What would you do if Jesus told you that he was amazed by your faith?

The Gospels are filled with accounts of the Lord wondering at the faith of certain people who encounter him: the centurion in Capernaum, the paralytic, the woman with the hemorrhage, the Canaanite woman. Perhaps even more surprising than the miracles themselves is the fact that Jesus is amazed by faith. Since he is God, he knows everything and sees inside the secrets of the heart. Yet it is striking that he wonders at faith.

"The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators . . . by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 48)

We love because He first loved us. — 1 John 4:1

As we celebrate the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 7 (and honor the Sacred Heart during the entire month of June), it seems appropriate to reflect on the love of Christ.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:5

“Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” wrote the poet T.S. Eliot. While some might interpret this verse from the “Four Quartets” as a need to escape from the daily grind, this is not what Eliot is saying. Rather, he is referring to a deeper reality that underlies the world that we see. He is referring to a sacramental vision of the world.

"Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the lamb.” — Revelation 19:9.

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that “love follows knowledge.” It’s also true that the more we love, the more we want to know. During this second year of Eucharistic Revival, as we seek to grow closer to Our Lord in the Eucharist, hopefully our desire to know and love him more has also grown. God reveals himself to us in a myriad of ways, but the most important and intimate way we come to know him is at Mass. The Church obliges us to attend Mass every Sunday and going to Mass is often spoken of as something that we do. What if the Mass is something that God does — for us?