I love being Catholic. I love the Catholic Church. I love the people of the Church, every single one. They, you, I – we are all part of the same body – the body of Christ.

The Body that became flesh so God could be “God is with us”. The Body that breathed, laughed, and wept with us. The Body that prayed, broke and multiplied food for us. The Body that touched our ugly, sinful, dysfunctional brokenness. The Body that died in our place, was wrapped in a cloth, and laid in a hollow cave for us.

The Body that rested in that tomb – pierced, dead, and alone.

But, on the third day, that Body healed, breathed, moved, and shone with glorious life again.

We are that Body, we are all the Body of Christ. Like Him, we have been pierced by our own – and by other members of the same Body’s – ugly, sinful, dysfunctional brokenness.

We are wrapped up in the cloth of our sins, hidden in our ugly brokenness in a lonely cave, wounded, alone, and yearning for one thing: LIFE.

Yet, in that quiet, lonely tomb, a miracle occurs: We, the Body of Christ, are healed. Our souls awake and gasp, hungrily inhaling fresh, pure air again. We rise, stand, and walk out of the cold, dark, lonely tomb and into the light of LIFE once again.

This, this is why I love the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is a tomb: a space for the broken, wounded, and spiritually dead members of the Body of Christ.

The Catholic Church is also an ark: a vessel of safety and protection for the precious members of the Body of Christ.

The Church is a womb: a quiet space where we we begin, form, develop and slowly mature, constantly nourished and nurtured by the placental Grace always available to us through the umbilical chord of the Sacraments.

From the womb, we are born out into the light of new life. From the ark, we leave the sanctuary from the storm out into a land of new beginnings. From the tomb, our wounds and brokenness are healed and we get up and walk out into the light of a reconciled and transfigurated life.

This is the Church. The Church I love, the resplendent Bride of Christ, the broken and healed people of God, my beloved brothers, my beloved sisters.

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