The Pastor's Pen

 

June 19, 2022, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

CHURCH CALENDAR: Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
SECULAR CALENDAR: Father’s Day
FEDERAL AND STATE: CALENDAR: Juneteenth

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY: Today we honor all fathers, grandfathers, step-fathers, godfathers, and second fathers as we express our gratitude to them for their paternal love and care, and better still, as we gather here in the church for Mass we offer our prayers to God for their happiness and wellbeing whether they still be living among us or have gone before us to God’s eternal kingdom!

CATHOLIC APPEAL: Gratitude is extended to the 284 households of the parish who have already pledged or donated $71,928.87 to the annual Catholic Appeal. As the opportunity to give to the appeal ends on June 30th, let us all remember to respond before then, giving as generously as we are able at this time to help support the charities, ministries, and services that carry out so many of the essential and good works of our local church which is the Diocese of Fall River.

EUCHARISTIC REVIVAL: Today we will join with the Catholic Churches throughout the United States is beginning a three-year focus on the centrality of the Holy Eucharist to the Christian people. Here at Christ the King we will hold a traditional Corpus Christi procession, bringing the Blessed Sacrament from the Main Church to St. Jude Chapel at the conclusion of the 10:30 AM Mass, A time of prayer and adoration will be provided after the procession until the Monstrance is returned to the Main Church for Benediction at 5:15 PM. Older Catholics are familiar with these traditional means of worshipping the Eucharist outside of Mass, but many of our young people may not be, thus, younger families are encouraged to teach their children about the centrality of the Holy Eucharist by allowing them to experience these simple but important pious practices.

THE EUCHARIST IS ESSENTIAL: The Holy Eucharist is not only important in the life of anyone who wishes to be authentically Christian, but also in fact essential. So often in our contemporary world, we discern that being Christian is now commonly understood as being nice and is about doing good works. Unfortunately, many who are baptized accept this shallow understanding and so defend their absence from Mass on Sundays or that of others by declaring themselves or others as excused because they are “good people” and may even judge that many who are in church regularly are not! One problem with this among others is that only God is the just judge and we then should refrain from any tendency to declare ourselves righteous or to judge others as not so because until we meet God face to face, we are all works in progress! But the ongoing work of sanctification – of becoming holy and righteous is not ours, it is in fact God’s, it is only up to us to permit God the opportunity to work his grace on us and then to cooperate with that grace. The source of God’s grace is greatest in and through the sacraments and most especially in the sacrament of all sacraments which is the Eucharist. Indeed, to be Christian means to become another Christ, and on our own, we are incapable of doing that, rather, we need to receive Christ, as he offers himself to us fully, body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist which he has given us for this very purpose. Indeed, in the Eucharist, we are meant to become what we are privileged to consume, the true body and blood of Christ, thus, anything short of regularly taking this divine nourishment while we may think of ourselves as good yet in truth we are at risk of starving ourselves to death in regard to living any fully authentic Christian life. So then Jesus tells us in the 6th Chapter of St. John’s Gospel: “Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life within you!” So as we begin our three-year focus on the centrality of the Eucharist in Christian life, let us renew our commitment to receive the life-giving Blessed Sacrament regularly as Jesus himself has urged us to do!

A NEW HOLIDAY: JUNE 19th: On this day, we are invited to join with African Americans whose ancestors were brought here as slaves in the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries, to rejoice with them as we recall that on this day in 1865 Union Soldiers entered Galveston, Texas and told the enslaved people there that the Civil War was over and that they were now finally and fully free!