The Body of Christ

Some powerful stuff going on in my head, I have to get it out onto my blog as part of my way of processing information and praising my God.

I have always enjoyed it when I hear masses on the Body of Christ, I love thinking about it in terms that we are all the body, working together for the greater good to prevail through Christ.  Recently, I had one of the most beautiful experiences.  I want to first and foremost thank God for the experience, and the peace it has given me.  I am also continuing to pray for the purpose of the event, and will continue to pray until we see some resolution.

One thing that I am struggling with lately, is the division of the Christian church, what in my mind I think of as the "holy catholic church."  (and yes, I meant to not capitalize the "c" in catholic).  When I pray the Catholic creed at mass, and I say that, "I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church."  I mean the little "c" version as well.  This is something that I learned while joining the Catholic church in my RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) class.  The capitalization refers to the organization itself, if the word is not capitalized it simply means universal church,  which to me means the entire body of Christians working together through Christ.

Recently, I got to experience a greater version of the body of Christ.  I have always enjoyed exploring and attending other denominations of the Christian church.  A few weeks ago, I attended a prayer service for one of our dear friends at a Pentecostal church.  I know understand more fully what is meant by the "crying out to Jesus." I was there to pray and that is exactly what I did in many different forms.   First, I sat and quietly prayed my rosary (which in my mind is directly praying to God, Jesus, and Mary)  for the intentions that were being spoken.  It was amazing, nearly every time I completed a decade of my rosary and I was ready to introduce more intentions, someone would begin to speak their prayers for the family.  When they finished their petition, I began my decade of meditating on their needs and praising the Lord.  If no else was speaking when I completed my decade, I quietly did my own crying out to Jesus for the family.  If someone happen to be speaking during my decade, I simply mediated on what they were praying.  I noticed others around me doing the same in their own way.   After my rosaries, I prayed to the saints I know in my heart to also be praying to God for the family's needs.  Finally, I just quietly sat in contemplative prayer with the Lord.

After we left the service, we proceeded on home, to find that Henry had a terrible ear ache.  He had a rough night waking up, so I slept in his bed with him and helped him throughout the night.  This again, was a blessing in disguise.  I was able to process and think about the events of the evening, and pray even more during the night .  As I was thinking about the beauty of the prayer service, I had a realization about the body of Christ.  It is not just in the member of the individuals of the church you attend, but also in all of the denominations of the catholic (little "c" again).  Each division of the church seems to hone in on a different parts of the mission of Christ. It was beautiful to me to see all of us, praying together as a unit of the church, even though some of us came from different church backgrounds.

I am inspired to continue to learn more, and continue being in unity with my fellow Christians.  As we all work towards perfection in Christ through our human imperfections.

Once again, I would like to thank and praise my God for the many blessing He has given me.  It is truly beautiful when I step back and look at the bigger picture of life.