Mark 14:12-16, 22-26
Dear Friends,
This past May we celebrated the First Communion of one hundred and thirty youngsters in our parish. We filled the church for three different Masses. It was a very beautiful experience.
What was especially exciting about the event was the time of preparation with the parents. Our parish requires that the parents of the First Commuionicants participate in twelve faith assemblies. These are two hour sessions that include a basic presentation of salvation history from Abraham to Jesus. They are much more than simple Bible classes because there is an emphasis on seeing the Word of God intersecting their personal stories. There is much sharing of experience and time for reflection and prayer.
The end result is that the parents acquire familiarity with the Bible, a sense of its personal power in their life and most of all, a grasp of Jesus’ fundamental call to conversion into God’s love.
In this journey parents were able to see the Eucharist as a great expression of God’s love in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen.
The goal was not just to help the parents prepare their children to understand what happens on that beautiful day of their First Communion. It was to convince the parents that their participation in the liturgy is the adult school of religious education where the journey of their lives is connected to the saving act of Jesus here and now.
Unless the parents grasp the importance of the basic experience of regular participation in the liturgy, First Communion celebrations have the real possibility of becoming distorted and inconsequential.
Regular Mass attendance brings us into the encounter with the great act of love that is the fundamental story of the Bible. That love literally takes the form of flesh and blood to nourish and guide us on the troubled journey that is our life. That is why the Church teaches us that the liturgy is the source and summit of our faith.
On this feast of Corpus Christi I would like to go beyond the mantra of “source and summit” which tells us that the faithful participation in the liturgy is the surest guide to growth in a mature faith. I want to invite you to ponder and pray over a fuller expression of the teaching of Vatican II on the experience of our participation in the Eucharist.
“The celebration of the Eucharist, as an action of Christ and the people of God…is the center of the whole Christian life, for the universal church, the local church and for each and everyone of the faithful….the Liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all its power flows….All who are made children of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of the church, to take part in the sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s supper.” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963, #2, 10, 41)
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