Martyrs of Sunday Mass

       We love our faith. This means we ought to love the Bible (and to read it), to love attending Mass on Sunday, and especially to love receiving Holy Communion. We can’t imagine living our lives without them. Could you ever imagine the government trying to take this gift away from us?

Martyrs of Sunday Mass

        Seventeen hundred years ago the government did just that, as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us at the Eucharistic Congress in Bari, Italy in 2005. Although the Roman Empire was originally founded on democratic principles, it degraded into a series of despotic regimes who attempted to control the people through the ruthless use of power. Emperor Diocletian ordered that all Bibles be burnt, all Christian churches be torn down, and all Christians caught celebrating their sacred rites were to be punished with death.

        It happened that in the year AD 303, 49 Christian Catholics were caught disobeying the Emperor’s edict, attending Mass in a home in Abitene, a small town in northern Africa, in present day Tunis. The 49 Christians were apprehended and taken to Carthage. The proconsul of Carthage, Anulinus, interrogated the Christians: “Do you keep the Sacred Scriptures in your homes?” To this the Christians replied, “We keep them in our hearts,” showing how the Scriptures were part of their life, not just something they read.

        The proconsul asked Emeritus, “why do you receive Christians in your home against the imperial edict?” Emeritus replied, “We cannot live without Sunday.” It is true: we cannot live without the Mass, without the Sunday Eucharist, without the re-presentation of our Lord’s death and resurrection and without the Pentecost of the Holy Spirit.

        As he did not get the direct response he wanted from the prisoners, the proconsul clarified: “I am not asking you if you are a Christian, but if you have taken part in the assembly or if you have a book of the Scriptures.” One of the Christians, Felice, responded: “What a foolish and ridiculous question! It should be clear as a bell that it is impossible to be a Christian without the Sunday Eucharist, or that the Sunday Eucharist could be celebrated without Christians! It is the Sunday Eucharist which makes the Christian and the Christian that makes the Sunday Eucharist, so that one cannot subsist without the other. When someone says ‘Christian,’ you know that there is an assembly that celebrates the Lord; and when someone says 'assembly,' you know that a Christian is there.”

        Each one of us should be able to say that we cannot live without the Sunday Eucharist, that we do not have the strength to face our daily problems and obligations. When we receive Holy Communion, we are one with Christ and one with all other Christians spread throughout the world who have received Christ in the Eucharist. Thus we are never alone, but share in that wonderful lifeblood of the communion of the saints through our communion with Christ. Christians must live out a great unity of life where God’s Word affects every element of our existence. This moves us to see the needs of others as our own needs, as needs of Christ’s body. It moves us to forgive one another, to overlook the small and not so small defects we discover in those with whom we are united in Christ. 

        Let’s hope that we don’t need a governmental persecution so as to appreciate Sunday Mass again, but that we rediscover the treasure for which the early Christians were willing to die.

      

        Happy Father's Day from all of us at St. Mary of the Angels!

Fr. John R. Waiss

                                                                                                Online: http://motherofpurelove.blogspot.com

Learning to Laugh

      We just celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi and had a wonderful Mass and Procession over which Cardinal Francis George presided. Let’s continue our reflection of this great Sacrament of Faith and Love.

Learning to Laugh

      Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) once wrote: “Nothing can make man laugh unless there is an answer to the question of death. And conversely, if there is an answer to death, it will make genuine joy possible—and joy is the basis for every feast. At its very heart the Eucharist is the answer to the question of death, for it is the encounter with that love which is stronger than death” (The Feast of Faith, 130).

      We all fear death. The fear of death really is the source of all anxieties and it underlies the fear of being unloved and unlovable, of remaining alone or of being rejected by those who should love us. Whereas true love is life, remaining unloved is death because it renders life and life’s suffering meaningless. In such a case, one can only laugh if it is in an escapist manner: by getting drunk, high, or entering a pornographic stupor. Yet when one comes down from his or her “high” the misery is no laughing matter.

      We can only laugh when we discover that we are truly loved, despite our mistakes, failures, and inadequacies. We can laugh at ourselves when we know that God loves us to the point of death, even death on the Cross. We can laugh at all the sillinesses of life—including pain and sorrow—because we know that Christ died that we may have life with Him forever in heaven.

      This is why we need the Eucharist. It is the Sacrament of God’s love for each one of us. We can experience the love of the Father who loves his children by feeding us with the bread of life in the real presence of Christ’s body and blood. Through the Mass we can experience the love of the Son who showed that “greater love than this no man has than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). We experience the great joy of the Holy Spirit’s love that binds us to Christ in Holy Communion, giving us new Life.

      In this way “the Eucharist is the answer to the question of death” as it gives us the experience of eternal Love. For a young person who is trying to find love in his or her life, the Eucharist can give the security that no matter what, they are and will always be loved by God. Thus the young person—firmly rooted in Eucharistic piety—can explore the possibility of a vocation of marriage without fear of not finding “miss right” or “mr. right,” because they have found love in THE Love. The person doesn’t have to prove him/herself loveable by excelling in sports or academics—we should strive to excel so as to fully welcome and embrace the gifts God has given us, knowing that Christ already loves us and has won for us the prize of eternal life, the greatest prize of all. We have nothing to prove—he proved his love for us on the Cross—we just need to correspond with love.

      Similarly, a spouse—firmly rooted in the Eucharist—can laugh and not take him/herself too seriously when s/he doesn’t feel appreciated: “THE Love of my life—Jesus Christ—fully appreciates me, even when my sincere and loving efforts towards my spouse cause disappointment or even disapproval.” So, the Eucharist can be a source of supernatural consolation and meaning when there is no human consolation or meaning.

      How can one become more Eucharistic? Spend time with our Lord in the tabernacle or in Adoration. He is there for you. Every act of faith in Christ’s real presence feeds our soul. If you are really down, perhaps you can try going to daily Mass. How many have great consolation and meaning to get them through those difficult moments by accompanying Our Lady in the Mass.

      Finally, prepare yourself well for receiving our Lord in Holy Communion: make a good confession, do a little fasting, and pray spiritual communions. In this way our union with Christ will fill our soul with joy.

      Finding love in the Eucharist will help us to laugh, and enable us to share our profound joy with others.

Fr. John R. Waiss

Online: http://motherofpurelove.blogspot.com

Finding the Trinity in the Eucharist

      As human—with a spiritual soul and a physical body—we can only relate to others through a physical body. We express all our thoughts, desires, intentions, and love through matter, whether by physical touch, physical sounds in speech, writing with ink and paper, or by electronic communication. Even our knowledge and communication with God is physical, as Pope Benedict XVI says:

      True, no one has ever seen God as he is. And yet God is not totally invisible to us; he does not remain completely inaccessible. God loved us first… God has made himself visible: in Jesus we are able to see the Father (cf. John 14:9). Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross… he encounters us ever anew… in his word, in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist. (Deus Caritas Est, 17).

Respecting our nature, God gives us Sacraments, outward signs that manifest and deepen our relationship with him. 

The Trinity and the Sacraments

      Sacraments are actions originating in God, in the whole Trinity. The Sacraments—Christ’s saving work—draw us into the inner life of the Trinity. This begins with Baptism, is nourished with the Eucharist, and strengthened by the other Sacraments until it reaches fulfillment in our union with the Blessed Trinity in heaven. As Blessed John Paul II describes this: “First, there is the value and demand of ‘living intimately united’ to Jesus Christ. Our union with the Lord Jesus, which has its roots in Baptism and is nourished with the Eucharist, has to express itself and be radically renewed each day. Intimate communion with the Blessed Trinity, that is, the new life of grace which makes us children of God, constitutes the ‘novelty’ of the believer, a novelty which involves both his being and his acting” (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 46).

      Confirmation draws us more deeply into intra-Trinitarian life (cf. CCC 2769) by a “special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost” (CCC 1302), making us anointed—Christs—in the Word. This deepens our loving relationship with him with his special indwelling. His presence in us is there to help and guide us, conferring his gifts of wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, reverence, and with the spirit of wonder and awe in his presence (cf. CCC 1299, 1303).

Becoming Ipse Christus in the Eucharist

In the Mass we become fully identified with Christ, we become Christ himself—ipse Christus:

      “The tragedy of the passion brings to fulfillment our own life and the whole of human history… The Christian is obliged to be alter Christus, ipse Christus—another Christ, Christ himself. Through baptism all of us have been made priests of our lives, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5).” (St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, 96).

      In the Eucharist our identification with Christ is complete. As anointed with the Holy Spirit, we can offer sacrifices to God the Father by uniting the sacrifice of our work, study, and service to others; our prayer, self-denial, and generous self-giving to others. We offer these actions of ours at the Offertory of the Mass, uniting them to the gifts of bread and wine which become Christ’s Body that is offered to the Father. Thus this one sacrifice—Christ’s and ours together—is offered by the one Priest—we united to Jesus on the Cross—to the Father in the Holy Spirit who dwells in the one Christ—ipse Christus— us and Jesus.

      Our union with Christ in the Eucharist is the ultimate pathway to intra-Trinitarian life. 

Fr. John R. Waiss

Online: http://motherofpurelove.blogspot.com

Finding True Life in the Trinity

       We all seek the fullness of life, both now and in eternity. But where do we find it? What does it entail? These questions form part of an innate restlessness that is rooted in man’s very being (Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 4, 10). If we are to have any hope of reaching true life, we need to discover the central role of love and relationships. As Pope Benedict XVI reminded us:

Man’s great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who continues to love us… Whoever is moved by love begins to perceive what “life” really is…: “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we “live” (Spe Salvi, 27).

      Life is relationship. Without relationships our lives would be empty and without meaning. And relationships require love, as Pope John Paul II frequently mentions:

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This… is why Christ the Redeemer “fully reveals man to himself” (Redemptor Hominis, 10).

Life Through Relationships to God

      We find the freedom to love others and fill our lives with relationships only by experiencing God’s love and entering into a relationship with him. This is the foundation of man’s dignity, of his human rights and, consequently, key to world peace and justice. As Pope John Paul II says, “The dignity of every human being and the vocation corresponding to that dignity find their definitive measure in union with God” (Mulieris Dignitatem, 5; cf. Gaudium et Spes, 19).

 

      But in what does union with God consists? What does it mean for man and woman to be created in God’s image and likeness? Who is God? Where do we encounter his image so as to know what man’s dignity is? God answers these questions by revealing himself as a Trinity of Persons, calling each of us to enter into an intimate union with each divine person, which is the ontological foundation of who we are.

      Pope Benedict XVI reminded young people in the United States of the importance of developing a personal relationship with God: “What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God. That relationship is expressed in prayer. God by his very nature speaks, hears, and replies” (Message of Hope, 107). Having a relationship with God is spiritual life… a life of prayer… interior life… true life! 

      But we cannot relate to God as some impersonal being or force; God is a personal being, a wonderful unity of three Persons. If ultimate fulfillment consists in developing ultimate relationships with ultimate Persons, then such life will entail entering into a relationship with each person of the Blessed Trinity. As St. Josemaría writes:

      We have been called to penetrate the intimacy of God’s own life, to know and love God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and to love also—in that same love of the one God in three divine Persons—the angels and all men. This is the great boldness of the Christian faith (Christ is Passing By, 133).

      So, we can say with Augustine, that our very being is restless until it rests in Trinitarian Love. Let’s take advantage of the feast of the Blessed Trinity to renew our personal relationship with each Person of the Blessed Trinity: with God as our own father, with Christ as our friend and love who lays down his life for us, with the Holy Spirit as new life dwelling within us. This is the path to Life, eternal life.

Fr. John R. Waiss

Online: http://motherofpurelove.blogspot.com