In Communion

April 1, 2025

  

Hello!  How is each and every one? I am doing my annual spiritual retreat starting tomorrow evening. May I ask for your prayers for my person and intentions likewise for all my other co-retreatants?

Four days ago, March 28, we celebrated the 100th Anniversary of the Priestly Ordination of St. Josemaria, Founder of Opus Dei Prelature.  He was ordained priest a couple of months after he turned 23 years old in March 28, 1925. It was a day of thanksgiving to God for the gift that Saint Josemaria’s priesthood has been for the Church, in memory of his dedication and fidelity.

A commemorative prayer card has been designed for the occasion.

Opus Dei

Let us continue with what we have started in the previous post on the seventh of the divine longings we have - our divine longing for Communion (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 10). 

Lust:  A Distortion of the Divine Longing for Communion

The deadly sin of lust represents distortion of the divine longing for communion.  Satan knows that the human longing for communion is so deeply ingrained in us that he cannot obliterate it, so he twists that ache in such a way that we come to believe that mere physical connection will satisfy the longing for communion. 

Pinterest

 

It is staggering to observe the various ways our culture positively worships lust.  According to some estimates, people spend $16 billion annually on pornography.  And we don’t sacrifice just our money to lust.  We sacrifice time too.  ABC News reported that pornography use costs employers $11 billion annually in lost productivity.  You might think that after spending all that money and time, our lust would be slaked, but the truth is, we can never get enough of what we don’t really want.  And no one really wants lust.

Calling Couples to Christ

 

Many people think that Christians—Catholics in particular—are opposed to lust because they hate sex.  To the contrary, Catholics recognize the spiritual power of sex.    As Pope Benedict XVI observed, a healthy sense of eros (that is, one united to godly love of another) allows the man and woman to “rise in ecstasy toward the divine” (2005).  The Church teaches that marriage is not so much the sacrament of doing the dishes together as it is the sacrament of sexuality. 

Catholic World Report

Sacraments use physical “stuff” to convey God’s grace.  Baptism uses water as the sacramental stuff that effects the birth of new spiritual children of God.   


The Eucharist uses bread and wine as the sacramental stuff to make us God’s very own flesh and blood. 

National Catholic Register

Marriage uses sex as the sacramental stuff for reorienting us to the Original Unity between man, woman and God, and sex is a physical sign of the passion with which God loves each one of us.  Contrary to popular opinion, Christianity—and Catholic Christianity in particular—is anything but a sex-phobic religion.

Gathered Together in Communion is an article in Christian Life (opusdei.org) and starts with an article on the first Eucharistic Prayer, the “Roman Canon.” “The Roman Canon reminds us that we are at Holy Mass not only with our Lord, but also with people of every place and time.” There is another article on the Life of the Church and What is the Communion of Saints?  These are articles that help us appreciate more and more our role in the Church as faithful people of God. I thought it good to share them with you.  I trust you would be interested in them to nurture and nourish our individual personal and collective piety towards the Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist.

And as always let us bring the above topic to our conversation with Jesus in the quiet moments of our prayer every day.  I assure you they will enrich our relationship with Jesus and with our brothers and sisters in the family of God.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky   

 

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