The embrace of Christ

"The Church is a human reality in which can be found unworthy people, rude people of little worth, sometimes violent, fragile, and presumptuous men, inadequate parents and rebellious children. But the Church does not stay on the other side, that is to say that of the Pharisees and of those without sin."

These words by Don Gius, spoken in April 2000 and published in the National Catholic Register, which, strangely enough, given the present circumstances we face, is a publication owned by the Legionaries of Christ, which came to me via my dear friend Sharon, over at Quaerere Deum, state very well the reality of the Church, which we all too easily lose sight of during trying times. Such observations are nothing new. St. Augustine's preaching is rife with such insights.

It bears repeating, that "[i]f the Church, with all its limitations, had not [the embrace of Christ] to offer to the world, even to the victims of those barbarities, then we would be lost. Because the evil would still be there, but it would be impossible to overcome it."

As I was typing this post I received an e-mail with the Holy Father's blessing for all the CL communities leading public Ways of the Cross on Good Friday attached. The Holy Father "prays that as the faithful silently accompany the Savior along the path of His redemptive suffering, they will enter more deeply into the inexhaustible mystery of the Cross and acknowledge it as the definitive sign of God's boundless mercy and reconciling love."

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis