Lex Cordis Caritas - The law of the heart is Love

In conjunction with our celebration of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi last Sunday, I officially promulgated my first pastoral letter to the clergy and faithful of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois called Ars celebrandi et adorandi, (On the Art of Celebrating the Eucharistic Liturgy Properly and Adoring the Lord in the Eucharist Devoutly). Copies were mailed to everyone on the mailing list of our Catholic Times diocesan newspaper and are available online at our diocesan website (www.dio.org). I pray that this pastoral letter will be widely read and faithfully implemented, so that our celebrations of the liturgy may “be imbued with reverence, adoration and the glorification of God” and in this way recognize the Eucharist as, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, “the source and summit of all the Christian life.”

By a quirk of the calendar, we will have several major solemnities of the church throughout the month and on every Sunday of June before we return to the Sundays of Ordinary Time in July. By focusing our attention on their meaning and on the way that these solemnities are connected to each other, we can make this month an opportunity for deeper growth in our faith.

This past Sunday I had the unprecedented and memorable experience of concelebrating the Mass in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City for the historic canonization of two popes, St. John XXIII, affectionately known as “The Good Pope,” and St. John Paul II, whom admirers have called “Pope John Paul the Great.” The canonization ceremony was remarkable, with about a million people extending from St. Peter’s Square down to the Tiber River. I had a great seat just a few rows behind Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, not far from the Chair of Pope Francis.

During the season of Lent, many people make penitential sacrifices such as giving up candy, dessert, alcohol, or other pleasures. Some people do proactive Lenten practices, for example, going to daily Mass, reading the Bible, saying the rosary, making charitable gifts or serving at a soup kitchen or food pantry. Others do both, giving things up as well as adding some ascetical activity.

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” So said St. Jerome, the great biblical scholar who translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin in the fourth century. In that case, it is unfortunate many people reportedly know very little about Scripture and therefore little about Christ. Some recent surveys in this regard are disturbing.