The Mystery of the Eucharist is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured.



Needed and welcome, it was good to hear Francis Cardinal Arinze present Redemptionis Sacramentum, the Vatican instruction on the Eucharist. And there was a fitting chronological coincidence when, in addition to the presentation of the norms and instruction, Cardinal Arinze, no novice in speaking truth to power, also defended the right of the Church to define the discipline of those who claim membership and communion with her.



Not infrequently, abuses are rooted in a false understanding of liberty. Yet God has not granted us in Christ an illusory liberty by which we may do what we wish, but a liberty by which we may do that which is fitting and right.



On the same date in 1073, Hildebrand of Tuscany became Pope as Gregory VII. His reign was marked by extraordinary efforts of reform and strong defense of the rights of the Church against the power of the Emperor. Dilexi justitiam, et odi iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio, he murmured as he lay dying in Salerno. I have loved justice, and have hated iniquity. Therefore I die in exile. Exile, though, only to the limits that Caesar was able to enforce and, even in exile, still pilgrim, still faithful. And welcome in the house of his Father.