Thoughts on the Weekend

Here are a couple thoughts on the most recent class weekend:

First off, it's amazing how much more meaningful it is to receive the Eucharist when you've just heard a lecture by Dr. Twellman about how the Eucharist itself is a present day foretaste of the unity we will experience with Christ in paradise. It also helps that Green Bay's St. Francis Xavier Cathedral has a large and beautiful depiction of Calvary above the altar. It really makes you feel like you are actually there, witnessing the crucifixion itself. The experience of walking up the aisle en route to communion is overpowering - Christ's gift of himself as the sacrificial lamb becomes more vividly apparent as you walk up, culminating with none other than the reception of that Eucharistic gift, which is His body, blood, soul, and divinity, and the source of our very life. It is the fulfillment of Christ's proclamation that "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:51).

Second, we spent a lot of time in our Foundations of Catholic Spirituality course talking about conversion. Prior, we had talked about holiness, and how we were all to be seeking holiness, which, as all you blog-readers of course remember, is the "perfection of charity". Now, obviously none of us (especially myself!) has attained that perfection of charity yet - we're all sinners. So that's where conversion comes in. Conversion is the act of "turning away from" our sin. It's a conscious activity of purifying all attachment to sin from our lives. It's a tough job, I know, but all things are possible with Christ. There've been a lot of good nuggets of wisdom regarding conversion in the latest unit of our course, so I'll try to post a few of them as the month goes on.