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To Wash, or Not to Wash, and Whom to Wash?


In the conclusion to my book I penned the following:

So it is that because of the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, many Catholics do not practice their faith to the point of standing out from those who are ignorant of Christ. In approaching the vexing questions of modern society, too many Catholics take positions based on a liberal-conservative spectrum, rather than on the teachings of Jesus Christ which come to us via His church. Only genuine conversion, metanoia, the fruit of evangelization, will change this reality, allowing Catholics to experience the joy of faithful discipleship. No ideology may substitute for real personal conversion. In essence, metanoia means to question one’s own way of living, to start to see life through God’s eyes, and turn away from conformity to this world. Genuine conversion predisposes us not to see ourselves as the measure of all things, but to a humility that trusts ourselves to God’s love, which becomes the measure of all things. This was the central teaching of Vatican II: a renewed call to the faithful to strive after holiness, which means doing the Father’s will in all things, empowered by His grace.
      Holiness makes us love as the Father loves, and brings the fullness of life to the one who is loved, and so is meant to be communicated to the people of God. The Second Vatican Council also taught that bishops, as Our Lord’s chief witnesses, must lead in evangelizing lost souls who do not know the Good Shepherd, proclaiming the whole mystery of Christ to them. Apart from holiness, the fruit of evangelization and conversion, we are “slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another,” under the sway of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”


It is in light of the above that I highly recommend for consideration Fr. Z's analysis of Pope Francis and Holy Thursday!

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