YOU fill up my senses...and my whole being

About a week ago, in a review of USCCB's book "Pope Benedict: Essays and Reflections on his Papacy, I read the most stunning paragraph that I have read in since Fr. Greeley's description of the Catholic imagination. The following selection is from "On Devotion to the Papacy" By Michael Sean Winters:

"We Catholics like to touch our faith. We like the smell of incense in our nostrils. We like the taste of the Most Previous Blood on our lips. We like the feel of Holy oils on our foreheads. We like the kiss of peace with our brethren. We want to worship in a beautiful church that excites our eyes as well as our imaginations. Our faith is decidedly incarnational because our God is incarnational. The papacy is a part of that. Our tradition is not only held in our minds as a great principle of faith. You can see the successors of the apostles. You can shake their hands. And you can fill the Paul VI Hall and stand on your chair, and scream and shout when the successor of Peter enters the room."

All I can say is "Wow!" Yeah, that's definitely how it has been for me. I like the feel of the medals of my saintly friends who pray with me against my skin, and the clink they make when I move. I like the smell of a votive candle. Incense -- well, I can do without it as now that I'm older it makes me ill most of the time; I find bells during the eucharistic prayer a distraction rather than a help to attentiveness. But, we're all Catholics in word and in practice, we worship from both sides of the brain, with our eyes and ears, with our entire bodies, our entire being. I really like being Catholic, too.