Category Archives: All Things Catholic

The Living Church is the Body of Christ

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From a homily written in the second century

The living Church is the body of Christ

My name is constantly blasphemed by unbelievers, says the Lord. Woe to the man who causes my name to be blasphemed. Why is the Lord’s name blasphemed? Because we say one thing and do another. When they hear the words of God on our lips, unbelievers are amazed at their beauty and power, but when they see that those words have no effect in our lives, their admiration turns to scorn, and they dismiss such words as myths and fairy tales.

They listen, for example, when we tell them that God has said: It is no credit to you if you love those who love you, but only if you love your enemies, and those who hate you. They are full of admiration at such extraordinary virtue, but when they observe that we not only fail to love people who hate us, but even those who love us, they laugh us to scorn, and the Name is blasphemed.

Therefore, brothers, if we do the will of God the Father, we shall be members of the first spiritual Church that was created before the sun and the moon; but if we fail to do the will of the Lord, we shall be among those to whom it is said in Scripture: My house has been made into a robbers’ den. We must choose then, if we want to be saved, to be members of the Church of life.

You surely cannot be ignorant of the fact that the living Church is the body of Christ; for Scripture says: God made man male and female. Now the male signifies Christ, and the female signifies the Church, which, according to both the Old and the New Testament, is no recent creation, but has existed from the beginning. At first the Church was purely spiritual, even as our Jesus was spiritual, but it appeared in the last days to save us.

For the spiritual Church was made manifest in the body of Christ, in order to show us that if we uphold its honor in the outward, visible form, and do not defile it, we shall, through the Holy Spirit be made its members in the true, spiritual sense. For the body of the Church is a copy of the Spirit, and no one who defaces the copy can have any part in what the copy represents. In other words, brothers, you must preserve the honor of the body in order to share in the Spirit. For if we say that the body is the Church and the Spirit is Christ, it follows that anyone who dishonors his body, dishonors the Church. Such a man will have no part in the Spirit, which is Christ. But if the Holy Spirit is joined to it, this body can receive an immortal life that is wonderful beyond words, for the blessings God has made ready for his chosen ones surpass all human powers of description.

Rank and File

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O God, that I may do my part.
All are arrayed for battle.
I am enjoined
Rank and file
In readiness.

Command us!
Vigilant and faith unconstrained,
We press forward,
Lean upon You
And desire all that You Are,

Our only rest,
Your consummate End.
With Your Spirit
We praise Your Glory
In the triumphant shout.
Alleluia!

Hidden Gifts

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Be attentive to the small.
Diminutive things hide gift,
Less the glory,
Inviting in simplicity
And in need,
Making room for God to move
Upon the empty places,
To spend Himself.

God will not keep company
With vain glory,
Nor suffer the competition
Of the arrogant will.
The humble,
Empty of self,
Win the Heart of God.

Veterans Day–Passion of a Warrior

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When did his passion begin?
Did it commence with the kiss
By which he bid his loved ones adieu.
Or did the call to battle
Bid him count the cost,
Shattering vanities and proud hoorahs,
With winter ice
Through veins
Piercing to the marrow of bone.

The Call was always greater
Than one man’s valor or presumption.
Holier than Adam could undertake in rage,
Yet a young David found an “Amen”
Rising within his shepherd- breast,
Shielded by hope and faith
Born of a Savior,
Borne into battle
By the foal that carried Him forth.

All battles,
Waged for the souls of men,
Find common ground;
Friend and foe,
Dying side by side.
As grains numbered as the sand,
And the blood,
Bridle high at Armageddon,
Corpses piled and claiming
The best among us,
As generations of spent warriors’ might,
Trust to God
To judge the heart of every man,
And wear his colors in His raiment.

Memories, born as festering wounds,
Or toughened scars,
Mark the man and record the Passion.
No jot or tiddle forgotten,
Fingered on the ground,
Condemning only the Accuser.

Angels minister the balm of Gilead
As the dead live again,
And the living love
Through the Darkness.
Mended hearts,
Held to a measure,
Weighed on scales of Mercy.
Are blessed.
None forgotten,
All forgiven.

How long? How long?
Martyrs witness the passion of the warrior,
And place merited crown,
And victor’s wreathe,
As a new name resounds,
Pronounced by the Mouth of God.

©2012 Joann Nelander

This post in linking to  week 41 poetry picnic

 

Abandonment to the Will of God

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Abandonment to the Will of God,
That’s the Call.
What is holding you back
From accepting the Cross?

Give God your plans.
Give God your anger.
Give God your pain.
Give God your way.

Give God the nails
That nail you to your will.
Allow the nails in His Hands
To hold you fast with Him.

Our mouths may praise
His Father with Him
In this the Holy Hour of Abandonment.
We call His Name
As the crowds cry “Crucify.”

This is the hour for prayer.
Then shall come the fruit of Crucifixion,
Then will God’s Justice descend,
Then will the rain fall.

In each heart that looks,
Cries, mourns,
Goes to their homes disheartened,
And yet believes,
A flower will grow.

God will yet feed the multitude,
Not with the bread of Mammon,
But with His Holy Flesh
Willing supplied,
The same flesh
Savagely devoured
By the mob.

As the praise goes up,
Then will His Reign begin,
Then will God bless the Land,
Then will the Father
Kiss the multitude
Who dared lift the Son
High above the Earth.

©2012 Joann Nelander

Abandonment  (Read by author)

This post in linking to  week 41 poetry picnic