Dear Friends,
The vaccine for Covid is slowly being rolled out to people. Hopefully by summer, most people who are at risk will have received the vaccine. If that proves to be the case, then we will be able to return to celebration of the Sunday liturgy in person. At a priest gathering this week, the Archbishop was asked when the bishops might restore the requirement to attend Sunday Mass. He said they have discussed it, but it is still too early to decide since there are too many people still at risk. However, he felt it would be restored once a sufficient number of people have been vaccinated. Since it has been so long since the full community has gathered for liturgy, some may wonder if it is even necessary.
Pope Francis, at his Wednesday audience this week, spoke about the importance of praying together at liturgical gatherings. He stressed the importance of private prayer while emphasizing a truth taught by Vatican Council II that during the liturgy the living person of Jesus Christ is present. He said in the audience, “The liturgy, in itself, is not only spontaneous prayer, but something more and more original: it is an act that founds the whole Christian experience and, therefore, also prayer. It is event, it is happening, it is presence, it is encounter. It is an encounter with Christ. Christ makes himself present in the Holy Spirit through the sacramental signs: hence the need for us Christians to participate in the divine mysteries. A Christianity without a liturgy, I dare say, is perhaps a Christianity without Christ. Without Christ in full. Even in the sparest rite, such as that which some Christians have celebrated and continue to celebrate in places of incarceration, or in the seclusion of a house during times of persecution, Christ is truly present and gives Himself to His faithful…
Many Christian prayers do not originate from the liturgy, but all of them, if they are Christian, presuppose the liturgy, that is, the sacramental mediation of Jesus Christ. Every time we celebrate a Baptism, or consecrate the bread and wine in the Eucharist, or anoint the body of a sick person with Holy Oil, Christ is here! It is He who acts and is present just as He was when He healed the weak limbs of a sick person, or when at the Last Supper He delivered His testament for the salvation of the world.
The prayer of the Christian makes the sacramental presence of Jesus his or her own. What is external to us becomes part of us: the liturgy expresses this even in the very natural gesture of eating. The Mass cannot simply be “listened to”: it is also an expression incorrect, “I’m going to listen to Mass”. Mass cannot merely be listened to, as if we were merely spectators of something that slips away without our involvement. The Mass is always celebrated, and not only by the priest who presides over it, but by all Christians who experience it. And the center is Christ! All of us, in the diversity of gifts and ministries, join in His action, because He, Christ, is the Protagonist of the liturgy…
Life is called to become worship to God, but this cannot happen without prayer, especially liturgical prayer. May this thought help us all when we go to Mass: I go to pray in the community, I go to pray with Christ who is present. When we go to the celebration of a Baptism, for example, it is Christ who is there, present, who baptizes. “But Father, this is an idea, a figure of speech”: no, it is not a figure of speech. Christ is present, and in the liturgy you pray with Christ who is beside you.”
After all this time, is it even necessary? Yes! Yes, if we want to pray in the presence of Jesus. Yes, if we want an intimate relationship with Jesus. Yes, if we want to truly be Christians. Yes, if we want to be transformed into the body of Christ. Yes! And may it not be too much longer.
Peace,
Fr. Damian