FROM FATHER JOHN: “All the good works in the world are not equal to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of men; but the Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is nothing in comparison for it is but the sacrifice of man to God; but the Mass is the sacrifice of God for man.” – St. John Vianney One of the things that I have been trying to do with the school children and the children in our religious education is to get them excited and passionate about attending mass. As many parents know, this is not always an easy thing to accomplish. The children in school now know our motto for mass, our mantra, “It’s Wednesday, I get to go to mass, Yeah!!!” The children in religious education, and our school children as well, now know our motto for mass, our mantra, “It’s Sunday, I get to go to mass, Yeah!!! And I don’t even have to go to school, Yeah!!!” I think one thing that can happen to us as we age is that we can develop the wrong attitude about going to mass. We develop the “I have to go” mentality instead of the “I get to go” mentality. The first attitude is the attitude I had as a kid when my dad made me shovel the snow or mow the grass or rake the leaves. I hated to do those chores then and I really don’t like doing them now. That’s the “have to” mentality. But, I remember with great joy when my dad took me and my best friend to Great America for the first time. We were so excited we ran from one ride to the next all day long. We had the time of our lives. That’s the “I get to” mentality. I got to go to Great America, I didn’t have to go, I got to go. This is the attitude we want to have when we come to mass, “It’s Sunday, I get to go to mass, Yeah!!!” You may have noticed that I use the above quote from St. John Vianney an awful lot. You may have even wondered why. The reason is very simple. The mass is the Eucharist – Jesus Christ is truly and really present in the Eucharist, body and blood, soul and divinity. The Eucharist is given to us by Christ as food and drink; “I am the bread come down from heaven”, “this is my Body”, “this is my blood”. Jesus Christ is really and truly present in the Eucharist. The Eucharist fulfills Christ’s promise to be with us until the end of time. The Eucharist is our paramount means to holiness. It is foundational to the unity and communion of humankind in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ’s words at the last supper as well as in the 6th chapter of John’s gospel are meant to be understood literally. They are not meant to be understood symbolically or figuratively. The Eucharist is not a mere symbol. The Church has always taken Jesus’ words concerning the Eucharist literally and this has been the solemn teaching of the Catholic Church from the moment of Christ’s ascension into heaven. There is a strikingly literal sense of the Eucharist that is evident in the words of Jesus Christ – “I am the living bread – my flesh is real food, my blood real drink.” In John’s gospel, he does not say it once, he does not say it twice, not even three times. He repeats what he said five times. Whenever anyone misunderstands what he is saying he corrects them, when anyone understands what he is saying but finds fault, he repeats what he said. The literal sense of his words can be seen in the reaction of his disciples. They said, “This is a hard saying.” Many of his disciples abandoned him. If they thought Jesus was only speaking symbolically they would not have found his saying to be hard, they would not have abandoned him. They obviously took him literally. We can do no less. Someone sent me the following story via email. It comes from the book Healing Through the Mass (pgs 84-85, Resurrection Press, Fr Robert DeGrandis, S.S.J.) NASA did some experimenting with a special type of camera that could see the energy levels in the human body. This is then seen on a monitor. This energy shows up as an aura around the body. NASAs interest in the experiment was to investigate the effects of space travel on astronauts in orbit. Experimenting in a hospital they discovered that when a person is dying, the aura around the body is thinner and gets thinner and thinner until the person dies. The scientist carrying out this investigation in the hospital and his associate were behind a two-way mirror. They could see with their camera another man coming into the room with light coming from his pocket. Then the man took the object from his pocket and did something so that in the camera the whole room was filled with light and with their camera they could no longer see what was happening. They ran to the room to see what was causing so much light to appear in their camera. They discovered that the dying man was being given Holy Communion. Afterwards with their camera they could see that the aura around him was brighter. Although in his fifties, the scientist conducting the experiment decided to become a priest after witnessing that. As the letter to the Hebrews tells us, Jesus came into the world as the “Lamb of God” to “take away the sins of the world”. He fulfilled this mission in His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. Jesus is both High Priest and Victim in His one sacrifice. He is the one who offers the sacrifice, and He is the sacrifice itself. During the mass, the once and for all sacrifice of our Lord Jesus is made present to us; it is brought forward across space and time so that it’s as if we are standing at the foot of the cross as our Lord gives his life to save us from our sins. We experience His resurrection during Mass – not just His death. His Holy Spirit is present among us and in the Eucharist the Lord feeds us with His body and blood.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 20:09:30 +0000
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