THE MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

WILL IT BE THE SAME OLD/SAME OLD?  It seems that each week I meet more and more people emerging from the Covid quarantine and making their way back to the regular ‘in-person’ practice of the Faith.  Amen!  Alleluia!  So, it’s the perfect time to reacquaint ourselves with – and to renew our reverence for – the great Gift of Eucharist.  That’s what the US Catholic Bishops hope to help us do through a three-year National Eucharistic Revival which began last month.  If you missed my first two articles on this Revival [06/19, 06/26], go to our website for past bulletin articles.  To read the Bishops’ document go to https://eucharisticrevival.org; for a free study guide go to https://reviveparishes.com/eucharist.

In part three of my months long, if not years long, reflection on this Revival, we consider Eucharist as one of God’s greatest gifts.  Here’s what the Priest prays in the Preface during Holy Thursday’s Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper – one of my favorite Masses of the year:

“For he is the true and eternal Priest,
who instituted the pattern
of an everlasting sacrifice
and was the first to offer himself
as the saving Victim,
commanding us to make this offering
as his memorial.
As we eat his flesh that was sacrificed for us,
we are made strong, and,
as we drink his Blood that was poured out for us, we are washed clean.”

MAKING PRESENT WHAT WAS IN THE PAST. What the Church commemorates with great festivity and solemn rites on Holy Thursday night, she does at every Mass.  For through the Eucharistic Sacrifice, offered at every Mass, she ‘makes present’ Christ’s unique sacrifice on the Cross so that we can join ourselves to it!  In future articles, I will reflect on three aspects of this Gift: 1] The Sacrifice of Christ; 2] The Real Presence of Christ; and 3] Communion with Christ and the Church; today I’ll reflect on Eucharist as ‘Gift.’

GOD’S GREATEST GIFT: THE GIFT OF HIMSELF.  In the Nicene Creed, we are directed to bow as we profess these awesome underlined words, “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  Many say the most wondrous moment in human history was when our Blessed Mother agreed to conceive God’s Son in her womb, “And the Word became flesh.”  [John 1:14a]  At that very moment, God and humanity were united like never before – for God came to dwell among us in the flesh.  Everything after was ‘the icing on the cake:’ Christ’s birth and earthly life, His teachings and miracles, His redeeming Passion, Death and glorious Resurrection by which He revealed what awaits us after our earthly journey.  And yet, as they say, “there’s still more!”

Through the mystery of the Eucharist, God continues to dwell with us – and literally lives with us!  For as Jesus promised in His Last Supper Farewell Discourse: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  [John 14:23]  And since Christmas celebrates Christ’s Nativity AND the nine months that preceded His birth, we can enjoy another ‘little Christmas’ every time we worthily receive Holy Communion!  For through the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine blessed, broken and shared, consecrated and transubstantiated [a technical term I will detail in a future article], Jesus Christ is reborn IN US!

WE ARE SHARERS IN THE DIVINE NATURE.  In his second Letter, our first Pope wrote, “[God] he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature.”  [2 Peter 1:4a]  For when we love someone, we want to be with them; so, too, with God, who loves us and desires to be with us and desires us to be with Him.  One main way God accomplishes this loving union is through Holy Communion.  And by entering into us, we are made divine, or as Saint Augustine explained it: “the maker of man was made man, so that man might be a receiver of God.”  And all this merely scratches the surface of all that the Eucharist can do – for – and in – us!

With God’s love and my prayers,

Very Rev. Michael J. Kreder, VF, KCHS

THE MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

WILL IT BE THE SAME OLD/SAME OLD?  It seems that each week I meet more and more people emerging from the Covid quarantine and making their way back to the regular ‘in-person’ practice of the Faith.  Amen!  Alleluia!  So, it’s the perfect time to reacquaint ourselves with – and to renew our reverence for – the great Gift of Eucharist.  That’s what the US Catholic Bishops hope to help us do through a three-year National Eucharistic Revival which began last month.  If you missed my first two articles on this Revival [06/19, 06/26], go to our website for past bulletin articles.  To read the Bishops’ document go to https://eucharisticrevival.org; for a free study guide go to https://reviveparishes.com/eucharist.

In part three of my months long, if not years long, reflection on this Revival, we consider Eucharist as one of God’s greatest gifts.  Here’s what the Priest prays in the Preface during Holy Thursday’s Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper – one of my favorite Masses of the year:

“For he is the true and eternal Priest,
who instituted the pattern
of an everlasting sacrifice
and was the first to offer himself
as the saving Victim,
commanding us to make this offering
as his memorial.
As we eat his flesh that was sacrificed for us,
we are made strong, and,
as we drink his Blood that was poured out for us, we are washed clean.”

MAKING PRESENT WHAT WAS IN THE PAST. What the Church commemorates with great festivity and solemn rites on Holy Thursday night, she does at every Mass.  For through the Eucharistic Sacrifice, offered at every Mass, she ‘makes present’ Christ’s unique sacrifice on the Cross so that we can join ourselves to it!  In future articles, I will reflect on three aspects of this Gift: 1] The Sacrifice of Christ; 2] The Real Presence of Christ; and 3] Communion with Christ and the Church; today I’ll reflect on Eucharist as ‘Gift.’

GOD’S GREATEST GIFT: THE GIFT OF HIMSELF.  In the Nicene Creed, we are directed to bow as we profess these awesome underlined words, “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  Many say the most wondrous moment in human history was when our Blessed Mother agreed to conceive God’s Son in her womb, “And the Word became flesh.”  [John 1:14a]  At that very moment, God and humanity were united like never before – for God came to dwell among us in the flesh.  Everything after was ‘the icing on the cake:’ Christ’s birth and earthly life, His teachings and miracles, His redeeming Passion, Death and glorious Resurrection by which He revealed what awaits us after our earthly journey.  And yet, as they say, “there’s still more!”

Through the mystery of the Eucharist, God continues to dwell with us – and literally lives with us!  For as Jesus promised in His Last Supper Farewell Discourse: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  [John 14:23]  And since Christmas celebrates Christ’s Nativity AND the nine months that preceded His birth, we can enjoy another ‘little Christmas’ every time we worthily receive Holy Communion!  For through the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine blessed, broken and shared, consecrated and transubstantiated [a technical term I will detail in a future article], Jesus Christ is reborn IN US!

WE ARE SHARERS IN THE DIVINE NATURE.  In his second Letter, our first Pope wrote, “[God] he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature.”  [2 Peter 1:4a]  For when we love someone, we want to be with them; so, too, with God, who loves us and desires to be with us and desires us to be with Him.  One main way God accomplishes this loving union is through Holy Communion.  And by entering into us, we are made divine, or as Saint Augustine explained it: “the maker of man was made man, so that man might be a receiver of God.”  And all this merely scratches the surface of all that the Eucharist can do – for – and in – us!

With God’s love and my prayers,

Very Rev. Michael J. Kreder, VF, KCHS