The Fifth Luminous Mystery
The Gift of the Eucharist
Our Father, Who art in heaven...
A cup exists to be filled. I can ask God to fill me up with what I need to give Him glory, to serve Him well and to be happy and at peace.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
At the Mystical Supper Jesus broke the bread, passed it around and gave it away. Righteous people live this way: broken and given away. Often they are non-believers. A doctor just completed the Boston Marathon when the explosions happened. He turned around and started to serve the many people who were injured.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
In the Mass the plate is offered with the little bread that will become the Body of Christ. Put on the plate every concern, every problem, every heart-longing, every suffering, and ask for a transformation as God wills it.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
An Episcopalian minister, who is also a Jungian analyst said: The Catholic Mass must remain; it is the only thing left in our culture that calls us to transformation. But it is not a transformation of bad to good, so much as the transformation of my personal evolution or coming to wholeness (holiness).
Hail Mary, full of grace...
A mother who lives in Brooklyn, takes the subway into Manhattan each day with her little daughter. The girl is dropped off at her full day kindergarten in the neighborhood where the mother works. In the evening about 6, the mother returns to pick up the girl from the after-school program. The mother gets them something to eat at a fast food place, and then they get back on the train to Brooklyn. It is an exhausting day. She is ground up like wheat and crushed like grapes.God understands.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
In receiving Holy Communion we receive the Body and Blood of Christ separately - as if to signify the death of Jesus in which His body was emptied of his life-blood through his wounds. I bring all my wounds with me to Communion: the abuse, the failed relationships, my addictions, my depression and anxieties, my self-loathing, the wreckage of my past as AA says.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
Jesus is the High Priest who forever makes intercession before the Father on behalf of our weary world. What Jesus did at Calvary He does always, and the Eucharist lets us enter into that mystical self-gift as nourished sharers and participants.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
We reverence the Eucharist: we genuflect and bow, we incense the Eucharist and sing hymns before it, we place it in a golden container and adore it. But do we reverence each other, who are made in God's image and likeness?
Hail Mary, full of grace...
At the Holy Thursday meal there should have been someone to wash the dusty feet of the arriving guests. Apparently this detail was missed that night. Jesus waited through most of the meal to see if someone in the room would assume that responsibility. Finally he did it himself. Maybe he said to them: You know we've been together for years now, and I would have hoped that after all this time you'd have learned the lesson. The Eucharist is intimately linked to the service of people.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
At the Last Supper Jesus gave Judas his First Communion before Judas left the room in a hurry. Afterwards Jesus accepted Judas' kiss of betrayal in the garden and even called Judas, friend. On Holy Thursday night, Pope Francis washed the feet of twelve young people in jail. The message of the Mystical Supper with its Holy Food, Foot Washing and the Passion begun that night is, we are all the friends of Jesus.
Hail Mary, full of grace...
Glory be to the Father...
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| Holy Saturday Night ~ The Sepulchre of Jesus ~ Jerusalem |
