True Love: nice quotes vs. real action

Love for souls sounds theoretical, vague, and ambiguous. But we’re talking about authentic Christian love, charity. We don’t just love on a human level, but we love others as spiritual and eternal persons, images of God himself. “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him” (Gn 1:27). 

The example that the Holy Father gives at the beginning of the Year of Faith is that of the Samaritan woman at the well. She asks Christ for water, but he goes far beyond her physical needs and loves her more deeply. “If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me something to drink,’ you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10). He recognizes her real thirst and tries to quench it.

The Eucharist: a Gourmet Recipe for the Soul.

Whenever I try to explain to Catholics the radicalness of the Eucharist, I present two options. We’re either right, and the Eucharist is God himself: the greatest gift to mankind, or we are the biggest bunch of lunatics ever to walk the earth. Every day, thousands of people kneel down and worship in the most personal, real way or they are deceived and make fools of themselves in front of a little wafer. Well which is it?

Money, fame, and the priesthood - the true story.

Funny. Until the other day, I wasn’t thinking of starting this way. Coming back to the seminary, I stopped by a hotel, and there was a businessman getting out of a Mercedes sedan. He walked into the hotel, and the driver waited on him. Okay, I have to admit I did think, “Wow, wouldn’t that be nice. Having someone to wait on me hand and foot and take me everywhere.” I at least naturally tend to like these status symbols and the idea that others respect and admire me.

But then my mind wandered back to something else. “I’m going to be a priest forever.” Okay, I won’t have a Mercedes with a driver, but then again when I celebrate the Mass, Jesus Christ, God waits, on my word to come down to the world again in the Eucharist. When I sit in the confessional, he hangs on my lips waiting to bestow his forgiveness on a soul in need. Who is more important, the guy who has a driver or the priest, for whom God waits?

Why Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience For Life - the Joy of the Priesthood!

So how and why did I decide to become a Legionary priest? I’m not going to tell you my story here, but the whole story is here in case you suffer from insomnia.

What did God do almost fifteen years ago that brought me to the altar for ordination and brought you to Rome to share in this plan of God?

Life, love, death, God, joy - making sense of it all!

How did we meet Christ? We ask this walking through the narrow passageways of the catacombs. Martyrs found their final rest here. Hundreds and thousands of Christians secretly celebrated Mass for fear of being discovered. Why do such things? Christ died hundreds of years before. It’s just a bit of bread and a sip of wine.

No, there’s something more. For the Christians, martyrs, and saints of the first century, Jesus Christ was Someone. He meant going beyond the pomp and circumstance of their daily Roman lives. He could offer them more than the cosmopolitan, capital of the world ever could, despite her delicacies, luxuries, and opportunity to satisfy every sensual pleasure. Christ offered his body and blood for food, the comfort of Christian charity, and the promise of the satisfaction of all desire in eternal life.

But have I experienced this?