Dear Parishioners of Corpus Christi Church,

As we begin the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week of 2020: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil/Sunday, albeit virtually at home and through various means, we can take great consolation that the Mystical Body of Christ is still very present in one and in all who are baptized into Christ.

As we have heard the phrase now more than once: by our efforts at social isolation “we are flattening the curve,” and that “we are in this together,” we can be reminded that this time of ours and our world’s trial does not mean that our souls should flatten or bottom out, for now is still an acceptable time for our response to God’s grace to heal, touch, save, and be renewed in Christ. Our present isolation from others can be a graced time, a pilgrimage of earnest responsibility, to deepen our faith, to strengthen our conversion and our union with Christ our Redeemer, and one another through prayer and love (charity).

Caryll Houselander, a British author, poet, and spiritual teacher, whom I enthusiastically recommend for your own spiritual reading wrote something very inspiring as taken from the excerpt of a meditation as found in the Magnifcat’s Holy Week 2020, Vol. 22, No.1, p.43:

“Already in this mysterious moment of time, at the beginning of the Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross), Christ has given Himself to all those whom He will indwell through all the centuries to come. Already He has taken them to Himself, made them one with Himself. All manner of men and women and children – the rich and the poor, the famous and the infamous, saints and sinners – all who will be redeemed by His Passion are in Christ, and His heavenly Father sees them all as Christ, His Son in whom He is well pleased.”

As we celebrate our Christ, our Passover, these holy days, may we welcome the on-going work of His redemption in each of us as the strong, yet gentle, humble Lamb of God, whose death is not a cause of shame for us – as St. Augustine reminds us, but o ur Lord’s death on the Cross is our greatest hope, our greatest glory…in taking upon Himself the death that He found in us (original sin), He has most faithfully promised to give us life in Him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.

May you and yours be renewed in the joy of the Risen Savior this year and always. Let us continue to pray for each other and for all who have been adversely affected by the pandemic in our country and the world. Let us support and pray for our first-responders, our health care folks, and all who share in the present battle to bring comfort to the afflicted, health to the sick, hope and salvation to the dying.

Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen, let us glorify Him!
Christ is with us – He is and always shall be!
Fr. Damian B. Breen, Pastor