Contemplata

The purpose of our lives is to enter into the life of the Holy Trinity, and come to know something of the holy, awesome, and awe-inspiring life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The question is, “How?” The Lord Jesus tells us the answer very clearly. In the Gospel of Mark, the first thing the Lord says is this: “the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” The Greek word for repent is metanoiete and it comes from metanoia. Metanoia means the transformation of the mind. Learn more about the pathways of metanoia in this episode of Contemplata.

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The purpose of our life is to know, love, and enjoy God. More specifically, the purpose of our life is to know, love, and enjoy the Holy Trinity. In this episode, Fr. James Brent, O.P., meditates on the sign of the cross, a simple gesture that contains two great truths of our faith – that the purpose of our life is to participate in the life of the Trinity and the way is to follow Jesus Christ and him crucified. 

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In previous episodes, we learned about the Eucharistic sacrifice and about the qualities of heart we need when we go to Mass. One of these qualities is thanksgiving. We need to take time to count our blessings. And two of the best ways we can prepare for Mass is to count our blessings and pray the Rosary. We can combine these two. Learn how in this bonus episode of Contemplata.

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“You become what you eat,” they say. If you eat the body and drink the blood of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, who do you become? You become him. You become Jesus. You become another Christ in this world. You learn to live his life – his supernatural and divine Life. You come to know his Father. You begin to breathe his Spirit. You learn to walk as he walked. You learn to pray. You learn to listen to God. You learn to lay down your life in humble service of other people. In short, you and I learn to live in a personal friendship with God.

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At Mass, the people are called to co-offer the sacrifice. But how, precisely, do we do so? It is principally an affair of the heart, a matter of intention. Find out in this episode how heaven teaches us to form such an intention at Mass.

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Very often, when we think of going to Mass or not going to Mass, the question in our minds is, “What I will get out of it.?” We do not think in terms of what God is worth or how, in the Mass, we render to God the worship he deserves from us. But what is God worth? Even if you can’t receive communion that day, you and I have been given the grace, the honor, and the privilege to join with Jesus Christ himself in offering true worship to the Father at the holy sacrifice at the Mass. That is reason enough to go. God is reason enough to go.

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Pope Pius XII once said that “all the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity.”  But how do we do so? What is our part in the Mass? The answer is simple. Our hearts should have the same qualities of the heart of Jesus Christ in his worship of the Father and our hearts should be a reflection of his. But what are the qualities of the heart of Jesus in his worship? Fr. James Brent, O.P., ponders some of these qualities of the heart of Jesus in worship in this episode of Contemplata.

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When we go to Mass, we remain on earth. But Fr. James Brent, O.P. explains that what we have on our altars in our earthly liturgies is one and the same Lamb of God as in heaven—not merely a sign or merely a symbol of the Lamb, but the actual Lamb of God—body, blood, soul, and divinity. 

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There is one place above all where we can come to know the love of God—the Eucharist. It is called the sacrament of charity, the sacrament of love. And it was out of love that Jesus Christ set up this great sacrament in the Church. It was in order to remain with us always, in order to bring us back to himself in eternity.

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In this episode, Fr. James Brent O.P., talks about the Marian apparition at Knock (in Ireland) which he says is also a Eucharistic apparition—and that Eucharistic Adoration is essentially a sustained beholding of the Lamb of God. It is the perfect response to John the Baptist’s prophetic command: metanoeite! Mind your God!

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When we receive holy communion in a certain state, when we are well disposed with certain qualities of mind and heart, then holy communion will have a great effect on us. When our minds and hearts lack those qualities or are not well disposed, then the effects of holy communion on us will be less. The effects of holy communion run deeper, grow stronger, and last longer when we approach with the proper spiritual dispositions. But what are the proper dispositions?

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When we receive holy communion, the sacrament has certain effects on us—spiritual or supernatural effects. Just as food nourishes a child and causes the child to grow strong in bodily life, so holy communion nourishes our souls and causes us to grow strong in the spiritual life, the life of grace. 

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As Catholics, we believe and confess that the Eucharist is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, not a new or additional sacrifice, but the same sacrifice. How can it be so? In this episode of Contemplata, Fr. James Brent, O.P. further explains how the sacrifice Christ offered at Calvary is the same sacrifice on the altar at every Mass. 

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Jesus fulfilled the law of sacrifice in a unique way when he offered himself to the Father on Calvary. In his sacrifice, we find the three elements common to all sacrifice. First, we find an inward or spiritual sacrifice—the offering of his heart to the Father. Second, we find an outward act of sacrifice—a definite gesture expressing the gift of his heart. Third, we find a thing offered. In this episode of Contemplata, Fr. James Brent, O.P., considers each of these. 

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In this episode, Fr. James Brent, O.P., discusses sacrificial worship—human beings have, written in their hearts, a desire to offer sacrifice to God. Jesus taught us that the one sacrifice that would please God is not something we make up, but it is he, himself. He is the one true sacrifice that offers himself up to the Father. 

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St. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. To provide food for us, food that lasts eternally, the heavenly Father sent his Son into the world—the very wisdom of God. 

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God is always working to recover our hearts by grace—primarily through his Word, through prayer, and through the Eucharist. More than anything else, the Eucharist forms us for eternal life. In this episode of Contemplata, Fr. James Brent, O.P., begins a series on the Eucharist.

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All of the teachings and all of the practices of the holy Catholic Church are given to the world for the recovery of the human heart. In this episode of Contemplata, Fr. James Brent, O.P., talks about a certain pathos of the human heart—that ever since the Fall, the heart has been embattled. But there is hope for recovering the heart.

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