Church "World" Tour: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (SEAS) ~ Plano

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ (also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi), which has a dual intent of focusing on the Eucharist and the Church (Body of Christ), primarily the Eucharist.

Week Three of the Church "World" Tour, My Family attended the 11:00 a.m. Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Plano (a.k.a. SEAS).  (I have since learned there is another SEAS in Keller. Might have to add it to our list.)

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is the first American-born citizen to be canonized by the Church.  Cool, huh?

The Gospel reading of this day is the crux of the Catholic faith. It's the centerpiece of why Catholics believe in the trans-substantiation, as well as why we even attend church -- to receive the actual body and blood of Christ.  The Gospel reference is in John 6:51-58.  Our non-Catholic bretheren have a hard time with the idea that Catholics believe this & practice it; the most common criticism being "doesn't that make you a cannibal?".  There's is another counterpoint of "we are called to take it in *remembrance* of Christ".  Fair enough words. I'm not here to witness, but rather, to state how The Church believes.

I mention it merely because there are times in the homily that relates to the day of the liturgical year. And, in this case, Christ gave us the Ultimate Love by dying for us (Corpus Christi).  So, today's homily at SEAS was focused on just that -- LOVE.

It happened to be Father's last week at SEAS, as he's been re-assigned by the Diocese to St. Ann's in Coppell (also on our list!).  He leaves a parish of approximately 5-6K families to go to a parish of approximately 8K families. He gave a lovely farewell homily, speaking about how much he has loved each person in that flock, though he did not know them all by name.  He didn't need to.

Father further conveyed this:

What we want most is to love and be loved.

Love doesn't just bring pure joy; it brings pain, too -- and maybe this is why Jesus did what he did for us.

If you don't already know this about me yet, know this:  one of my three life mottos is: pain is growth.

Father's homily echoed this to some degree, I believe.  I was stirred by the notion of love bring the extremes of pure joy and raw pain. Such truth.

Wishing Father much love, luck and happiness on his new adventure!

~Whoosh!