The Catholic Mass

1. The Eucharist as the Memorial of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross,
2. The Eucharist as the Real Presence of Jesus, and
3. The Eucharist as Holy Communion with Our Lord.

Memorial

The Mass sacramentally makes present Christ’s redeeming sacrifice on Calvary. sins. He concluded the Last Supper by telling the apostles to celebrate this meal as a liturgical memorial: “Do this in memory of me.”

Real Presence

For in the Eucharist the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ is substantially contained. Through the Eucharist, “Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.

Holy COMMUNION

If Jesus is the new Passover lamb who was sacrificed for our sins, it would seem fitting that there would be a communion meal accompanying his sacrifice on the cross—a meal in which we would partake of the true sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

The Eucharist is 'the highest, most sublime' way of encountering God's love, - Pope Francis

Catholics should spend their time in silence before Mass, preparing to “meet Jesus” instead of engaging in “chitchat”, the Pope has said.

“Silence is so important,” he said. “Remember what I told you last time: we are not going to a show. Silence prepares us and accompanies us.”

Pope Francis made the remarks on Wednesday during his weekly general audience. The Holy Father continues his new series of audience talks on the Mass, reflecting on the Eucharist as a form of prayer that is “the highest, the most sublime and, at the same time, the most concrete” way of encountering God’s love.

“This is the greatest grace: to experience that the Eucharist is the privileged moment to be with Jesus and, through him, with God and with our brothers and sisters,” the Pope said.

In the Gospels, he continued, Jesus teaches his disciples that the first thing needed to pray “is to know how to say ‘father'” and to trust in God with the humility of a child.

Christians also must allow themselves to be “surprised by the living encounter with the Lord,” he said, and not simply “talk to God like a parrot,” repeating the words of prayers without thinking.

“The encounter with God is a living encounter,” the Pope said departing from his prepared remarks. “It is not an encounter of a museum, it is a living encounter. And we go to Mass, not a museum! We go to a living encounter with the Lord.”

Pope Francis said the Mass is also a gift and a consolation where Christians discover that God’s greatest surprise is that he “loves us even in our weakness.”

“The Lord encounters our frailty,” the Pope said. “This is the environment of the Eucharist. This is prayer.

The Priest and others PROCESS down the aisle and this symbolizes all of us in the congregation Coming to God.

The Deacon or Reader holds the Book of Gospels in Reverence over his head as he is bringing to us THE WORD OF GOD.... after the Gospel, the WORD has been given so this is now just a book.

In making this sign, we invoke God’s presence and invite him to bless us, assist us, and guard us from all harm. It is not surprising that the early Christians made the sign of the cross quite often, desiring to tap into the power that lay therein.

Expresses the profound reality of God’s life dwelling within our souls by virtue of our baptism. With these words, the priest is praying that the divine life we received may continue to grow within us.

Underscores the fact that our faith comes to us from the apostles, to whom Christ entrusted his mission and authority, and who later passed that authority on to their successors. The bishops today are the direct successors of the apostles and share their apostolic mission with their priests.

When we hear the salutation, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” we become aware of our fellowship with the saints throughout the Church’s history who have been greeted with these words ever since the time of St. Paul. “And With Your Spirit”

PREPARING TO MEET OUR LORD The prayer known as the Confiteor—the first word of this prayer in Latin, meaning “I confess”—stands in a long biblical tradition of confessing one’s sins.

Deacon Cuesta pointed out how hard it is for a rich man to give up all and follow Christ. But Deacon Cuesta also said two kinds of riches. 1. money/material 2. ego/ways of thinking and ways of doing. Humility is the key.

For, in the sacred Liturgy, we draw near not just to a manifestation of God’s presence in the form of a cloud, but to the very body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. And we will receive our divine Lord sacramentally within us in holy communion. We truly are not worthy to participate in all this. Indeed, our sinfulness stands in stark contrast to what we are about to do in the Mass. And so, the priest invites us to “prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries” by humbly confessing our sins publicly before almighty God and the congregation.

The prodigal son, suffering in his misery, begins to see the sinfulness of his actions. He humbly repents and returns home to his father.

The gospels also tell of people coming to Jesus requesting mercy not just for themselves, but also for those whom they love.

“Have mercy on my son who left the Church”…“Have mercy on my daughter who is lonely, unhappy and lost in life.”

The tone of the liturgy now shifts from sorrowful repentance to joyful praise as we arrive at a prayer known as the Gloria.

Every Mass makes present the mystery of Christmas once again. Similarly, the Gloria praises God as the heavenly King, which also points to God’s omnipotence.

After the Gloria, the priest invites the people to pray a prayer known as the Collect. This prayer gathers together the intentions of the people participating in the Mass and concludes the Introductory Rites.

The next part of the Gloria, in a sense, tells a story—the story of Christ. Like a three-act play, the Gloria sums up the story of Christ’s saving work moving from 1) his coming, to 2) his redeeming death, to 3) his triumphant resurrection and ascension into heaven.

In the “first act,” Jesus is addressed as “Son of the Father” and the “Only Begotten Son,”

In the “second act,” the Gloria’s reference to Jesus as “Lamb of God” moves the story forward to Christ’s redemptive mission.

Finally, in the “third act,” the Gloria reverently leads us to praise Jesus in the unique position of authority he now possesses in heaven:

In response to the narrative of Christ’s saving mission, the Gloria now praises Jesus with three biblical titles: the Holy One, the Lord, and the Most High.