair and malady. This is our great boon. As St. Paul writes: "Where sin is, grace abounds all the more" (cf. Romans 5:20). So it is with us. Grace is not for those who are comfortable; it is for those who are afflicted, bereft, and in need. That is why "the last shall be first" (cf. Mark 10:31).

Grace abounds "all the more" because of need, not because we have earned anything! Our place is with the Lord, no matter if we are the Faithful Son or the Prodigal Son.

Remember this when worried about the appearances of others or oneself. It is better to seek after mercy for oneself or another than it is to be quicker to condemn than our Lord. To "settle on the way" (cf. Matthew 5:25) and, in haste, to return to Him is better than a thousand days of doubt before our Lord. Forgiveness is not first in the judgement but in the asking, and it is in the judgement that, faithful to this command to love one another, we may see not only the grace of Holy Communion in this age, though beset with persecution (cf. Mark 10:30) and temptation to despair, but also Union with him in the Eternal Life to come with Him in the next.

Let us not grow hasty in our understanding of this sublime gift of grace and Holy Communion, and let us not delay in making our holy confession of guilt before Him. Let us not deny His love or refuse to share it fully. This is our "sacrifice of praise" (cf. Psalm 50:23), that He might be glorified in His love for us. Take courage in His love.

"Offer to God praise as your sacrifice
and fulfill your vows to the Most High.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God." - Psalm 50:14, 23

"O God, who provide gifts to be offered to your name
and count our oblation as signs
of our desire to serve you with devotion,
we ask of your mercy
that what you grant as the source of merit
may also help us to attain merit's reward.
Through Christ our Lord."
(Prayer over the Offerings, Tuesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time)

So much surrounds these words above, which came to me after a weekend at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, "the First Week After Pentecost" (in older usage) or, in the more commonplace, the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time. The Responsorial Psalm of daily Mass that Tuesday was that of a frequently used phrase in the the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite, which speaks of vows and devotion. It is used at the end of the period of announcements and blessings (especially birthdays and wedding anniversaries). It speaks so beautifully to the wedding feast that is just then about to commence... that wedding feast where, so beautifully, grace abounds.

Agents of Love

It is because the Beloved is who the Beloved is that one at once becomes more enthralled in the pursuits of the Beloved as it is, in degree, directed towards the One Who Is Infinitely Lovable.

Such a pursuit attaches a portion of the Infinite to the Finite and beauty to what is not yet perfected. Love becomes a journey in the perfection process, not simply for gain of one's self but so also the whole world and all contained therein. It is there that we fill in what was in Christ's afflictions were 'lacking.' (cf. Col. 1:24) His Sacrifice lacks nothing except our participation, as St. Paul says, in the works that the Lord has "prepared for us to enter into." (cf. Eph. 2:10)

One's acceptance of imperfection is one of it being in the past, yet there is a perfection that we are called to in the same Spirit of the One Who Is. We mustn't be discouraged when faced with imperfection or imperfect love but, rather, be patient with the Other as He is patient with us. As the King is to his servant, so must we as his servants be patient to our fellow servants lest we be required to "pay to the last penny." (cf. Mt. 5:26)

This is the secret of love and mercy. We are called to be agents of change in this ineffable love. We are called to be agents of Love; we are called Disciples of Love.

May He be praised.

John Paul II's "Magnificat"

Magnificat

My soul, magnify the glory of the Lord,
Father of great Poetry — and so good.

With wondrous rhythm he fortified my youth,
on an oak anvil he hammered out my song.

Resound, my soul, with the glory of the Lord
who made knowledge of angels, most kindly Maker.

Now at your heavenly banquet, I drain
a chalice with wine overflowing — your servant in prayer:
in gratitude for the angelic glow You lit for my youth
whittling its rough shape from the wood of a linden tree.

You omnipotent, the wondrous woodcarver of saints,
there are many oaks on my road, many birches.
I am a village field, a sunclad flower bed,
A young face jutting from the Tatra rocks.

I bless your sowing with sunrise and sunset;
Sower, I am your soil — widely scatter your grain —
may a field of rye and a castle of spruce
grow from my youth cradled in yearning and pain.

Let happiness magnify You — a great mystery:
with primordial song you have stretched my lungs,
made my face sink into the blue of the sky,
a shower of music falling on my strings —

and in this melody You came as Christ, a vision.
Look ahead, young Slave, look, the solstice fires!
The sacred oak is still in leaf, your king has not withered,
but become for the people a lord and a priest.

Magnify the Lord, oh my soul, for your calm foreboding,
for Gothic yearning in spring’s incarnation,
for youth aflame — wine chalice of elation,
for autumn born in the likeness of heather and stubble.

Magnify Him for poetry, for you and for pain:
the joy in mastering earth, gold, blue skies,
the passion of generations in words incarnate;
You will harvest this ripeness when it falls and dies.

The pain is evening sorrow of things half-uttered,
when beauty overwhelms us, and ecstasy is ours,
God bending to the harp — but on a rocky track
a sunbeam breaks, and words lose their power.

Words fail, and I am like a fallen angel,
a statue on marble pedestal — stone on stone —
but You breathed yearning into the marble arms,
the statue longs to take off — angel again.

And I magnify You also for the haven there is in You,
the reward for each song — day of holy quest,
for the joy that sings the hymn of motherhood,
the quiet word of fulfillment — Eli manifest!

Father, be blessed for the angel’s sorrow
for the song that crushes falsehood, for the soul’s inspired fight.
Break all love of words in us, and destroy
The puffed-up form parading like a fool.

A Slav troubadour, I walk Your roads and play
to maidens at the solstice, to shepherds with their flock,
but, wide as this vale, my song of prayer
I throw for You only, before your throne of oak.

Blessed are you, oh song among songs,
blessed the soul’s sowing and the seeds of light.
Let my soul magnify Him who threw over my shoulders
princely satin, velvet’s soft delight.

Blessed be the Carver-of-saints and prophet and Slav.
have mercy on me, a publican inspired.
Magnify the Lord, oh my soul, in humble love
singing the hymn: Holy, Holy, Holy!

Now the song is one. Poetry, descend!
The seed like the soul yearns, insatiable.
May my road keep to the shade of oaks and birches,
and may my youthful harvest be pleasing to God.

Slav Book of yearning, on the last day resound
like brass, choirs of the resurrection
in virginal holy song, in poetry that bows
with the hymn of humanity — God’s Magnificat.

Karol Wojtyla - Cracow, spring-summer, 1939
Published in Karol Wojtyla's Collected Poems, 1982. Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz.

Conversion & The Abiding Love of the Father

Faith is not the reason for God's forgiveness. Not even is hope the reason, though it does not disappoint. Even when we are off at a distance and on our way, He comes with haste to meet us and forgive the contrite. Faith is how we see His forgiveness in our lives because it is out of faith and hope that love, and, in it all, conversion comes to those who return Home.

In both the older and the prodigal son, we should see how we could fail. His love does not fail or falter, not even for a moment... His love remains no matter how far we run, but He will not impose the love He holds. Neither to the returning nor the remaining son does He desist in His abiding love. He waits for both sons' conversions. It is there that He reminds us of all the lavishing He wishes to impart on us and how He wishes everything He has to be our own.

"Conversion is where obedience turns into love." - Father David Konderla

Love Does Not Doubt Love

The sacrifice of an immediate joy for a greater and far longer one, though thought in the moment as a folly or farce, is far more fantastic and favorable to one's very self than being gorged on the temporal pleasures or the immediate response of even a great good in its own right. It is often, in the delayed gratification resulting with a gift given of a far greater good than had one hoped first for, that its delayed but not demurred joy is not only larger and more lively a gift but so also more effective, covering every suffering or lack of happiness thus preceding. Love, though never counting the costs nor counting the returns, profits more from the latter one of delay than the former of the moment. Love does not answer always in the most perceptive of ways, but often it is in the quiet wait that its joys and its beautiful installment of what is yet to come is shown as a sweet enveloping light from Heaven, and then we recall that "He so loved the world that He gave us His only Son." (cf. Jn 3:16)

"I know that love strengthens every vocation, that love is everything, that it embraces all times and all places, because it is eternal." - St. Therese of Lisieux

And in that truth the hope and faith in Love Divine rests. In that Truth Love bears out the hope that is Hope for it was not seen and the Faith of the one who had not yet seen. Love, thus, does not doubt Love, and thus it waits steadfastly for the faith of the Fallen, of the Broken, of the Ones weakened but not lost to sin to then render their hearts and not their hands and thus make known fully how His Love has made their lives' "steadfastness manifest" for Love does all these things for its own sake and because its own property is mercy and truth itself.

"Faith without charity bears no fruit, while charity without faith would be a sentiment constantly at the mercy of doubt. Faith and charity each require the other, in such a way that each allows the other to set out along its respective path."

Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei

Deo gratias.

Love on the Way: Take Courage!

How easy is it to remain on the mountaintop and pitch the proverbial tent! It is very good to be here... but where is He calling you? Where? Reach into the depths, beyond the fears that remain. How can He do anything with you if you do not first release the fallacious fears of recollection that rest on past failures and past falls. Perfection lies not in the past but in the future.

Ultimately, love is about the future in Communion, not the past of disunion. Make the daily offering to unite all the Little Things to the Lord and His Sacrifice for His union with His bride, and He will show you the way to love without fear, to take courage without despair, and to give, in turn, what you have been given. Love finds His way to His Beloved.

Learn from the Master how He loves His Beloved. Take courage! With Him, He carries His Cross and helps you with yours on the Victory March to Love! Love takes His form with every breath, with every step, with every drop of blood, of sweat. Love finds His way to His Beloved.

His love does not dither to the harshness of the present life, nor does it to the past. Its luminance lasts beyond the night, and it harkens the days to come. His love is grace itself, and it shares with us His Victory March. The battle for Life has already been won. Rejoice in His love and share it with others on the Way, on that Way of Sorrows. Take courage! Rest with Him in His Communion; rest in preparation for the good works ahead He has prepared for you to enter into. Love finds His way to His Beloved.

Beloved, rest in His love. His Wedding Feast awaits!

Love Requires Communion

Love does not require two people, and yet, at the same time, it cannot be forced or coerced. It must be a gift to be accepted or denied, received or rejected. Love is not a pure emotion, though emotions and passions can drive it, but a willed act. It cannot be as fickle as the winds or the rain, or exacted like a science or weather phenomena. Love cannot be predicted for the simple fact that it requires a free will ready to return that love which has been first given, and thus to be shared with the Other, with each of the ones surrounding. Love requires Communion.

It is there that Love takes on all its properties and all of its varied and diverse forms. It is here in this moment, when it is shared that the seed of faith grows, that hope is renewed, and that Love takes root.

Any setback, any humiliation, any perceived foible or failure possibly seen by others, any heartbreak, any loss of possession, any separation of affection and touch, or even the sense of abject failure need not go unpurposed, unused, or wasted in the pursuit of this Communion of Love. The Spirit of God gives us fruits of grace especially in these humble moments when the consolations dry up and the earthly happiness ceases. The rains of grace shall come again, and the new day shall dawn once more and break from on high. This temporal winter so too shall pass. And even in these dry moments, there Love is.

"Love and truth will meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth will spring from the earth; justice shall look down from heaven." Psalm 85:11-12

And so it is, Love through Communion and Communion through selfless love. It isn't so much that we go wandering the world in search of Love in all the wrong places; it is that we have forgotten that it wasn't we who first loved but that we must realize that we must first be loved before we can learn to speak adequately in the language demanded by Love and of the One who created us. No single response is exactly the same to the demands of love. And those demands, which may seem high and distant at times or number many, distill into each the basic callings that each person receives as the seed to their very "vocation to love," as St. Therese of Lisieux once said.

"In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:17-19

Her struggle to win herself over to her "Little Way" is as legendary as it is simple: to be all things to all, she must first be love for the other in her own distinct, simple, child-like way. She was not everything, and yet through Love's massive expanse she became, through the Communion of Love and through the Faith and Hope she professed, the Love she desired so much. She did not allow the stumbling block of fear to obscure the "lamp upon [her] feet" and "light of [her] path" (cf. Psalm 119:105).

Love has no other ultimate end besides Communion with God, who is Love. And so, while the impostor examples placate in the interim, anything that does not lead us to that ultimate end of Communion with Him—be it trifle or tempest, longing or largesse, silence or speech, climax or desolation, height or depth—we find ourselves unable to be filled, by which we are unable to be in lasting peace, and in the end through which we are unable to have everlasting life itself without this aim. No matter its tried and noble path, if it not end in love, then it would be all dross. Without this Love, supreme of all virtues, we would be nothing, for without Him we are. And with Him, no matter the past, Love conquerors all not by force but by simple unending Truth in Communion with the Creator Blest. "We love because he first loved us." (1 Jn 4:19)

Where else but first at the Sacrifice of the Cross at Calvary in the bloody form and then at the re-presentation at the Altar under the unbloody form of the Eucharist first instituted by Christ himself as a Sacrament of Love? Where else can Love come down to be poured into all the Faithful to both strengthen them and to show them Love's most sublime way of entering into Communion with His bride, the Church? Love has no end, except in Him. Let us return in love by whom all loves so beautifully excel in bringing one another God, in whom we are strengthened for the blessed race still to be run but that has already been won, and through Him we have everlasting life.

"At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the centuries until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us." (Sacrosanctum Concilium 47)

Sacramental Life: A Fiat to Truth

The moment one forgets that the imperfection isn't an end but merely an illusionary setback, that it isn't an indictment alone but a vindication based upon the One Who Saves, upon His mercy, and upon the grace that flows from Him as a font of every blessing here on Earth below; not until then do we realize that His love, which is mercy and truth itself, is reason enough to strive for perfection in and by, and through His grace. Love has no further end but to beget further love in the deepest recesses and places of the heart of one's beloved and in the heart of whom, who bears Love's origin. It becomes senseless and without meaning, which it is to say life itself, when man forgets that primordial truth which springs from existence itself—that we are loved and that we are called to love within the boundless confines of eternity. Without a fiat to this truth, man cannot love, and if he cannot love then mercy and salvation cannot be fully accepted.

Love has no end until Love is espoused to the Other and in that espousal the Lover becomes fully known to the Beloved and the Beloved becomes fully known in the most intimate of espousals to the Lover.

This is the meaning of the Sacramental Life. That is to say: everything has meaning between the Lover and the Beloved, and the one who is loved—that is, the Beloved—wastes no time in reuniting with the Lover and desires nothing less than Communion, blessed Communion, with the One who loves without any reservation or fear.

We love the Other, not because we are first, but because "He first loved us" and because He first "espoused us."

King of Cotton

As white as Cotton... As bold and bright...
As shining as the light... As loud as thunder and quick as lightning...

This day, my friends, my brothers in arms,
My brothers of Maroon and White... This day shall not be forgotten.

Speed on throughout the land, to all corners, to all who with us stand.
Let the Spirit ring forth, the Spirit of Aggieland!

We are in the Land of, the King of Cotton! Let this not be forgotten!