Confirmation Session 5: Understanding Holy Mass Part 2 – Mass is the greatest prayer of all if we believe God!

Published on January 29, 2023

Do we believe that Jesus is God? Do we take Christmas seriously or have we made it into something else; something that doesn’t take God in Jesus seriously?

 

Do we believe God, or do we just believe in God? Or believe there might be a God. Or something out there?

 

On the night before he was crucified Jesus took bread and wine and said the bread is his body and the wine is his blood, adding do this in memory of me.

 

If we believe God, then when we take bread and raise it up (as we do at every Mass) then we’re raising up the body of Jesus.

 

If we believe God, then when we take wine and raise it up in the chalice, we’re raising up the blood of Jesus.

 

The physical gesture by the priest (and people) of raising up the bread and wine which Jesus says is his body and blood makes the connection with the body and blood of Jesus raised on the Cross obvious.

 

In fact, if we believe God, then when we celebrate Mass, we’re standing at the foot of the Cross offering Jesus. The historical event of Jesus death and the present moment become one eternal moment.

 

This is how every Mass is experienced in Heaven.

 

But there’s more… having offered Jesus on the Cross we move to the tomb to receive him in Communion. He’s risen from the dead, no longer bound by a physical body, and has chosen (at the Last Supper) that he should remain on earth in the bread and wine. In and through the Mass Jesus remains on earth… and in every Church there is a Tabernacle in which the bread and wine are reserved (although it is almost always just the bread) – this is the bread and wine which Jesus said are his very self.

 

So, Jesus is still here in the Mass and in the Tabernacle… if we believe God rather than just believing in God.