Solemn feast of Corpus Chrsiti, the Church providing, a procession to celebrate and share in edifying community. As we trudge the awesome steps toward the Trinity, let love grow and reign supreme in our hearts. Serious in devotion, we become sensitive. Healing, we become vulnerable. Brutally honest, we expose ourselves. Thirsting for God, we appear feeble. Learning to love, we become tender. Growing in the spirit, we surrender. Trusting in God, we resort to tears and prayers. To the worldly, we seem weak, one who can be easily dominated, one who can be defeated with impunity. May we exercise appropriate care in sheltering ourselves from the worldly, from those playing at faith like teenagers. Thrill-seekers and the self-consumed can inflicted horrible damage to those accurately purifying upon the contemplative path of Calvary. God is good and providing, allowing everything to happen as it should. We do not seek victory focusing our eyes upon the Cross. From struggle may we grow stronger, the Eucharist (Corpus Christi) and our prayer life always the source of strengthening. Our love multiplying the consequence of advancing. Lord have mercy upon us all.

Here is a commanding consideration, a thought to ponder, from the writings of Saint Alphonosus Rodriguez.

But he suffered not only in His body, but in His soul also, and after a manner far more painful. For, notwithstanding human nature was in Him united to the divine person, yet it hindered him not from feeling the indignity of His sufferings in as lively a manner as if this union had not been at all. Moreover, to render this pain the greater, he was deprived of all consolation; which was the reason that he cried out upon the Cross: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ The holy martyrs were solaced in their torments by comforts from heaven, which made them suffer all things; not only with courage, but even with joy; but Jesus Christ, in order to suffer the more for the love of us, vouchsafe, as to His sacred humanity, to be deprived of all sorts of comforts both of heaven and earth, and not only forsaken by His disciples and friends, but even by His eternal Father. ‘I am become like a man without help or succor’, and yet this man was the only one who ‘was free amongst the dead’…the only one who was free from sin, and consequently ought to have been free from all pain.

The thought brings tears. Jesus absolutely abandoned upon the cross by the Father and Holy Spirit. All Divine consolation stripped, all humanely assistance fleeing, he humanely suffered upon the cross. Nailed to the cross, beaten, humiliated, His only resource was His humanity. Enduring, proving as a man He was a worthy member of the Trinity, His broken and bruised heart magnified love and forgiveness. In His humanity, Our Lord was triumphant. He won the victory for us as one of us. The man Jesus attained eternal salvation for all. He was not playing a game upon the Cross, cleverly allowing the omnipotence of the Trinity to tolerate the nonsense of silly humans being in some staged theatrical drama play. He went through everything vulnerable, on His own, abandoned, experiencing immense pain and consternation as a common man. The Son proved Himself, made His Father and the Holy Spirit proud, joining in unification, the formation of the eternal Trinity. The Father must be immensely proud of His Son. How could He not celebrate and honor His mother, standing weeping her pierced heart out, tears cascading at the foot of the Cross  The beloved apostle John supporting her, contemplatives setting the stage for ages to come.. May we in our humanity endure and hold to His example, always placing Him before us as the one we conduct our actions and thoughts for. The aim of our bent bows upon the Cross.

To set the table for the feast today, one more time Anima Christi:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within Thy wounds hide me
Separated from Thee let me never be
From the malicious enemy defend me
In the hour of my death call me
And bid me come unto Thee
That I may praise Thee with Thy saints
Forever and ever
Amen