The Center for contemplative practice
A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
THE DEEPEST LEVEL OF BEING CATHOLIC UNIVERSAL
There are two levels of being Catholic Universal: Baptismal and Eucharistic.
Baptismal is being accepted by God as an adopted son or daughter. It is the basics of our collective Faith, but it is only the minimum of commitment to Christ, the minimum of belief. You go to Church on Sunday (or not) because you have a feeling that you need God in your life. You listen to the sermons and the liturgy but it all sounds the same each week. You are there but not there on many occasions. You have no passion for the Passion.
When you make a deliberate choice to be a Eucharistic member of the Church Universal because of the Holy Spirit, you need Christ’s love in your life so you love each other. You do the maximum, not the minimum in prayer. Your passion is the Eucharist and Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament because you are rooted in the Real Presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. You seek God wherever you are. You have a passion to be with Christ in the Eucharist. You are focused on love of others because Christ loves us. You discover the unimaginable depths of the Mystery of Faith. You don’t go to Church, you are the Church where you are. For me, I enrich this experience even more by being a Lay Cistercian and following the Rule of St. Benedict and the Cistercian Way.
- Eucharist is the energy that drives communities of Faith to offer its members the opportunities to discover the meaning of love according to Christ.
- Eucharist is the perfect offering of Abraham on the alter of wood, the perfect offering of love and praise to the Father through, with and in Christ Jesus at each Eucharist.
- Eucharist is the limitless love of the Son for the Father in which we. with we as adopted sons and daughters, approach the Mystery of Faith in awe and humility.
- Eucharist is nuclear fusion of spirituality where we approach that which cannot be approached with Christ as our mentor, our mediator, our translator, our brother.
- Eucharist is Christ present body and blood, soul and divinity under the appearance of bread and wine. Baptismal Faith is what happens to you to be an adopted member of the Body of Christ. Eucharistic Faith is using Baptismal Faith to move to intensity and closer to the center of all that is.
- Eucharist is the heart of Christ waiting for us to sit down next to Him and learn from Him for he is “…meek and humble of heart and we will have rest for our souls.”
- Eucharist is the heart of Christ sitting down on a park bench in the dead of Winter and longing for Christ to sit down next to us and so we can learn from Him for he is “…meek and humble of heart. Matthew 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
- Eucharist is the ability to see what cannot be seen (The Mystery of Faith) and moving to strive to be what you read in Chapter 4 of st. Benedict’s RB (Rule of Benedict)
- Eucharist is unbelievably deep in riches and mystery. Christ alone helps us to decipher the language and behaviors we must do to reach heaven.
Waiting for Christ
The simplicity of Christ is that God, became incarnate as Jesus Christ to teach us love and show us how we can love with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our strength and our neighbor as our self
Praise be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and Forever. The God who is, who was, and who is to come at the end of the ages. Amen and Amen. –Cistercian doxology
The Center for contemplative practice 