Our Lady's Lamp

This summer, I knew over 20 couples getting married, and I made it to several of the weddings. I liked many things about the weddings, and many things I would have changed, but having gone to so many weddings made me more aware of something that I had "known" but never really understood. The Mass is a wedding. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory. For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, His bride has made herself ready.... Then the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb.' And he said to me, 'These words are true; they come from God.'" (Revelation 19:7,9) When we go to Mass, Jesus starts out by having His friends read aloud the letters He penned to us across time that profess the greatness of His love for us. He speaks words of love to us publicly, yet intimately. He publicly declares His love for us, but He does not stop at words. No! Rather, He bares His heart for us. ...

As many of you know, I know several couples getting married, have been to multiple weddings, and by the end of the summer will have had the honor of being bridesmaids in two of them. That's lots of time thinking about weddings. (I swear, if one more person asks if I have my wedding planned, I may want to strangle something though....). With all the hoopla in the news about the SCOTUS ruling on Marriage, well, it's been in my thoughts a lot more than usual. A little over a month ago, I got to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of two of my friends. Instead of doing the traditional songs for their wedding music, they did music that reflected their styles a bit more, and I have to say, it worked out really well. I really really liked the song she chose to walk down the aisle to: ( Listen, don't watch the video ). It's magical, and it was doubly so on the day of the wedding. But at the rehearsal, as her father was walking her down the aisle, I was struck with a thought. ...

You know what one of the amazing things about God is? Even though He has a Glorious Throne in Heaven, though He has countless souls who are much holier than I, though He has the angels who can actually see Him in all of His Glory, He still wants to come to me. He desires that my heart be a throne for Him. My heart is unworthy. It's little, in has the splinters of sin, and yet, my Jesus, the God who created the world, who breathed life into me wants to come and be enthroned on my little splintered chair.   I was pondering this at mass tonight, and, you know, it was humbling. Not just that He would want to come to little ol' me, but because I really have nothing much to offer Him. My heart is tiny compared to this world, but it is where Jesus wants to dwell. Despite it's littleness, He cherishes the haven only I can offer. He wants to, as St. Therese reminds us, "find another heaven, the heaven of our soul in which He loves to dwell." He doesn't mind that ...

The Ark of the Covenant has been found! For two and a half thousand years, people have searched for the ark, but it has already been found, and, as Christians, we can take joy in the knowledge our tradition and scriptures pass to us, for Revelation tells us where it is. "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen in the temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm. A great sign appeared in the sky: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child...." The new temple, complete with the altar upon which Christ presents himself, slain, yet glorified , to the Father, is in heaven. And the Ark of the Covenant, the dwelling place and vessel the Almighty used to come to His people who were not ready to see His full glory, is also there. But it is not the same as it once was. It has changed forms, th...

Today, we in America celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord (the technical feast day was Thursday). Jesus, our Risen Lord, takes his body up to the Father so it can be glorified for all time as the Lamb that was slain upon the altar of Heaven, forever offering himself as restitution for our sins, forever allowing the blood from his hands, his feet, and his heart, wash the sinner's sins away and allowing his earthly body and heavenly spirit nourish and strengthen his body the Church. Forever, this Lamb sends forth the Spirit to those of us still living upon the earth. You might think it's strange to think of our Risen Lord as a slain lamb, and I did too, until I began listening to an amazing CD by Scott Hahn (Title: Understanding the Eucharist), and he talked about Revelation 5 - a chapter I had never really paid much attention to in a book I used only for references (not a great way to use any book of the Bible, much less this most beautiful one that deserves...

Guess what, everone? Jesus is risen! He suffered and subjected himself to a horrible death, He remained with the dead for three days, and now He's risen! And just like He suffered, my Big Brother also rose for me. No more do I have to fear death. Death is not something, as in the Old Testament, to be feared or embraced only reluctantly. I can now look forward to the day I die because it is not, as good Gandalf says, the end but "just the beginning." My time here, in my earthly flesh, will be over, but I will be given a new body, a glorious body, like the one Jesus wore from the grave. What does it mean to, as Paul says, have the hope of the resurrection? Well, if we die to our old selves and become slaves to Christ, then we can join the "Cloud of Witnesses" the author of Hebrews talks about. We will join our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Judah, Simeon, and the other Maccabean Brothers and Martyrs, Simeon and ...