As I’ve been preparing to take some time to rest for the month of July, I’ve been thinking about two or three books I’d like to read. Throughout the year I’m usually “reading a bookshelf,” as a friend of mine once put it. That is, I’m always reading a few pages at a time from a few books at a time. It’s a little utilitarian. Those books help me to stay recollected and connected, which helps my preaching. But the summer months are for reading a book solely for the duty of delight.

So while the physical senses of the body are incapable of sensing God’s presence directly, the soul and the spirit nevertheless remain capax Dei, capable of God. In the intellect this perception of God can happen. In the Christian tradition, we call this “prayer.”

The more we focus on durability, on maintaining a hard exterior and rigid interior, the harder we are to repair. Durability comes at the expense of repairability. And yet, repairability is necessary for Christianity.

This past Monday, the Church celebrated a Memorial that I believe can help us to respond to our loved ones about sensitive and contentious issues surrounding sexual morality, and it does so by reminding us of the meaning of our lives, even our bodies.

The early Church understood that the Risen Christ was truly present in their midst - in the life they lived together, and in the celebration of the Eucharist. In other words, they realized that their new communion with Jesus was a holy communion.

When I think back to my experience of learning about religion as a boy, I seem to remember it as little more than being told about things that God did many years ago. God, to me, was real, but He was in the past. I wasn't taught how to know Him as a presence.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of a promise that Christ made to His disciples. Isn’t that an amazing thought: that God would promise something to us! What have we ever done to deserve anything from Him? And yet, it pleases Him to bestow gifts on us.

We’re in that first novena, those nine days of prayer between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost, when the Apostles were gathered together in the Upper Room with Our Lady. Our Lord has ascended to the Father, and now we’re waiting for the Advocate, promised to us by Our Lord, who will make it possible for us to follow after Our Lord.