EUCHARIST THE COSMIC MYSTERY JANUARY

EUCHARIST THE COSMIC MYSTERY JANUARY

IDEAS FOR ENGAGING CHILDREN IN MASS I rejoiced when I heard them say, Let us go to the house of the Lord. Psalm 122:1

PRE-READING THE MASS o Read the Mass readings and psalm before going o Look for the Mass readings at the USCCB website o Get a paper copy with o Daily Bread o Magnificat o Living Word o Use an app o Laudate o ibreviary

MISSAL St. Joseph s Missal Follow along in the Mass book Print out the Eucharistic Prayer (USCCB)-we use Eucharistic Prayer II Read the Eucharistic Prayer together

SENSORY INVOLVEMENT Sight Colors Windows Symbols Statues Candles

SENSORY INVOLVEMENT Sound Bells Hymns Prayers Music Voices Silence

SENSORY INVOLVEMENT Smell Incense Oils Smoke

SENSORY INVOLVEMENT Touch Holy Water Communion Shaking hands

SENSORY INVOLVEMENT Taste Bread Wine

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION Actio: The Eucharistic Prayer Oratio: the great prayer that forms the core of the Eucharistic celebration p. 172 The human action steps back and makes way for the action divina, the action of God. In this oratio the priest speaks with the I of the Lord This is my Body, The action of God is the real action for which all of creation is in expectation. The New Heaven and the New Earth are anticipated. The real action in the liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is in the action of God himself. p. 173 The Spirit of the Liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger, 2000. (Pope Benedict XVI)

The uniqueness of the Eucharistic liturgy lies precisely in the fact that God himself is acting and that we are drawn into that action of God.

TRAINING The body must be trained, so to speak, for the resurrection. Let us remember that the word askesis can be translated as training. Nowadays we train with enthusiasm, perseverance, and great renunciation for many different purposes why do we not train ourselves for God and his Kingdom? p. 176

The body has a place within the divine worship of the Word made flesh, and it is expressed liturgically in a certain discipline of the body, in gestures that have developed out of the liturgy s inner demands and that make the essence of the liturgy bodily visible. p. 176-177

ACTIONS Sign of the Cross Posture Kneeling (prostratio) Standing and sitting

Gestures Orans (hands held out) Bowing Human Voice

SPIRITUAL IMAGINATION What is the most dangerous part of the Mass? Learning history

SPIRITUAL IMAGINATION Last Supper

Nor does it remain confined to the past, since all that Christ is all that he did and suffered for all men participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times. 10 ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA (John-Paul II April 17,2003) n. 11

This varied scenario of celebrations of the Eucharist has given me a powerful experience of its universal and, so to speak, cosmic character. Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. --ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA (John-Paul II April 17,2003) n. 8

Past, present, and future interpenetrate and touch upon eternity. The Spirit of the Liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger, p.60

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. Revelations 4:8

The four living creatures, each of them with six wings were covered with eyes inside and out. Day and night they do not stop exclaiming: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. Revelations 4:8

It is never just an event in the life of a community that finds itself in a particular place. No, to celebrate the Eucharist means to enter into the openness of a glorification of God that embraces both heaven and earth, and openness effected by the Cross and Resurrection. Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. 16 What is repeated is its memorial celebration, its commemorative representation (memorialis demonstratio), 17 which makes Christ's one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time. The sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary. ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA (John- Paul II April 17,2003) n. 11

The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey. St. JPII n. 19 Worship gives us a share in heaven s mode of existence, in the world of God, and allows light to fall from that divine world into ours. Pope Benedict XVI P.21

PASSOVER Exodus 12 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

PASSOVER Exodus 12 14 This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Thus from celebration to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal mystery of Jesus "until he comes," the pilgrim People of God advances, "following the narrow way of the cross," 170 toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the kingdom. (CCC 1344)

The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." (CCC 1367)

To the offering of Christ are united not only the members still here on earth, but also those already in the glory of heaven. In communion with and commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the Church offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the Eucharist the Church is as it were at the foot of the cross with Mary, united with the offering and intercession of Christ. (CCC 1370)

The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood. (CCC 1382)

The altar, around which the Church is gathered in the celebration of the Eucharist, represents the two aspects of the same mystery: the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. (CCC 1383)

By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom. (CCC 1340)

In an ancient prayer the Church acclaims the mystery of the Eucharist: "O sacred banquet in which Christ is received as food, the memory of his Passion is renewed, the soul is filled with grace and a pledge of the life to come is given to us." If the Eucharist is the memorial of the Passover of the Lord Jesus, if by our communion at the altar we are filled "with every heavenly blessing and grace," 242 then the Eucharist is also an anticipation of the heavenly glory. (CCC 1402)

In this sense, worship has the character of anticipation. It lays hold in advance of a more perfect life and, in so doing, gives our present life its proper measure. P.21

There is no surer pledge or dearer sign of this great hope in the new heavens and new earth "in which righteousness dwells," 248 than the Eucharist. Every time this mystery is celebrated, "the work of our redemption is carried on" and we "break the one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ. (CCC 1405)

EXERCISES Take your family to Adoration for 15 minutes (or more) Sundays 5:30-7 (Church) Confession is also available Read the Sunday Mass readings once before going to Mass with your family