Anima Christi

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salve me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.







Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.

 

"...and the late afternoon mingled with the sanctity of trees."

 (Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome)

 

 

And how shall they preach?

                                                     ...except they be sent?

How beautiful are the feet                                            

                                         of them that preach

the gospel of peace. (Rom. 10:15)

The Pope: Now a Benedict, Now a Francis

"Why does the Church incur the dislike of so many men, even of believers?...Most people have trouble with the Church because she is an institution like any other, which as such restricts freedom....The limits that the Church erects seem doubly burdensome because they reach into man's most personal and most intimate depths. For the Church's rules for ordering life are far more than a set of regulations to keep the traffic of humanity from collision. They inwardly affect my course in life, telling me how I am supposed to understand and shape my freedom. They demand of me decisions that cannot be made without painful renunciation....

 

"[Yet] in the midst of this world full of harsh discipline and inexorable pressures, a secret hope still looks to the Church...There, at least, one would hope to know the taste of freedom, of redeemed existence....We think we must establish a better Church: a Church full of humanity, pervaded by a spirit of brotherhood and large-minded creativity, a place of reconciliation of all and for all....However much [one] may resist this noble project, it must be begun in earnest....[But] the reform that is needed that is needed at all times does not consist in constantly remodeling 'our' Church according to our tastes, or in inventing her ourselves, but in ceaselessly clearing away our subsidiary constructions to let in the pure light that comes from above and that is also the dawning of pure freedom."

---Pope Benedict XVI. Redacted from six pages of dense prose in Called to Communion. Really, dear Benedict, you need an editor. Happy to oblige.

Death and Life

"The death of Christ gives life....The Resurrection is the revelation of life, which is affirmed as present beyond the boundary of death."--Saint John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope.

Good Friday

 "Everyone who looks for salvation, not only the Christian, must stop before the cross of Christ....God has embraced all men by the Cross and Resurrection of his Son....

The Paschal Mystery is now grafted onto the history of humanity, onto the history of every individual."--Blessed John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope.

Way of the Cross

"The life of men is a pilgrimage, continual, long and wearisome. Up and up along the steep and stony road, the road marked out for all upon that hill ...Every one of us must have his own cross to bear; otherwise tempted by selfishness or cruelty, we should sooner or later fall by the roadside....We pray for strength for all....We pray that the Blood of Christ may be to all the pledge and promise of eternal life." --From a meditation on the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery by Blessed John XXIII.