My blog kind of got put on the back burner when I went to the Catholic Writer’s Conference in Somerset, NJ. It was a good trip and received much encouragement by being there. The conference was held in conjunction with the Catholic Marketing Network’s Trade Show. That is where I met my new friend,Pope Francis. It is good to have friends in high places. Of course, that’s what life is all about. We want to have a friend in the “highest” of all places, that being heaven. That friend needs to be God himself. Unless you can manage to come into union with God, life is really without much meaning. Indeed, when we have sanctifying grace in our souls, we are in union with God, even if imperfectly. How do we get sanctifying grace in our souls? There are a number of ways. The most normitive way is to be baptized. Peter tells us in1 Pt 3:21 ”Baptism now saves you!”. Baptism is a pure gift from God. It not only initiates into the Church, but also makes us an adopted child of God—something no one deserves and no act of faith can demand. Baptism is in some ways like the miracle of the cure of the servant of the centurion. The servant didn’t ask to be cured. It was the faith of the centurion, which resulted in this gift being given. The same is true of Baptism. The gift is not received by anyone’s act, but rather by the faith of someone. For infants, this can be the faith of the parents and the Church. For those past the age of reason, it is the faith of the individuals themselves together with the action that God has prescribed—the pouring of water and the saying of the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (from Mt 28:19 In any case that faith must persevere until the end to remain saved along with doing the will of the Father without which one will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Being an adopted child gives us an inheritance right to heaven, a right which only we can give away by separating us from God through mortal sin. Still one remains a child of God. And, of course, when we are baptized, we also receive God’s life in sanctifying grace. This puts us in union with God. The grace of Baptism is wonderful, but there is even more grace in receiving the person of Jesus in the Eucharist, in receiving the Real Presence. That’s why I wrote my book- Exploring the Belief in the Real Presence, to help people realize that the Eucharist is truly Jesus.
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That brings me back to Pope Francis. Obviously from the second picture, Pope Francis is not really there. Just a cardboard image, albeit a good one which fooled many people. If your relationship with Jesus is just a superficial one, you will never have a true friend in high places. If your Eucharist is but a memory of Jesus (which is still a good thing), you will never have the full communion with Jesus that receiving his very body and blood can give to you.