How can new life be breathed into what seems to so many to be boring or obsolete? How can we rekindle the sense of mystery and majesty, enthusiasm for the most essential things, a sense of awe and wonder?

Not by over-explanation or hyper-analysis, certainly. The only words that might spark a fire are those that capture and hold out the Light as it is. Poetry is all I know. But beyond words there are concrete signs which can shed light on the deepest meanings of the liturgy.

But what can draw the distracted attention of so many to these silent things? What can make this thanksgiving, consecration, memorial, and offering VITAL to people who seem interested only in themselves and their own image?

How, for example, can the altar itself arouse the wonder that it should? What will help us recognize and appreciate the altar as a sign of the sacrifice of the cross, the table of the Eucharistic meal, the symbol of the tomb left empty by the Risen One?

This seems to me to be an urgent need today - to somehow refocus attention toward Christ's Presence among us, toward contemplative adoration, to allow Him to reveal His Light and Presence in Word and Sacrament, to somehow encourage this dynamic of the people waiting on, expecting, encountering Him personally.

How can our gaze and our hearts be directed toward Him?
How can we be opened up to transcendence?

For those who have emailed wondering why I don't post more often, I thought I'd show you a few of the very good reasons why my time is so limited. God keeps me too busy to get into much trouble, as you can see!

On this "optional Memorial" of the Holy Name of Jesus, designated as such by Pope JPII in 2002 (he was really just reinstating an observance that had been set aside after Vatican II), we take note of the naming of this child born unto us, this son that is given for us. Joseph was told in his dream: "You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."

So when we say that name, we recall the greatest gift that has been given to us: salvation.

In the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, we refer to "Jesus, splendor of the Father...brightness of eternal light... eternal wisdom... infinite goodness...."

Trinitarian love is not a self-contained end in itself - it is always opening up something fresh within Itself to pour out on us, to give existence to what did not exist, to communicate something new yet eternal, to give life where death had been tightening its grip.

This Child named Jesus reminds us that the ever-new beginning, the infinite "givingness" of God, is tangible - salvation is ours because Love has been made flesh, Beauty made flesh, Life made flesh, Truth made flesh, Wisdom, Goodness, Justice made flesh and is among us, with us, for us.

This Child elevates and illumines the new beginning that is every new life, every absolved penitent whose childlikeness has been restored, every dawn, every heartbeat. Behold, He makes all things new.

We love You, Jesus. We praise You, Jesus. We thank You, Jesus.

"Chesterton was right when he said that the world is full of Christian ideas gone mad. The Gospel and the Church are plundered like a fruit tree, but the fruits, once separated from the tree, go rotten and are no longer fruitful. The ‘ideas’ of Christ cannot be separated from Him, and so they are of no use to the world unless they are fought for by Christians who believe in Christ, or at least by men who are inwardly, though unconsciously, open to Him and governed by Him. Radiance is only possible when the radiant center is permanently active and alive. There can be no shining from stars long dead."
~Balthasar, Das Ganze im Fragment

I think this is also true of those who argue WITHIN the Church, or who set themselves above the Magisterium with their endless arguments over liturgical correctness or moral relativism or whatever. Even if they have not separated themselves from Christ, or formally broken from the Church - they have separated themselves from His Church and picked the glorious fruits of the Church and tried to use these singular specimens independent of the Tree. The part can only live and be healthy when it is part of the whole. When we accept that the Church - though it is filled with sinners - possesses the Truth and teaches with the authority of Christ, then we are freed from all that might enslave our reason and drag us away to something that seems righter than the Church. We cannot know everything, and the arguments of our own minds, the lies of the world and the devil, the arguments of the well-meaning can lead us down paths we need not waste time travelling.