An 11th Sunday after Pentecost Thought About Really, Fully Loving Our Lord

For this 11th Sunday after Pentecost, let's focus on really, fully loving Our Lord. There's no better time for this than now.

Sunday, for many of us Catholics, is our day to attend Mass and if we're in a state of grace, to receive Our Lord, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist.

Sometimes this can become a kind of routine. Sunday arrives, we go to Mass, we receive Communion. Routine? How could this be?

The quick and easy answer is that it's just how our fallen human nature functions. Maybe that's true. But it's not something we should just accept, is it? 

Instead, we can fire up those neurons and think. What exactly is going on at Mass?

No, we're not talking about "gathering," or coming together as a community. We're talking about the essence of Mass - what we really should call the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

At this Holy Sacrifice, we are given the privilege of being present to witness the same Sacrifice of Our Lord's crucifixion and death on the Cross on Cavalry - albeit in an "un-bloody" manner.

He suffered horribly for us, gave His life for us. He did this because He loved us; and He loved us more than we can ever imagine, more than anyone has ever loved us. EACH ONE OF US.

We should all know this. But still we can turn up at Mass and go through the motions.

But we're not here to judge or condemn - just to point out what for many of us is a fact, the reality of our attendance at Holy Mass - the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

As an antidote, we'll turn to Fr. Raoul Plus on this 11th Sunday after Pentecost. Take a few moments to not simply read his words, but perhaps re-read them and let them sink in, deeply within. Ideally Father will help to shake us out of any routine that may have sunk into our Sunday Mass. 

And if, for any reason, we have not desired to seek a deeper, loving relationship with Our Lord, we have our chance to rectify this right now.

"How many times have we not heard Christian souls express the longing to live in intimacy with God, to have with Him more than simple, formal and semi-official relations limited to occasional acts of devotion observed more to fulfill a command than to respond to a real need of love! Often one asks: ‘What can I do to attain this intimacy? What is the basis of a life of true union with God?’ Blessed are you if you desire this intimacy! No grace could be more precious for you than this yearning to leave off formalism in order to live intensely our magnificent religion. 

“Never to drive God from one’s soul by grave sin is an essential but a negative task. The true Christian will wish to do more. Having sounded the depths of the gift of God, he sees that it consists not only in the presence of a certain something in his soul, and in the super-elevation of his powers of knowing and loving, but in the intimate presence of Someone, the Great Someone, of the Holy Trinity Itself. From this conviction he will advance to the realization that the logic of love requires him to cultivate this Divine Presence, to honor It, to make the most of It, to surround It with a positive devotion.
“If among the best Christians many lack an interior spirit, it is because they do not sufficiently fathom the mystery of the Divine Indwelling. They lack faith and motivation.” (Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., 1941)

Happy 11th Sunday after Penticost!