Reality

Today, St. Patrick's Day, at St. John's Cathedral in Seattle, where "even those who [weren't] wearing green love St. Patrick," who is best known for his work bringing Catholicism to the Irish masses by incorporating their preexisting pagan rituals into those of the Christian faith, I learned that today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. In mourning of the brutal execution of Jesus and remembrance of His forty day fast from eating and drinking, Catholics fast from things they like for approximately forty days a year (except for on the Sabbath, so abstaining from mass isn't an option), a practice of sacrifice comparable to priests' vow of celibacy, but on a smaller scale, so that volumes of followers aren't consumed by perverse pathological urges such as pedophilia.

For the fifth Sunday of Lent, Father David A. Brant gave a homily dedicated to the reality of unending life. He asserts "life does not end in death;" which is self evident because "everybody knows in their blood that something is eternal." God and Jesus (who, of course, are One) created life as eternal— we know this beyond any reasonable doubt because Jesus has already proven it to us by raising the dead. The miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead as part of Jesus's ministry showed evidence that, although our human bodies age, face various diseases throughout their run, and cease to work, the spirit of Lazarus was very much still in existence, which was necessary for him to again inhabit his corpse, which died and decayed for four days.

Concluding the service, I took part as a vessel of transubstantiation, a form of communion that is exclusively effective in the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church." During the process, I was given by a minister a wafer to be transformed into a literal piece of Jesus' body inside of me, and by another minister, a sip from a goblet of white wine to wash it down, which, in my stomach, was transformed into red wine and then into His blood. This ritual was originally led by Jesus and performed by the twelve apostles while He was still alive.Thankfully, this conversion took place after contact with my taste buds, so I didn't have to experience the aftertaste of blood and assorted body part. The flesh of Christ, being the holiest of meats, hasn't seemed to trigger any sort of cannibalistic urges in my psyche, nor has it upset my stomach, which fascinates me, since I don’t imagine it had been prepared for human consumption before being manifested in my esophagus. I will, however, post otherwise if my condition changes.

[EDIT:] The congregation was encouraged to pray for newly elected Pope Francis. I was really hoping for better material on him than that, but instead I'll just be content with disappointing you.