Eucharistic Celebration

Eucharistic Celebration - Part I

This time of the year can be felt for some of us as the end of the year, if we are affected by the academic year. Summer is also a time of rest and transition; September, a new beginning. Therefore, this time of the year can be stressful, as we plan ahead for what next year, from September, can be.

What does the Eucharist and going to Church has to do with all this? How does God help us to live in the midst of all this?

MONDAY: Psalm 75 ; Mt 11:25-27

The Eucharist means thanksgiving

“It is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that He has accomplished through creation, redemption and sanctification.” (CCC 1360)

Today, I invite you to give thanks to God, asking His Spirit to help us to recognise God’s presence during our lives this past time.

TUESDAY: 2 Corinthians 13:13

“We come to Church with our fragile identities, often enough constructed over against each other. We come as people, whose sense of self is sometimes grounded in competition, striving for superiority or struggling with a sense of inferiority. Even our loves may contain knots of rivalry or reticence. We begin by invoking a Triune God, a home in which we may flourish and find happiness, liberated from the need to fight for our identity, to justify our existence, at ease in the uncompetitive and equal love of the Father and the Son, which is the Holy Spirit.” (Timothy Radcliff, Why go to Church?, p.16)

When we go to the Eucharist or when we simply pray, we start making the sign of the cross, recalling the presence of the Trinity, our homeland, our God who helps us to be in touch again with our true identity. We express in that sign of the cross, our desire to come home to God, to rest in Him all we are and aren’t, all we’ve done and haven’t done.

Lord, you are my home. You are the one that makes me be reconciled and comfortable with whom I am.

WEDNESDAY: Luke 15 ; Luke 7:36-8:3

It can seem odd the fact that one of the first things we say while in the Eucharist, is to confess our sins. Why this? Some people may even think that this evokes a God who often recalls our guilt; a God who is oppressive and angry with us!... However, far from this, we believe that our God is Love, and Love who forgives before even we commit our sins. Isn’t this what many Psalms say? “Your love is everlasting...”

So, what is the purpose of confessing our sins? The reason for it is rather to recall God’s healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. We are the ones who need to glimpse and experience God’s unconditional love and forgiveness to us as the prodigal son and the lost sheep, or as the adulterous woman experienced.

Like them, we need to abandon our false self images about ourselves and about God. By confessing our sins, we claim and ask God to renew our identity. He calls me by name and it is with Him that I shall discover my own identity.

The mystery of the Eucharist recalls us to the fact that God wants to reconcile and unite all things in Christ.

THURSDAY: Colossians 3

When we listen to the Scriptures, we listen to the story of God’s friendship with humanity; to who we are; the meaning of my joys and sorrows, of may victories and failures; and where God say happiness and truth lies.

The celebration of the Eucharist is a continuous dialogue between us and God. We can see this as we first listen to the first reading, then we sing the Psalm (or we say together aloud the responsorial psalm), as a response to God; finally we listen to the 2^nd reading and the Gospel.

Why do we stand up to listen to the gospel reading whereas we sit down to listen to the Old Testament? Our body language is also part of this dialogue we have with God throughout the Eucharistic celebration. The gospel is the life of Christ, the fulfilment of God’s revelation. So, when we are sited, we are comfortably listening to God’s word, God’s loving story with the believers; then when we stand up, we want to express through our body language that our respect and special consideration/ attention is for Christ’s life and words, whom we follow.

Jesus, be my light. Help us to discern good from evil; help us to discern the best way to follow you.

FRIDAY: Matthew 6:25-34

Considering the Eucharist as a dialogue between God and us, it is sometimes filled with words, other times with music and other times with silence. All is part of that communication/ conversation with God, through which love, trust, hope, peace, His gentle voice is transmitted and welcomed... All this helps us to reconnect with God, to be at home with God.

Off course, this also presupposes not being afraid of silence. But to reach out silence can imply being aware of our inner distractions.

So, when that is the case, I invite you to offer them to God, asking Him for the Grace to listen to Him, beyond and in all we are; with faith and expectancy that He wants to speak to me today.

I invite you to pray with the reading about Trust in the Providence, from Matthew 6 , asking Jesus to help us to trust our future to God the Father, as He did; to let go of what doesn’t lead us to grow in love and peace.

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Verbum Dei UK