Email Guidelines Guidelines Eucharistic Celebration IV
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In a busy world the Eucharist is that moment where time stops and God enters into our timeline in the midst of everything we feel, think, decide, wish and live.
Do this in memory of me... these words have been with us now for more than 2000 years. That simple sentence, said with so much more meaning we can understand, crosses our time and fills it with the mystery of faith and love that transforms everything.
This week we’ll try to deepen in that moment of the Eucharistic Prayer: It’s a challenging task though still a beautiful one. This moment of Mass takes us back to the past, into the present and at the same time into the future. We “relive” the last supper, that happens with us now and we anticipate what heaven will be.
1st DAY – WE BEGIN THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER BY PRAISING GOD’S HOLINESS...
The rhythm of the Eucharistic celebration can help our own daily prayer.
The invitation today is to acknowledge God’s beauty, God’s love and God’s holiness; allowing gratefulness to flow.
As we prepare to pray, let us ask for the gift of being silent in his presence and recognising how amazing God is. Often prayer can become too busy with so many things to do... Like that simple peasant of Ars we are called to “look at him and allow him to look at us”.
God is God with or without us; He loves, can do and wants to what we don’t love, don’t do or don’t want to do - realising this will fill our minds with peace and confidence.
Psalm 136 invites us to sing: It is good to give thanks to the Lord! For what would you like to give him thanks for? Acknowledging his holiness is also giving thanks for all he is, even in times of trouble. Here is one of the Prayers we pray at mass:
“Father, all powerful and ever-living God, we do well an everywhere to give you thanks.
In you we live and move and have our being. Each day you show us a Father’s love; Your Holy Spirit, dwelling within us, gives us on earth the hope of unending joy.
Your gift of the Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead, is the foretaste and promise of the paschal feast of heaven. With thankful praise, in company with the angels, we glorify the wonders of your power. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.. Hosanna in the highest.” (EUCHARISTIC PRAYER III)
2ND DAY – THE GIFTS WE BRING BECOME CHRIST
“And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist.”
The Spirit transforms those gifts into Christ’s body and blood. Which gifts, only the bread and the wine? The Spirit wants to transform us into Christ. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, the Church through the ministry of the priest, asks that our lives can become Christ, his presence, his body and blood. He asks that our lives can also be transformed by God’s grace.
In Romans 8:26-30 St Paul tells us that the Spirit wants to help us in our weakness so that we can become more and more God’s children, like Jesus. Little by little, day by day, week after week, mass after mass makes that happen as we participate in it. Let us ask the Spirit today to enable us to be a little bit more Christ like in the small things of life... the big ones are too big for us! Normally is in the really normal and down to earth little details of life where God asks us to be channels of his love!
3rd Day – THROUGH THE EUCHARIST JESUS CONTINUES TO BE WITH US
Jesus told his disciples that he would be with us, day after day, right up to the end of the age. (Mathew 28:20)
In the celebration of the Eucharist, at the moment of the Eucharistic Prayer, that happens in a special way.
“On the night he was betrayed, he took bread and gave you thanks and praise. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and eat it:
this is my body which will be given up for you.
When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”
In Hebrew there is no word to mean person. That is very much a Greek concept. Jesus couldn’t have said, ‘this is my person’. Instead he said, ‘this is my body and blood’. Wouldn’t he mean this is me... present forever with you?
The body and blood of Christ are his whole person, his whole life present for us there and then. It’s hard to grasp, but it’s true! We need time to pray, to contemplate, to ask for the gift of taking in so much love filled with his real presence. Like the beloved disciple we can say: “It is the Lord!”(Jn 21:7 ) The one who was born in Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth, walked and healed, spoke with many; the one who ultimately went through the passion and the cross; the one who rose from the death and is alive; the one who walks with us our own path! That
When we eat and drink his body and blood we are receiving him in our own body, in our own life! Jesus overthrows boundaries, becomes present and seeks closeness and true communion with us.
4th Day – THROUGH THE EUCHARIST JESUS CONTINUES TO BE WITH US
At this moment of the Mass we celebrate the whole of Jesus’ life, in a special way his passion, death and Resurrection. “Is as if” everything that happened then happens now.
Entering this huge reality fills our lives with a different perspective and hope. How many times we are overburdened with our own sufferings, with the evil around us, illnesses, misunderstandings, wrongdoing, greed and so on. It seems that all that is too powerful and definitive. It can seem so but will not be. God’s love is stronger that all that. Celebrating his victory over death gives us a new horizon: our home is heaven and that’s where all our efforts will end up if done with love.
With Paul we can say: “What we are suffering now is nothing compared with the glory that will be shown in us. Everything God created looks forward to the time when his children will appear in their full and final glory.” (Rom 8:18-19 )
5th Day – WE PRAY FOR THE WHOLE WORLD AND FOR THE CHURCH
“Lord, may this sacrifice, which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world. Strengthen in faith and love your pilgrim Church on earth; your servant, Pope {Benedict}, our Bishop {name of local bishop}, and all the bishops, with the clergy and the entire people your Son has gained for you. Father, hear the prayers of the family you have gathered here before you. In mercy and love unite all your children wherever they may be.” (EUCHARISTIC PRAYER III)
Prayer of intercession is a powerful one. Let us pray for all those who need our prayers especially for those situations that seem more hopeless.
That’s why after the Words of Consecration (Cfr 3rd Day) the Eucharistic prayer asks God for all the needs of the world, for all the people that have been embraced by Jesus’ death and Resurrection. St Paul invites us to: “Always be joyful because you belong to the Lord. I will say it again. Be joyful. Let everyone know how gentle you are. The Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything. Instead, tell God about everything. Ask and pray. Give thanks to him. Then God's peace will watch over your hearts and your minds because you belong to Christ Jesus. God's peace can never be completely understood.” (Phillipians 4: 4-8)
©Verbum Dei * 2010
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