June, 2007
St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church
100 Oak Dr. South
Lake Jackson, Texas
LIGHT FOR THE WORLD
In This Issue:
Understanding The Mass
And Eucharist
A
Brief History Of the Eucharist
Adapted
from an article by Father Thomas Richstatter,
O.F.M.,S.T.D.
The Eucharist is a complex mystery.
None of us – no matter how learned, no matter how holy - can fully grasp it.
The Holy Spirit helps us to hand on to the next generation what we have
received from the generations before us so that “the Church constantly moves
forward toward the fullness of divine truth” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine
Revelation, #8).
There is difficulty in handing on tradition,
and it was present in the Church at Corinth when St. Paul wrote the earliest
account of the Eucharist. “I received from the Lord what I also handed on to
you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread…..” (1
Cor. 11:23). Paul says the Corinthians have not accurately received what he
handed on, and sharply criticized the way they were celebrating the Eucharist:
“Your meetings are doing more harm than good” (1 Cor. 11:17).
God has placed the divine mysteries, even
the great mystery of the Eucharist, in human hands.
“Your
Son has entrusted to us this pledge of his love.” (Eucharistic Prayer For
Reconciliation II)
While
the church moves forward, it is in a human way: it happens over time, over
centuries, with periods of rapid progress and periods of hesitancy and retreat.
The Eternal Word of the Father took flesh
and became truly human, and the Eucharist has both divine and human elements.
While the Eucharist is, was and always will be the celebration of the Paschal
Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, this divine mystery is “incarnated”
into human culture. The Eucharistic celebration employs the language, clothing,
postures and rhythms appropriate to the culture in which it is celebrated.
Originally, there were as many ways of
celebrating Eucharist as there were Christian communities, and it only
gradually became more fixed and uniform. Around the 4th century
(remember that Christianity went from being a persecuted to an official
religion of the empire), rituals and customs began to coalesce into local
traditions around the major cities and developed into what we now call
liturgical rites. The language spoken by the people living in a place became
the liturgical language used in the Eucharist: Coptic, Syrian, Greek and Latin.
The clothing, gestures, food, vessels, music, etc, of the region were
incorporated into the liturgy. These are the human or cultural aspects of the
Eucharistic celebration.
But none of these upset Paul, he was
concerned about the “divine element” - the way in which the Eucharist embodies
the divine mystery. His complaint was that they were eating and drinking their
sacred meal in memory of the risen Lord, but were identifying the Eucharistic
presence with the head of the Body to
the exclusion of the members of
Christ’s Body here on earth, especially the poor and the marginalized.
There
are 3 foundational events of the Paschal Mystery:
·
Holy
Thursday: The Mass is a sacred meal at which we eat and drink the Body and
Blood of our Lord and become that Body by the action of the Holy Spirit.
·
Good
Friday: Through the biblical understanding of anamnesis (memorial), the Eucharist enables us to become present to
the once-and-for-all redeeming sacrifice of Christ on Calvary.
·
Easter
Sunday: At the Eucharist, we encounter the presence of the risen Christ. The
risen Lord so identified with his disciples that what we do to one another we
do to Christ himself. (Mt. 25:40).
Looking back over the centuries, we
find periods of history when the Holy Thursday (meal)
dimension
of the Eucharist seemed underemphasized and people went to Mass without sharing
in the sacred meal. There were times when we forgot the community dimension and
priests said Masses privately with only a server in attendance. There were
times when the Good Friday (sacrifice) dimension of the Eucharist seemed to be
emphasized so much that it obscured the once-and-for-all nature of the
sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, and caused a reaction by some that minimized the
sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist and emphasized the Lord’s Supper.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, a renewed
interest in the history, rituals and meaning of the Eucharist occurred at the
beginning of the 20th century, and manuscripts and records that had
been neglected or lost for centuries were rediscovered and studied. Many new
facts and information opened the door for the liturgical renewal embodied in
the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the first document of the Second
Vatican Council of the 1960s.
Since then, we have seen many changes in the
way we celebrate the Eucharist. Some of us are
happy with the changes, some are not, but the ways we celebrate and the
prayers may change again in the future to meet the needs of the culture and the
times. It is easier and quicker to accept new facts than it is to change
attitudes or behavior, and to change group behavior is harder yet and may take
more time.
Some of the “new facts” we have absorbed
into our consciousness of the Eucharist is that we hear the Eucharistic Prayer
in our own language, know that the meal is the sacramental sign of the
sacrifice, and the importance of eating and
drinking. We see that the point of the Eucharist is not only the transformation
of the bread and wine, but also the transformation of the people, the Church,
into the Body and Blood of Christ.
Perhaps knowledge of these “new facts” will
begin to influence our attitudes and piety, and little by little affect our
behavior and devotion – hopefully for the better. Then, perhaps, we will see
changes in our group behavior. Then the Eucharist will become such a powerful
source of strength and grace in our lives that people will say of us as they
said of the first Christians, “See how they love one another! There is no one
poor among them.”
Transubstantiation.
(Etym.
Latin trans, so as to change + substantia,
substance). The complete change of the substance of bread and wine into the
substance of Christ’s body and blood by a validly ordained priest during the
consecration at Mass, so that only the accidents of bread and wine remain.
The term was introduced into official Church
teaching at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which was presided over by Pope
Innocent III
QUIZ
(TRUE/FALSE)
Q. Those non-ordained ministers who
assist in passing out communion are properly called
“Eucharistic Ministers”.
(Click here for answers, or scroll down)
The Mass
has been known by many names over the centuries.
In different periods of Church history, new
facets and values are revealed: at one time, Christians stress their unity, at
other times, thanksgiving to the Father, then again, sacrifice, or Jesus’
presence. Jesus is always new in his greatest mystery. The following are some
of the names given to the celebration; each highlights a different dimension of
the mystery, but none exhausts its meaning and value.
·
Mass
·
Eucharist
·
Liturgy
·
The
Lord’s Supper
·
Breaking
of the Bread
·
Anamnesis
(Commemoration)
·
Holy
Communion
·
Eucharistic
Assembly
·
Holy
Sacrifice
·
Offering
·
Gathering
“We meet on Sunday because it is the first
day, the day when God transferred matter and darkness and created the world and
is the same day that Jesus Christ, our Saviour rose
from the dead . He was crucified on the eve of Saturn’s day” (Saturday).
Justin Marytr,
writing in his First Apology, c. AD 150. His “apology” is an explanation of the
Christian faith to the Roman Emperor, Antonius Pius. Already in the second
century, it is easy to identify the structures of the celebration of the
Eucharist still found in our Eucharist today: Bible readings, homilies, charity
to the poor, prayers for the world, Eucharistic prayer and communion.
Of
receiving the Eucharist, he went on to say:
“No one can share it unless he has undergone
the washing which forgave sins (Baptism), and unless he lives according to the
teachings of Christ. For we do not take this food as though it were ordinary
bread and wine. But, just as through the Word of God, Jesus Christ, became
incarnate; took flesh and blood for our salvation, in the same way this food,
which has become Eucharist, thanks to the prayer formed out of the words of
Christ, and which nourishes and is assimilated into our flesh and blood, is the
flesh and blood of incarnate Jesus: this is the doctrine that we have received.”
He then goes on to say that “You must
believe what we teach to partake of the Eucharist.”
THE
LITURGICAL YEAR
The Liturgical Year provides a series of
celebrations that confront us with who we are in relation to Christ, and
presents us with a pattern for growth in Christ. Throughout the year, the
Church celebrates the mystery of faith in the Eucharistic Liturgy. Different
seasons focus on various themes of faith.
We are not simply marking time nor recalling
a series of “scenes” in the life of our savior; Church seasons and feasts,
along with the daily rhythm of Morning and Evening Prayer, form us and
our community, through the constant acknowledgment of the presence of Christ in
our midst. The Word of God makes us a people of memory, calling to mind what
God has done, is now doing, and will continue to do in our lives. The
Liturgical Year breaks down Jesus’ work of redemption (salvation history) into
bite size units, so that we can re-live them and gradually be changed by their
power.
We will be looking at the different seasons
and their meaning in future issues.
Feast Days
of Saints
May
31 The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
June
1 St. Justin
June
5 St. Boniface
June11 St. Barnabas
June13 St. Anthony of Padua
June
15 Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
June
16 Immaculate Heart of Mary
June
21 St. Aloysius Gonzaga
June
24 Birth of John the Baptist*
June
28 St. Irenaeus
June
29 Sts. Peter and Paul
* Saints’ Feast Days are listed on the
calendar as their “birthday into heaven”, or their deaths. However, John the Baptist is the only person
beside the Virgin Mary and Jesus whose birth and death are both listed in the ecclesiastical
year Calendar.
ANSWER:
A. False. The
term “Eucharistic Minister” is to be avoided and has never been approved by
Rome (per Vatican Encyclical, Documents On
the Liturgy).
The proper term is “Extraordinary Minister
of Holy Communion”.
Q: Will the Church go back to “the
Latin Mass”?
A: The Roman Rite can presently be
celebrated in Latin without any special permission. While Pope Benedict XVI has
called for greater use of Latin in the Sacred Liturgy, no one is suggesting
abandoning the vernacular. The Holy
Father suggests that “the better-known prayers of the Church’s tradition should
be recited in Latin and, if possible, selections of Gregorian chant should be
sung.” This could be done within the Mass using the vernacular of the country. The Pope has also suggested that in an
international setting, when there are people from many nations speaking many
languages, that it would be practical and uniting to celebrate the Mass in
Latin.
(To submit any question on the Mass (Liturgy)
or Eucharist (Sacrament), click here:
Questions will be answered in next
month’s issue)
Featured
book of the month
THE
NEW YET OLD MASS
By Father
Joseph M. Champlin
BX2230.2C48 111 pages, paperback
Our
revised Mass liturgy dates from the new Roman Missal in 1969, but its roots are
to be found in the ancient past. This is a popular attempt to deepen
understanding of our present-day Mass with brief historical dimensions and
examination of the four sections of the revised Eucharistic liturgy. Father Champlin describes some current efforts that have been
particularly successful in providing the “full and active participation by all
the people”, which was the cherished goal of Vatican II.
There
are also music and video tapes that can be checked out.
Brought to you
monthly by The Envision Priority Area Team:
Understanding
The Mass and Eucharist
Volume I Issue I, May 27, 2007