Believe Celebrate Live THE EUCHARIST. Gathering

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Believe Celebrate Live THE EUCHARIST. Gathering"

Eugenia Nicholson
5 years ago
Views:

1 Every time we gather to pray together, we are being invited to become part of something larger than ourselves part of a community, part of the body of Christ. From many directions, through many doors, we come into one place. From our individual prayer, we are called into prayer together. We stand together. We make the sign of the cross together. We sing together. Through words, gestures, and music, we say yes, I want to be part of this community of faith. The unity of our prayer makes visible, today, in this place, the body of Christ, living and active in the world. Why is there so much singing at Mass? Because when we stand and sing together, we acknowledge that we are not the audience, those who merely listen. We are a community of believers, the body of Christ, called to take an active, not a passive role in the prayer of the Church. The Church teaches that there is nothing like singing for expressing unity and helping to strengthen it. And so we sing during the entrance of the ministers; we sing as we are sprinkled with baptismal water; we sing the Gloria, the ancient prayer that begins with a song of angels, as we give glory to God on high, and pray for peace on earth. Our prayer together is like a symphony. Like a symphony, it needs all kinds of instruments: loud and soft, high and low, young and old, nasal and throaty all kinds of instruments, given to us by God. Each and every voice is the one God simply has to have to make this symphony complete. So, we are tuned and ready to rejoice and sing to the Lord. Let us rise! Gathering 1A

2 The Liturgy of the Word We continue reflection on our most important prayer, the Mass, with a focus on God s word. As far back as the second century, Saint Justin the Martyr wrote: On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members, whether they live in the city or in the outlying districts. The recollections of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as there is time. When the reader has finished, the presider of the assembly speaks to us; he urges everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard in the readings. Then we all stand up together to pray. 1 Doesn t this sound like what we do each week when we gather together to pray? And yet this description of the first part of the Mass dates back more than eighteen hundred years! From very early times, the prayer of the Christian community has consisted of two main parts: Word and Eucharist. In the Liturgy of the Word, we don t just recall past events; we learn what it means to be followers of Christ here and now. We listen to the word proclaimed in our midst and we also respond: Thanks be to God! Thank you, God, for speaking this word to us! Think of the Liturgy of the Word as the school for discipleship. This is a primary and central way to become a disciple by hearing the word and letting it take root in our hearts. This is the reason that missing the Liturgy of the Word by arriving late for Mass is to deprive ourselves of something we really cannot afford to miss! The fathers of the Second Vatican Council wrote, Christ Himself speaks when the holy scriptures are proclaimed in the Church. 2 Christ himself is speaking! So as we listen to the readings, we shouldn t get too comfortable. Instead, we should brace ourselves! When Christ speaks, things happen. People change. Minds are opened. Hearts are set on fire. Through Christ s living word, the Spirit will break into our lives if our ears and hearts are open. Let us pray that the Lord Jesus will open the scriptures to us and make our hearts burn while he speaks to us. 1. Office of Readings for the Third Sunday of Easter. Liturgy of the Hours, Volume II. (Washington, DC: International Committee on English in the Liturgy), Austin Flannery, op, ed. Sacrosanctum Concilium: The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. In Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Volume 1. (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Co. and Dominican Publications), 1998, 5. 2A

3 Giving Thanks We have listened to God s word. Now, in the light of that word, we come to the altar, the table of sacrifice prepared for our holy meal, the Eucharist. As our gifts are brought to the altar our monetary offerings, along with the bread and the wine we are called to offer something more as well: our lives, our very selves. We come before God with our strengths and our weaknesses, our struggles as well as our joys. We offer our lives to God to be transformed in the Eucharist even as our gifts of bread and wine will be transformed. The great prayer we are about to begin, the Eucharistic Prayer, is about remembrance. Do this, Jesus said, in memory of me. But this is a special kind of remembering that makes Jesus saving action present among us, here and now. Jesus is truly with us, just as he was with his disciples on the night of the Last Supper. It is still Jesus who takes the bread and wine, changes them into his Body and Blood, and shares his very self with us so that he can live through us, with us, and in us. As we give thanks to God in this marvelous prayer, we are united, not only with those around us, but with all the followers of Jesus throughout the world, through all generations, past, present, and future. In the Eucharist, we are caught up, for a moment, into God s eternity, present here and now. 3A

4 Communion Today we pause for a moment to reflect on the Communion rite. In the Eucharist, we receive the Body of Christ, and as St. Augustine says, we become what we receive: Christ s own body, living and active in the world. We come to this table not because we are holy, but because we long to be holy. Jesus nourishes us with his Body and Blood not just once in a while, not just on special occasions, but week after week, Sunday after Sunday. The Eucharist is our strength, nourishment, and refreshment for the journey of life, given to us our whole life long, to strengthen us to do Christ s work in our households and communities, in all the places where we live or work. Without Christ we can do nothing, but united in Christ there is no limit to what we can accomplish. In a moment we will exchange a sign of peace with each other, and because we are the body of Christ, it is Christ s peace that we will give and receive. It is the risen Christ who will speak words of peace to us through each other. And it is Christ who will then invite us to the altar to be filled with the bread of life, the cup of salvation. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote this about our Eucharist: How holy this feast in which Christ is our food: his passion is recalled, grace fills our hearts, and we receive a pledge of the glory to come. 1. O Sacrum Convivium. Evening Prayer II, Feast of Corpus Christi. Liturgy of the Hours, Volume III. (Washington, DC: International Committee on English in the Liturgy), A

5 Sending When we come to the end of the Mass, we have listened to God s word and been strengthened by the bread of life and the cup of salvation. In celebrating the Eucharist we have touched the divine life that God gives to the world. Now we are sent forth, not because our prayer is over, but because it is only beginning! At the end of every Mass, we receive a commission, as the disciples did long ago, to go forth and preach the gospel. We are the body of Christ, and so we are sent forth to be Christ s love, peace, hope, and joy in the world. The Sunday Eucharist is said to be both the source and the summit of our Christian lives. However, its authenticity will be measured not so much by what happens within these walls as by what we do when we leave here. For we who have been welcomed by Christ and brought together into this community of faith must reach out to the lonely, the friendless, and the stranger. We who have listened to God s word and sung God s praises must also listen to the cry of God s poor. We who have broken bread and shared a cup together at this altar must find ways to help the millions in our world who suffer from hunger and no cup of clean water to drink. We who have shared Christ s peace with one another must work for peace in our homes, our workplaces, and our world. When Christ ascended into heaven, we were not left alone. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is with us always, until the end of the age. Through the Spirit, Jesus is still God-among-us as one who serves. In our service of others, we will see his face. 5A

Understanding. Mass. the. Steve Mueller

Understanding. Mass. the. Steve Mueller Understanding the Mass Steve Mueller 1 Living a Eucharistic Life This little booklet has been produced to help you grow in understanding and appreciation of our eucharistic ritual so that you may participate