Dear Sursum Cordians,
Dear Friends,
Lift up your hearts!
After a year and a half as chaplain for Sursum Corda - Saint Louis, I have been assigned to be the chaplain for National Sursum Corda. This is a great joy for me to be able to participate, in a small way, to the formation of tomorrow’s Catholic families and vocations. As you all know, Sursum Corda is a nationwide initiative to foster the spiritual lives of the Catholic adults (aged 18 - 35) within the apostolates of the Institute of Christ the King - Sovereign Priest. This formation of America’s young adults would not be possible without your generosity, your apostolic zeal, and your prayers.
I would like to consider more specifically this second point: Apostolic zeal.
Through your Baptism you have become children of God and members of the Church. You have been marked at your Confirmation with the Sacred Oil which made you soldiers of Christ, fervent protectors and defenders of the Church. You are all aware of the situation of the world today and you are all aware of the grave necessity to tend daily to holiness - our only vocation! Heroic holiness to which we are called today. Apostolic zeal is, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, "a necessary effect of love"; being "the vehement movement of one who loves to secure the object of his love" and the first and ultimate object of our love being God Himself. Love cannot be kept prisoner within ourselves, as the proper nature of love is to communicate itself to others. If my soul is filled with the love of God, the love of his Church, the love of His Divine Liturgy; then it becomes natural to communicate, to give, to spread this same love!
You are in an age that thirsts for heroism, thirsts for great things, great acts of generosity, great acts of valor; Do not deceive yourself by keeping this passionate thirst for heroism within the boundaries of your own pride and self-satisfaction. Instead - give yourself. Go and reach all those that God has put on your path. Bring them to the light of the Faith. Bring them to the light of what is already a participation of Heaven, the Liturgy of the Church. Take them to what you and they have been created for: God alone! “Great occasions for serving God come seldom, but little ones surround us daily” says our dear Patron, Saint Francis de Sales.
“The measure of love is to love without measure.”
Be all assured of my prayers. I also recommend myself to your prayers. Ask our Blessed Mother to give to Sursum Cordians an ardent love for the Church and for souls. Ask our Lord - His Sacred Heart - to bless this apostolate, as He promised: “I will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.”
In the Heart of our Beloved Savior,
Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins
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