How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist - part 7A

     

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

About Michael Dubruiel

From chapter 2 - Serve. Part 4

WHOSE WAY ARE WE PREPARING?

Every Sunday when I come to the Eucharist and am confronted by the words inscribed in stone over the entrance of my parish church, “Prepare the way of the Lord,” I am reminded that the first sacrifice I must make at this Mass is my own ego, and as I strive to relinquish the need to be in control of what will happen at this Eucharist I ask, “What does my lord bid his servant?” (Joshua 5:14).

We all face the same struggle. Some of you may protest:

•    “The ushers don’t make me feel welcome in my church.”

•    “My parish priest preaches too long.”

•    “The musicians in our church are out of control.”

•    “People are too loud and talk too much before theEucharist.”

•    “The people dress too well or too poorly.”

Each of us, if given the opportunity to share what we think is keeping us from getting the most out of the Eucharist, is apt to come up with our own list. Recently I asked this question online and received a deluge of responses. Many were true abuses of the liturgy,and were worthy of being reported to the diocesan bishop, but just as many were not.

When I shared my amazement at the number of responses with my wife,she very keenly mused,“They all feel helpless,like they have no control.” As soon as she said this I realized that this was exactly the same thing I had heard from priests and musicians, the two groups who are most often the target of the congregation’s ire.Priests who come into a new parish and encounter established ways of doing things with which they do not agree and yet are powerless (at least at first) to change and musicians who are hired to provide a parish with beautiful music yet find themselves restrained by parish staff or established practice to playing pieces they feel are less than worthy of the liturgy often express frustration at their lack of control.

This brings home a point that we do not like to admit: None of us is in control, no matter what our function is in the liturgy. Yet we are all tempted to think that if we were in charge we could make it all perfect.

The Conversion of Paul - January 25

     The Cross of Christ Illumines. . . Blindness “ by Michael Dubruiel

As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And I answered ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.” Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go to Damascus, and you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’ And when I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus.” ACTS 22:6–11 


Jesus said, “For Judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” JOHN 9:39–41 


The most unique Holy Saturday I ever experienced occurred when my wife and I decided to go to a monastery for Holy Week . Saturday was a rainy day and we decided to go to a nearby spot that was advertised up and down the interstate as the place to visit when you were passing through this part of the country— it was a cave. What better spot to spend Holy Saturday, I reasoned, than under the earth? After all, Jesus’ body had lain in a tomb on that first Holy Saturday.

 So we drove a few miles away from the monastery and joined a group of other travelers in an out-of-the-way location to descend into the earth and explore one of nature’s wonders. What I remember most about the tour of the cave had little to do with the stalactites or the stalagmites but something else that we experienced once we had gone deep into the cave. The tour guide asked us, “How many of you think you have experienced total darkness?” A few people raised their hands. He then told us that he was going to turn off the artificial lighting that illuminated the cave so that we could experience what the first people who had discovered this cave experienced when their light went out. There was nothing but total, pitch darkness. I held my hand in front of my face but could see absolutely nothing. I knew that it was there because I could sense it but I could see absolutely nothing, no shadow, no outline—just a horrible darkness. It was the closest that I have ever come to having some understanding of what it must be like to be totally blind.

 In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, in a chapter entitled “Seeing,” Annie Dillard wrote about people born blind whose sight was restored by a medical procedure. The reaction of those thus healed wasn’t what one might expect. Some wanted to go back to the darkness—they found the light too much. Others enjoyed the gift of vision, but to those who had been in darkness since birth it seemed to them that everything was made of light. Blinded by the Light In John’s Gospel, Jesus divides the world into two camps: those who encounter his light and have their sight restored, and those who encounter that light and are blinded. Jesus told Nicodemus, “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

In John’s Gospel, Jesus heals a blind man, who has not only his physical sight restored but also comes to see that Jesus is worthy of worship. The Pharisees who question the blind man refuse to believe, no matter how much evidence is brought forward to prove that Jesus had healed him. Another Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, later persecuted the followers of Jesus. While setting out on one such mission, Saul was struck by a light from heaven, and heard the voice of Jesus, the suffering Christ. Saul was blinded on his way to Damascus, where a follower of Jesus healed him. Saul became St. Paul, one of the greatest followers of Christ. The preaching of Paul would focus on the crucified Christ, leading many artists to portray the scene of Paul’s conversion as an encounter with a cross of light.

None of the Pharisees, including Saul, thought that persecuting the followers of Christ was evil; in fact, they thought they were doing the will of God. We all risk falling into the same trap. How well do you and I truly see? Do we see everything made of light? Or do we only partially see reality as it is?

A World Made of Light 

There have been times in my life when I have called upon God to save or help me, and God has answered in dramatic ways. At
 first I gave thanks for God’s intervention in my life. But with time my inner Pharisee began to question the events: Was God really responsible? There are those who believe that we live in an age when miracles have ceased, but I know better. Miracles abound—we just don’t always recognize them. Those cured of physical blindness perceive the world to be made of light; the same is true of those cured of spiritual blindness. What seemed dark and hopeless suddenly becomes a path to glory. The psalmist reflects this spiritual vision when he prays in perhaps the best-known psalm, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me” (Psalm 23:4). Today there are eye surgeries that allow people to see clearly without corrective lenses. We need the “surgery of the cross” to restore our vision, allowing us to see the world as God sees it. The person filled with the Light perceives light, even in apparent total darkness. As we read in the Gospel of Matthew: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22–23). Lord Jesus, touch our eyes that we might see!

The Power of the Cross is a book well-suited to daily reading during Lent.  Daily excerpts will be reprinted in this space during Lent.

Michael Dubruiel

January 24 - Francis de Sales

 

   Today is the feast of St. Francis de Sales the Patron Saint of Writers

To read more about him, check out the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Francis de Sales



There are two elements in the spiritual life: first, a struggle against our lower nature; secondly, union of our wills with God, in other words, penance and love. St. Francis de Sales looks chiefly to love. Not that he neglects penance, which is absolutely necessary, but he wishes it to be practised from a motive of love. He requires mortification of the senses, but he relies first on mortification of the mind, the will, and the heart. This interior mortification he requires to be unceasing and always accompanied by love. The end to be realized is a life of loving, simple, generous, and constant fidelity to the will of God, which is nothing else than our present duty. The model proposed is Christ, whom we must ever keep before our eyes. "You will study His countenance, and perform your actions as He did" (Introd., 2nd part, ch. i). The practical means of arriving at this perfection are: remembrance of the presence of God, filial prayer, a right intention in all our actions, and frequent recourse to God by pious and confiding ejaculations and interior aspirations.

More by Michael Dubruiel

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 6

     

    

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

About Michael Dubruiel

From chapter 1 - Serve. Part 3

THE LORD

Jesus told his followers that when they had done all that had been commanded of them they should say:“We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10).

Our lives often are like a field of weeds with pressing concerns that can seem to take priority, but indeed the weeds are not as powerful as they might seem, and remembering who is Lord, Master, and God can help us put everything into perspective.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM A THREE-YEAR OLD

Anyone who has a young child has a built-in reminder that coming to the Eucharist requires servitude. Preparations have to be made so that the child will be taken care of during the celebration. Sometimes this means making sure that a child’s prayer or Mass book is in his or her possession. At other times it simply means having tissue for a runny nose or having an extra dose of patience to deal with any outburst that might occur. One thing is certain: any parent who has a young child is already bringing the attitude of a servant to the Eucharist. If I get a little too comfortable in the pew and lean back in the posture of a spectator, my three-year-old will pretty quickly remind me that I’m not there to relax but to serve.

“Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me; for he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”

— LUKE 9 : 4 8

Having a young child in our midst, whether it is our own or someone else’s in the next pew, is a great reminder to us to humble ourselves, that in serving the child we may serve the Lord himself.

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 5b

      

    

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

About Michael Dubruiel

Chapter 1 - Serve, Part 2

“You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

M ATTHEW 4:10

THE WAY

“The Way” is one of the oldest names for the first followers of Christ. Jesus often told his disciples that he came to show them “the Way” to the Father, that God’s ways were not our ways, and that He was the Way. The routine that we can fall into at the Eucharist happens precisely when we stop seeing what is taking place as “different” from everything else that we experience in life. Not only is it different, but if we truly enter into the Eucharist with a spirit of sacrifice, it will change the way that we view everything in our lives. The tension between Christian beliefs and the beliefs of “the world” is understood only when we come to embrace “the way” of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Most converts to Christianity have a clear sense of the saving power of Jesus as “the Way.” Faithful, lifelong Catholics may not have as keen an understanding until they experience the difference their faith has made to them in contrast to the rejection of that faith in one of their children.Yet understanding that “the way” of Christ is not business as usual can keep us from thinking that we have nothing to prepare for when we celebrate the Eucharist. Once we realize that God’s ways are not our ways, we will always see the need to “prepare ourselves for these Sacred Mysteries” we are about to celebrate.

LIVING THE E UCHARIST

Throughout the day,when the events of the day do not go your “way,” before frustration has a chance to set in, stop and ask yourself what God’s way might be for what the day has given you. Try to think of a similar incident in the life of Christ to the one in which you find yourself — how did Our Lord handle the situation?

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 5a

     

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

About Michael Dubruiel

Chapter 1 - Serve, Part 1

“You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

M ATTHEW 4:10

In my home parish, St. John the Baptist in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the words Parate Viam Domini are inscribed over the front doors. The two years of Latin that I had in college and my knowledge of Scripture are enough for me to figure out that the message greeting me each Sunday are the words of St. John the Baptist in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” It is an excellent message to set the tone for the mystery that is about to be celebrated.

PREPARATION

I remember how differently I approached the Mass when as a young man I began to serve at the Eucharist as an altar boy. Before I could serve for the first time, I had to attend training sessions so that I knew what gestures and movements I was to make, and had to study the Latin responses so that I could answer the prayers of the priest at the appropriate time.Sometimes school was sacrificed so that I could serve a funeral mass,or a Saturday afternoon so that the priest could be attended to as he witnessed the marriage vows of a couple celebrating the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The thought and preparation that went into serving at the Eucharist required a sacrifice on my part but kept me focused on why I was there. Adults who serve as lectors, ushers, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist,and choir members often mention feeling similar sentiments when they first take on these acts of service. Yet with time we are all apt to find ourselves going through the motions without much preparation and indeed without much thought about the fact that we are serving God in our respective roles at the Eucharist, and this inattentiveness is to our detriment. Making preparations is the work of a servant, and in the celebration of the Eucharist it is the work of every disciple of Christ.

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 4b

      

    

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

Jesus told a parable about what happens when a storm comes that lashes out against our very lives (see Matthew 7:24–27). He said that the wise person builds his house (his life) on solid ground,on rock (the image that he used to speak about his church and Peter). The foolish person builds on sand and is destroyed by the storms of life.

The work of building the foundation on which our lives depend takes place every time we participate in the Eucharist. While I was putting the finishing touches on this book I traveled to Florida, right after Hurricane Frances had made a direct hit near Stuart, Florida. I had been scheduled to give a talk in nearby Palm Beach Gardens two days after the storm had hit.The talk was canceled because the church, St. Patrick’s, was without power, but I had the opportunity to meet with the pastor of the parish, Father Brian Flanagan, and some of the parish staff. In the midst of much devastation what remains vivid in my mind is how peaceful everyone there was. I know Father Brian to be a man whose deep faith is rooted in the Eucharist, and what I experienced in those days immediately following Hurricane Frances was a literal exposition of Jesus’s parable — the storm had come,but because the lives of the people I met were built on solid rock, they were not destroyed.

Isn’t this what we all want, a joy that the world cannot take away, no matter what might happen? Our Lord offers it to us at every Eucharist. It is my hope that this small book will help you to better experience this joy, and to discover the richness the Lord’s Eucharistic presence can add to your life.

About Michael Dubruiel

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 4a

     

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

I was giving a talk at a Catholic parish in rural Ohio a few years ago about the topic of this book.When I had concluded my presentation someone asked,“Why do people care so little about their faith today?”

I told them of a man, a non-Catholic, I had known who cared little about his faith but attended Mass every week with his Catholic wife because he wanted to make her happy. He did this for years, to the point that several priests tried to convince him that he should convert to the Catholic faith since he had been attending the Eucharist for so many years. He refused.

Then he was diagnosed with bone cancer. His condition deteriorated rapidly. In a few months he went from being robust and strong to bedridden and totally dependent upon others.He called for a priest, who heard his first confession and then offered the Eucharist at his bedside, where he received his First Holy Communion. In the last months of his life, his Catholic faith was all that mattered to him.

This led a woman in the group to recall an incident when a tornado had wiped out her family’s farm and the family had sat huddled together in the storm cellar, praying the Rosary. At that moment their faith had mattered more than anything else in the world to them.

Someone else mentioned that in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on this country he had noticed more people in the Church and more fervency in the way people seemed to pray.

Our faith is a matter of life and death and our faith is totally centered on Jesus Christ.The Scriptures reveal that Jesus did not leave us as orphans but founded a Church. He made the very human apostle Peter the first leader of this Church. He left a memorial of his saving death in the Eucharist and commanded his disciples to perform it.

Getting the most out of the Eucharist is an urgent task, then, because our very life depends upon Christ, and Jesus comes to us in the celebration of his passion, death, and resurrection at every Eucharist. Jesus said that he is the vine and that we are the branches. In the Eucharist we receive the very life that connects us to Christ the Vine.

About Michael Dubruiel

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 3

     

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

A Note of Caution

Now, I want to be clear that what I am proposing in this book is not the “victim-ism” that was sometimes prevalent in the older spirituality of “offering it up.” In every situation we are free to choose how we will respond to an event: we can blame someone else for what is happening, or we can feel powerless and do 

nothing. It is my contention that neither of these responses is Christlike. The experience of “offering up” our lives to God needs to be a positive and co-redemptive act. Thankfully, with God’s help we are all capable of freely choosing to respond in this fashion.

Those who promoted the spirituality of “offering it up” in a previous age often quoted St.Paul’s words to the Colossians:“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). In offering our sacrifice at the Eucharist, in the same way that we offer up any suffering we endure in life, we take whatever is negative and turn it into a positive, life-giving force both in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. We make up for what is “lacking” for the sake of  “his body,”the Church — that is,ourselves in communion with all Christians with all of our imperfections and all of our failings. “The miracle of the church assembly lies in that it is not the ‘sum’ of the sinful and unworthy people who comprise it, but the body of Christ,” Father Alexander Schmemann remarked.³ This is the power of the cross of Jesus Christ,taking what appears to be weakness and allowing God to transform it into strength!

About Michael Dubruiel

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 2b

     

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

THE EUCHARIST AS A SACRIFICE

When was the last time that you celebrated the Eucharist with the thought that you were being asked to “offer yourself” — to give your very life? Chances are, You haven’t thought of it,but you may have experienced it …

•    By thinking “I could be doing something else.”

•    By asking “Why am I here?”

Yet you weren’t doing anything else and you were there — what was missing was the free offering of “your sacrifice,” the choice to offer your suffering along with that of the Passion of Our Lord.

Participation in the Eucharist requires that we die to ourselves and live in Christ. If we want to get the most out of the Eucharist, then sacrifice is the key. This is what has been lost on many of us, and if we want to reclaim all the spiritual riches that are available to us we must relearn what it means not only to “offer it up” but indeed to offer ourselves up.

About Michael Dubruiel

Michael Dubruiel: How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 2a

     

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

THE EUCHARIST AS A SACRIFICE

The solution to this modern dilemma is simple — put Jesus back at the center of the Eucharist and you immediately change all of this. In his encyclical Pope John Paul II says, “In giving his sacrifice to the Church, Christ has also made his own the spiritual sacrifice of the Church, which is called to offer herself in union with the sacrifice of Christ.This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning all the faithful: ‘Taking part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice,which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life,they offer the divine victim to God,and offer themselves along with it.’ 

As we participate in the Eucharist, not only do we participate in Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary but we are called to share in that sacrifice.Just knowing this should change how we view everything that irks us at Mass. Are you:

•    Suffering mental anguish — like a crown of thorns is upon your head?

•    Weighed down by worldly concerns — like the weight of the cross is on you?

•    Feeling powerless — like you are nailed to a cross?

If we take away a sacrificial attitude toward the Eucharist, we are likely to fail to see the connection between our lives and what we do at Mass.We are apt to sit in judgment, waiting to be entertained (whether we are conservative or liberal, what we want to see differs but the attitude is the same). When we fail to bring a sacrificial attitude to the Eucharist, our participation seems at times to be modeled more after Herod’s banquet, where Simone’s dance cost the Baptist his head, than after the Last Supper of Our Lord, where there was every indication that partaking in this banquet was likely to cost the disciples their own lives. (Indeed, ten of the twelve were martyred,Judas took his own life,and John survived being boiled alive in a cauldron of oil.)

About Michael Dubruiel

Free Book on the Catholic Mass

       Eucharist means..."thanksgiving"

Michael Dubruiel wrote a book to help people deepen their experience of the Mass.  He titled it, How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist.  You can read about it here. It is available free today (1/15/2025)

How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist gives you nine concrete steps to help you join your own sacrifice to the sacrifice of Christ as you:

• Serve: Obey the command that Jesus gave to his disciples at the first Eucharist.
• Adore: Put aside anything that seems to rival God in importance.
• Confess: Believe in God’s power to make up for your weaknesses.
• Respond" Answer in gesture, word, and song in unity with the Body of Christ.
• Incline: Listen with your whole being to the Word of God.
• Fast: Bring your appetites and desires to the Eucharist.
• Invite: Open yourself to an encounter with Jesus.
• Commune: Accept the gift of Christ in the Eucharist.
• Evangelize :Take him and share the Lord with others.

Free Book on the Catholic Mass

     Eucharist means..."thanksgiving"

Michael Dubruiel wrote a book to help people deepen their experience of the Mass.  He titled it, How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist.  You can read about it here. It is available free today (1/14/2025)

The following is an excerpt from the introduction:

Problems…            I had the opportunity to speak about the Eucharist to various groups of people in almost every part of the United States since the release of The How To Book of the Mass, a book I wrote several years ago. No matter where I happened to be, I received the same response. A dissatisfaction of sorts often rooted in how things were being done at their home parish.

 

            Some of these same people longed for the “old” days of the Tridentine liturgy (and an alarming number of young Catholics). Yet I know from conversations that I've had with older priests that the old liturgy was subject to many of the same problems as today's Mass.

 

What was different forty years ago is the attitude that Catholics brought to the Eucharist back then was more sacrificial. A term that one often heard older Catholics use was "to offer it up" when things didn't go the way you expected or wished. This sacrificial attitude made a previous generation of Catholics focus not on themselves but on what God wanted of them.

 

By the time I attended a Catholic College in the early 1980’s people were being made fun of if they still had this attitude. I remember a very pious student one day suggesting to another student who was complaining about the difficulty of an upcoming test that he “offer-up” the suffering he was undergoing for the poor souls in Purgatory. His fellow student replied, “Are you nuts?” Everyone at the table laughed. It was symbolic of a change in the Catholic psyche.

 

The Eucharist was viewed almost entirely as a banquet; a picnic table replaced the stone altar in the chapel, it was moved from the front of the chapel to the center.  The emphasis was more horizontal. The pendulum was swinging in the other direction, after many years where it would have been difficult to think of the Mass as a meal, now it was nearly impossible to encounter the Eucharist as a sacrifice.

 

Some twenty years later the pendulum is returning to the middle. My college chapel has been renovated yet again. The table is gone replaced by a very ornate altar that is located in the middle of the congregation. Images once removed have returned and there is more of a flow of the feeling that both God and humans occupy this worship space.
Pope John Paul in his Encyclical on the Eucharist Ecclesia de Eucharistia has mentioned as one of the modern “shadows” or problems with the way Catholics understand the Eucharist is that "Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet[i]."

 

            It is my belief that this downplaying the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist is the main reason that many of us are not getting the most out of the Eucharist. Over time we lose sight of why we even go or worst the Eucharist gets relegated to one more social obligation that one can easily decide not to attend.

---

[i] Ecclesia De Eucharistia (10)

How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist gives you nine concrete steps to help you join your own sacrifice to the sacrifice of Christ as you:

• Serve: Obey the command that Jesus gave to his disciples at the first Eucharist.
• Adore: Put aside anything that seems to rival God in importance.
• Confess: Believe in God’s power to make up for your weaknesses.
• Respond" Answer in gesture, word, and song in unity with the Body of Christ.
• Incline: Listen with your whole being to the Word of God.
• Fast: Bring your appetites and desires to the Eucharist.
• Invite: Open yourself to an encounter with Jesus.
• Commune: Accept the gift of Christ in the Eucharist.
• Evangelize :Take him and share the Lord with others.

Michael Dubruiel Books

    

This is a continuation of the 73 Steps to Communion with God by Michael Dubruiel. The previous steps appear throughout the Archives, available to the right. This is the 63rd step:



(63) To fulfil daily the commandments of God by works.





If this definition hits close to home, then you know what you must "fight" in order to fulfill God's commands daily--indifference. If on the other hand this definition makes you angry and you don't like the mean guy saying that perhaps you aren't a "good" Christian after all, then you need to flee the devil who has taken hold of your life (coming no doubt as an angel of light) and run to God who will empower you to fulfill His commands.



This counsel is against complacency. It is against thinking that we have ever arrived and now all we need to do is sit back and relax. It is a warning against the riches that can blind us to the truth of the Gospel which can neither be lost by the gnawing of a moth or the rot of rust. Works are demanded of us daily in order that God's will might be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Baptism of the Lord - January 12

      It's the Baptism of the Lord this weekend, - so let's talk about Baptism and Holy Water -  from the Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols  by Amy Welborn, via the entry on holy water in the context of the church.

The entries are arranged with a simple explanation on the left, with the illustration, and then a more in-depth treatment on the right.

For centuries people learned about the Christian faith through paintings, sculptures, objects, and gestures. Simple images still convey deep messages if we learn how to see and understand them. Award-winning children’s author Amy Welborn has created a friendly and fascinating sourcebook on the signs and symbols of the Catholic faith. The exquisite illustrations throughout will inspire conversation and prayerful reflection for readers of all ages. Each image appears with a brief, child-friendly explanation coupled with a more detailed description on the opposite page.

From the sign of the fish to the Stations of the Cross, from the palm branch to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols will enable children and adults to experience faith with curiosity and wonder.​

Michael Dubruiel's Books

   

This is a continuation of the 73 Steps to Communion with God by Michael Dubruiel. The previous steps appear throughout the Archives, available to the right. This is the 63rd step:



(63) To fulfil daily the commandments of God by works.



Most of us think of the commandments as "something" not to do, but this is not Benedict's take. He sees them as something that requires action on our part daily. The type of action required is either to "fight" against the urges that keep us from fulfilling God's commands or to "flee" the devil as we run toward God.



Fighting or fleeing are the actions demanded of the disciple of Christ. Most of us may find that we are moved to do neither. It could be that in our complacent lifestyle that following God's commandments doesn't seem to ask much of us. We peer out of the windows of our house or car and see the world outside of our selves and are quite unmoved by the plight of those who live down the street or in another neighborhood. We somehow listen to the Gospels and confuse Jesus with someone who "didn't care" and wouldn't have lifted a finger to help anyone.

Michael Dubruiel

     This is a continuation of the 73 Steps to Communion with God by Michael Dubruiel. 

(62) Not to desire to be called holy before one is; but to be holy first, that one may be truly so called.





We do not have to go to such lengths to avoid being well thought of by others but we shouldn't lose the point of their witness--that holiness is something to be rather than something that others think we are. Holiness is not an act but rather is the result of a relationship with God. Our motivation should always be to seek the Kingdom of God in our lives first and sometimes that will lead to others thinking poorly of us. But Jesus tells us that we are blessed and that is what matters.



The civil rights leaders of the late 1950's and early 1960's were religious people. They were motivated by their belief in God to reject the way black people were being treated in this country. They sang praise to God as they marched in front of State Capitals, sat at lunch counters or entered school buildings. Other so-called "Christians" reviled them declaring them to be atheists, troublemakers and Communists. But they were blessed and now we look upon them as saints and martyrs.

When we are gone from this earth, then we hope people will think of us as holy.

Michael Dubruiel

    This is a continuation of the 73 Steps to Communion with God by Michael Dubruiel. 

(62) Not to desire to be called holy before one is; but to be holy first, that one may be truly so called.



Holiness comes from God's grace. One's desire should be to be in a good relationship with God and not to be well thought of by others. In fact Our Lord declared that "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account," Matthew 5:11. It would matter little then, if people thought of us as vile and pagan if that were not the truth.



There was a group of holy men in Russia who sought to live this out quite literally, to no avail. They are know as the "holy fools of Russia" and would do everything humanly possible to be thought of us vile and "unholy" to the point of publicly fornicating with prostitutes, walking naked through the public squares and uttering every kind of vulgarity loudly. But the populace knew that this was all so that they would not be well thought of and so they revered them anyway!

Ash Wednesday is March 5, 2025

   The Power of the Cross by Michael Dubruiel - a Lenten devotional book - is available as an ebook, after being out of print for many years. 

There is power in the Cross of Christ that, sad to say, many Christians don't experience. Now you can learn to see Jesus' suffering and death not as a spectacle or theatrical production, but as a blueprint for how to live your life.

Here is the radical teaching of Our Lord presented in a series of concrete steps that you can take at your own pace, whether you use this book alone or with a group. Learn:

*How to follow Christ more closely.
*God's unique purpose and mission for you.
*How to overcome the evil that you have suffered at the hands of others.
*To find God's presence in difficult times.
*The keys to unleashing the power of the Cross in your life.


Day by day for five weeks, here are the prayers, the reflections, the stories, and the teaching that will help you not only better comprehend the power of Christ's great sacrifice for you, but come to a better understanding of why and how to accept that power now.

St. John Neumann - January 5

      The Church's Most Powerful Novenas by Michael Dubruiel contains novenas to three of this week's saints: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton whose Feast is January 4th, St. John Neumann whose feast is on January 5th and Blessed Andre Bessette's (Feast day January 6th) novena to Saint Joseph.

 

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his Apostles to stay where they were and to "wait for the gift" that the Father had promised: the Holy Spirit.  The Apostles did as the Lord commanded them. "They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers" (Acts 1:14). Nine days passed; then, they received the gift of the Holy spirit, as had been promised. May we stay together with the church, awaiting in faith with Our Blessed Mother, as we trust entirely in God, who loves us more than we can ever know.