Why do Sunday Masses stress community so much?
We come on the Lord's Day to the table of the Eucharist because we have been through the waters of Baptism. Because we died to our old selves and became alive in Christ, we gather on Sunday, not as isolated persons, but as the Church, with its diversity of cultures, languages and races.
This is difficult for those accustomed to think of themselves as autonomous individuals--workers, tax-payers, citizens. But here, the liturgy is celebrated by the assembled Church. Cultivate, then, your deep awareness that it is not so many individuals who are standing here singing, but the Church.
It is not individuals who are coming forward to the table, but the Church. It is not even individuals who are going forth to live by the word they have listened to and the Body and Blood of Christ they have eaten and tasted. It is the Church going forth as a leaven in the midst of the world God loves.
We are here not to make our own prayer while each other person in the church at the same time makes his or her own prayer. We are baptized people standing with other baptized people. Our thanksgiving is in the Church’s thanksgiving. Our attention to God’s word is in the assembly’s attention. Our intercession is in the Church’s intercession. The mystery of our transfiguration in Christ is in the whole body of baptized people transfigured (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1136-1141).
At liturgy we never close out the larger world. The liturgy shows us gospel living and how to be in the world. Catholic morality, how we deal in justice and charity day by day with great and small matters, is to be encountered and uncovered from our active participation in the liturgy.
Click here to read a full article on this topic.
This is difficult for those accustomed to think of themselves as autonomous individuals--workers, tax-payers, citizens. But here, the liturgy is celebrated by the assembled Church. Cultivate, then, your deep awareness that it is not so many individuals who are standing here singing, but the Church.
It is not individuals who are coming forward to the table, but the Church. It is not even individuals who are going forth to live by the word they have listened to and the Body and Blood of Christ they have eaten and tasted. It is the Church going forth as a leaven in the midst of the world God loves.
We are here not to make our own prayer while each other person in the church at the same time makes his or her own prayer. We are baptized people standing with other baptized people. Our thanksgiving is in the Church’s thanksgiving. Our attention to God’s word is in the assembly’s attention. Our intercession is in the Church’s intercession. The mystery of our transfiguration in Christ is in the whole body of baptized people transfigured (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1136-1141).
At liturgy we never close out the larger world. The liturgy shows us gospel living and how to be in the world. Catholic morality, how we deal in justice and charity day by day with great and small matters, is to be encountered and uncovered from our active participation in the liturgy.
Click here to read a full article on this topic.
posted by See Tho Zhang Jacob at
7:01 PM
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