Thankful to be Catholic

I'm spending Thanksgiving with my family in New Orleans, my hometown. I mean, I was baptized here, this is where it all began! As with most traveling, I used MassTimes.org to find daily Masses to go to while I'm here. Typing in my grandmother's zip code, it came up with nearly 20 daily Masses within just a couple of miles. Now granted, I am in a very Catholic place here in southeastern Louisiana, but still. The Catholic Church. Universal. One, Holy, and Apostolic! It blows my mind sometimes. My Lord is here. He is here, in New Orleans, just the same as He is in Nashville, or any other tabernacle all over the world. As it says above the tabernacle in the Chapel at the St. Cecilia Motherhouse, "Here God dwells among men." Such beauty; our Lord is forever with us until the end of time--just as He promised us.

Today, quite simply, I stop a minute and realize how thankful I am to be Catholic. To know that the keys of the kingdom were laid in dear St. Peter's hands, and have been passed from generation to generation through the Papacy. To know that these popes have commissioned bishops, in line with the Apostles themselves, to consecrate priests to serve the kingdom and provide the Sacraments to the people. And of course, in the line of Melchizedek, to continue to offer the eternal sacrifice in the Holy Mass, the memorial of the Last Supper, where we encounter the perpetually incarnate Christ in the Holy Eucharist: body, blood, soul, and divinity.

There is such an incredible comfort knowing that I don't have to church-hop or get the right pastor to know the Truth. I can go to any Catholic Church all over the world and encounter Truth face to face. And even then, it is no more work on my part to know Him than quieting my heart and listening to Truth speak to me, in Its mere presence. As St. Teresa of the Andes once said on prayer, "my heart can say nothing; I can only adore."

Among the gifts of the Church, we also have the Communion of Saints, celebrating all those in Heaven, especially those recognized for their work on earth. Today is the feast day of Saint Cecilia, one of the early martyrs. Her story deserves its own post, which might come later. Until then: Saint Cecilia, pray for us!

Praised be Jesus Christ and His Holy Church!


"I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church: for if Faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek where true Faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God Himself."
~St. Elizabeth Ann Seton