Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS)'s Podcast
The Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS) is a centre for research and formation that promotes spiritual formation and renewal, drawing on the rich resources of the venerable Carmelite tradition.
It is an apostolate of the Anglo-Irish Province of the Discalced Carmelites, based at the Carmelite Priory at Boars Hill, Oxford, England.
OUR MISSION
CACS strives to achieve its mission through structured study and formation programmes in spirituality from the Carmelite perspective, especially Prayer and Spiritual Direction. At the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, you are welcome to enter into the silence where God’s voice is heard in prayer, word and sacrament, inviting you to journey ever more deeply into a place of growth and wholeness. Our goal is to bring people to experience a life-transforming friendship with God through a lived experience of Carmelite spirituality that is authentic to its biblical roots.
Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS)'s Podcast
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
Word & Wisdom is a weekly reflection on the Sunday’s scriptures and the wisdom of the Carmelite tradition. It promises to offer you real spiritual food to sustain you on the journey.
This Word and Wisdom Podcast is brought to you by the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, Oxford (carmelite.uk.net).
To receive audio and written copies, subscribe by emailing podcasts@cacs.org.uk
To connect with our Living Prayer Podcast on Youtube, kindly click: https://www.youtube.com/@CACSOxford
One of the main tasks of a parent is providing nourishment for the offspring, ensuring that they live. This is what God does for us in the Eucharist. In the Gospel, Christ as the living sacrament, the true image of the Father, performs this parental task, nourishing those who, through his preaching, have become part of God's family, God's children.
The Church, the sacrament of Christ, which perpetuates Christ's presence and furthers his mission in the world, is called to continue this role. Give them something to eat yourselves. But the Church, relying on its own power, cannot offer much.
She must offer that which comes from her Divine Founder. This is why, after the people had eaten to their satisfaction, the remaining scraps were collected and they filled twelve baskets. This means symbolically that each apostle could have a basket with which to feed the community that he would give birth to through preaching and missionary activities.
The apostles are the patriarchs, the fathers of New Israel, and they, like true parents, must feed their children. The Church must provide Eucharistic nourishment for the faithful. Today's solemnity is a celebration of divine love.
It speaks eloquently of God's self-giving. The second reading captures this in the words, This is my body, which is for you. It is a mystery of love in which, according to Pope Urban IV, the giver comes as the gift himself and is completely given with the gift.
This divine prodigality also makes a precious demand from us. Love is demanding. In the first reading, God, through his priest Melchizedek, offers blessing to Abraham.
Abraham's response was also a gift. When God gives himself to us, he expects us to give ourselves to him too in thanksgiving. This was clearly understood by Saint Teresa of Avila, who urges us not to turn our thoughts to other things after communion.
Be with him willingly. Don't lose so good occasion for conversing with him as is the hour after having received communion. This sacrament, she notes, strengthens us to face the challenges of life.
There is no need or trial or persecution that is not easy to suffer if we begin to enjoy the delight and consolation of this sacred bread. Bearing hardships out of love for God is nothing but an expression of this self-offering. God's gift is spiritual nourishment, the bread of life.
Man fell by means of the food of the death-giving tree. Man is raised up by means of the food of the life-giving tree. Our life greatly depends on this food.
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. As we contemplate Christ in the Eucharist, we adore and praise him with immense devotion. Our adoration must be sincere.
If we adore him in the tabernacle, we must not forget that he desires living tabernacles even more. As Joseph Ratzinger once affirmed, he wants to dwell in us and we must prepare him a place in our hearts. If we carry him in procession in the monasteries, we must remember to show and proclaim him to the world by our way of living.