Status Updates From Lent: A Liturgical Commenta...

“The Father looking down upon the earth does not desire to see men distinct and separated by their own individual and imperfect forms, so much as clothed and united in the garments and personality of His Son. … Everyone else may fall under the delighted glance of the Father in so far as he identifies himself with the Son upon the Cross.”

“When a false idea of the state and nation takes hold of a people, the Church appears eventually as hostile to the true development of the state. Nationalism as now conceived has no room for Christ.”

“The ecclesiastical structure of the Church possesses a changeless unity over and above the unity of those individuals who at any one time make up the hierarchy. This entity, therefore, possesses a closer identification with Christ, and a more singular unity than the union of wills and even than the union of grace.”

“On condition that we correspond to interior grace and endeavor to become perfect Christians in fact as well as in title, we have a pledge in the character that calls down upon us the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.”

“The primary reason for Christ’s death was not that He might rise again and judge the world, but that He might give life to mankind, that He might cleanse the temples of God from sin. Christ’s life on earth was one of suffering; the Resurrection was of the future.”

“A true Christian loves all men as fellow citizens, or as future citizens, of his own kingdom. … The universal call to salvation lies at the foundation of all truly fraternal charity or brotherly love.”

“You do not lie in your room in a state of utter inertia because God knows whether you are going to eat your dinner or not. You take the means for having a meal, down to the use of knife and fork. It is the same with prayer. You take the means that God has provided.”

“There can be no true prayer without some realization that we depend in the intimacy of our being and in every action upon the almighty and ever-supporting power of God, that His action in creating us from nothing continues through every instant of our existence, and that we cannot move a muscle or make a secret wish without His cooperation.”