What is The Mass?

"The Second Vatican Council famously referred to the liturgy as the “source and summit of the Christian life.” And following the prompts of the great figures of the liturgical movement in the first half of the twentieth century, the Council Fathers called for a fuller, more conscious, and more active participation in the liturgy on the part of Catholics.

So what is the Mass? What happens during this paradigmatic prayer? Why is it the beginning and culmination of what it means to be a Christian? In the course of this brief article, I will share just a couple of basic insights.

First, the Mass is a privileged encounter with the living Christ. Christianity is not a philosophy, ideology, or religious program; it is a friendship with the Son of God, risen from the dead. There is simply no more intense union with Jesus than the Mass. Consider for a moment the two major divisions of the Mass: the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. When we meet with another person in a formal setting, we typically do two things. We get together and talk, and then we eat. Think of the first part of Mass as an exchange, a conversation, between the Son of God and members of his mystical body. In the prayers and interventions of the priest, and especially in the words of the Scriptures, Jesus speaks to his people, and in the songs, responses, and psalms, the people talk back. There is, if you will, a lovely call and response between the Lord and those who have been grafted onto him through baptism. In the course of this spirited conversation, the union between head and members is intensified, strengthened, confirmed. Having talked, we then sit down to eat, not an ordinary meal, but the banquet of the Lord’s body and blood, hosted by Jesus himself. The communion that commenced with the call and response during the first part of Mass is now brought to a point of unsurpassed intensity (at least this side of heaven), as the faithful come to eat the body and drink the lifeblood of Jesus.

A second rubric under which to consider the Mass is that of play. We tend quite naturally to think of play as something less than serious, something frivolous and far less important than work. But nothing could be further from the truth. Work is always subordinated to an end beyond itself; it is for the sake of a higher good. So I work on my car that I might drive it; I work at my place of employment that I might make money; I work around the house so that it might be a more pleasant place to live, etc. But play has no ulterior motive, no end to which it is subordinated. Hence, I play baseball or watch golf or attend a symphony or engage in philosophical speculation or get lost in a sprawling novel simply because it is good so to do. These activities are referred to in the classical tradition as “liberal,” precisely because they are free (liber) from utility. When I was teaching philosophy years ago in the seminary, I would gleefully tell my students that they were engaging in the most useless study of all. Invariably they laughed—revealing the utilitarian prejudice of our culture—but I always reminded them that this meant the highest and most noble kind of study." -Bishop Robert Barren, Archdiocese of Milwaukee

What is the Eucharist?

"The Holy Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1324).

Jesus is substantially present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in Holy Communion. People may misunderstand and believe that the Eucharist is only a symbol of the body and blood of Christ. It is much more than that.

Catholics often refer to this as the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Think of the Real Presence as the core of what the Eucharist is: in other words, its “substance.” In addition, after the consecration, look at the bread and wine as external characteristics or “accidents” that visibly endure without change; aspects like color, size, shape, or any other observable feature.

In offering the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of bread and wine change into the body and blood of Christ, while the accidents (taste, appearance, etc.) remain unchanged." -Catholic Answers

What Is Communion?

"Holy Communion is the practice of receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The Catholic Encyclopedia states,

“The Eucharist is the Real Presence of God, Jesus Christ, body and blood, under the appearances of bread and wine.”

When we go to Communion as Catholics, not only are we receiving Jesus fully the Sacrament, but we are also stating that we believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God. By doing so, we are proclaiming the objective sacramental reality and the subjective act of faith and communion with the Catholic Church." -Catholic Answers

What Marriage Really Represents

"I recently had the pleasure of attending a good friend’s wedding. It was a wonderful time. The bride was beautiful; the groom was giddy. The hum of strings wafted through the tiny, richly decorated chapel, and the crowd of friends and family huddled tightly, beaming with joy.

It was one of those weddings that make you happy—not just for the couple, but for the institution of marriage in general.

The mood made it all the more striking, then, when the priest’s voice boomed out over the small congregation: “Marriage is the greatest symbol the Bible uses to describe God and his people. Not king and subjects. Not shepherd and sheep. Marriage.”

The assertion challenged me. My temperament is more inclined to view God as a king than a spouse. So I did what I don’t do nearly enough. I opened up my Bible.

Lo and behold, the priest was right. Scripture uses many symbols for God’s relationship with us, but none seems more frequent or more vivid than marriage. The Bible is full of marriage imagery, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. The love between God and his people is like a marriage (Isa. 54:5). The relationship between the soul and God is like the relationship between spouses (Song of Songs 1:1-4). Jesus repeatedly describes himself as “the bridegroom” (Matt. 9:15). The list goes on.

Young couples understand something about this metaphor when they fall in love. In an instant, the world gets turned upside-down. Previous cares evaporate. The vision blurs, and the stomach drops. Everything suddenly revolves around their sweetheart, and, if they’re fortunate enough to be loved in return, they soon experience a depth of tenderness and care for another beyond anything they’ve known in this world.

It’s a powerful image of the enormousness of God’s love for us and his desire of our love for him. But for a young lover, it’s more than just an image of God with the world. His love becomes an image of God himself. God is love, and the beauty of romantic love gives us a hint of the Divine’s identity.

The analogy runs both ways. By comparing himself to marriage, God teaches us that he is like married love—but also that married love ought to be like him. Many elements of marriage flow out of this understanding. Marriage is total; the immensity of the love between partners demands this, but so does the comparison to the love of God. God gives his whole self when he loves, since he is love, and lovers want to give their whole selves to their beloved. Similarly, marriage is free; God gives his gifts without condition or coercion, making the rain fall on the bad and the good alike. Marriage is also forever; God is faithful to his promises for all eternity—and true lovers never say, “I love you for today only.”

This is why marriage gets to the core of God’s identity. It stands almost unique among human relationships, with a love as near the Divine as we can conceive. Of course, all human loves speak something of the love of God. The love of friendship is pure, and God loves us purely. The love of country is sacrificial, and God loves us sacrificially. But the love of country is impersonal. And the love of friendship is rarely total. Married love includes intimate friendship, but brought to new depths of commitment. And that commitment gives a sacrificial nobility even greater than sacrificing for country.

Here the analogy might break down for the Christian. Marriage and married love are between two people. But we know that the full identity of God is Trinity. Like marriage, God is a community of love between persons. But unlike marriage, it seems, God is a community of love among three Persons.

There is another important element of marriage that has so far been unmentioned: children. Marriage doesn’t just cement two individuals in their love for each other. It also establishes a family.

In the Trinity, the Father first loves the Son, who in turn loves the Father. But the love between them is so strong that it cannot be contained to two Persons only. That love is itself a third Person: the Holy Spirit, eternally proceeding from Father and Son.

A family is an image of this trinitarian love. Husband and wife love each other, but that love does not stay merely between them. In time, it produces another person—a child—who subsequently is also loved and loves in turn.

My wife and I have been blessed to experience this. We had fallen deeply in love, and lived for several happy months as husband and wife. We couldn’t have imagined a third person, who it seemed could only come between us. But something about our relationship, something even greater than that first giddy love, came to be with the birth of our son. There is the special love I have for him. But that love isn’t just a love for another person. It’s a love that’s tied into my love for my wife. He looks like his father. He laughs like his mother. In many ways, he’s a physical manifestation of the relationship between us. When I love him, I love his mother. And when she loves him, she loves me.

This is marriage as the image of God, which is the image of the Trinity. The love between two spouses shows us the depths of love between each individual Person: the Father and the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit and the Son. And the love of the whole family shows how this intense love is unable to remain merely between two Persons, but branches out into a trinitarian community.

Of course, marriage, and the family it begets, is an image of God. For finite creatures, the image works in ways that the literal, infinite Trinity does not. There can be multiple children, each one a unique manifestation of the spouses’ love. For those struggling with infertility, there can be no children, but the love of the spouses is still real, still made concrete in the family life between husband and wife, just in a less visible way. In all cases, it is the possibility of children that is more important than the number. The kind of love is the same—the kind of love that is open to the birth of a new person. In the infinite Godhead, this love eternally gives three infinite persons. In finite marriages, that love may or may not produce any number of finite persons.

Yet in both cases, love is an image of the other. That priest was right that marriage is a special symbol for God’s love. It’s an image of the Trinity, revealing to us something important about who God is and how he loves us. That connection should fill us with joy at weddings, like my friend’s recent ceremony—and at godly marriages everywhere." - Adam Lucas, Catholic Answers

Link to the Order of the Nuptial Mass

https://www.catholicweddinghelp.com/topics/order-wedding-with-mass.htm