Drawing closer to Christ: Why we celebrate Eucharist

Having spent over 22 years as a Benedictine monk before returning to my home diocese in 1995, I have developed a love for the liturgies of the Church and was blessed to experience their great power through the magnificent and well-executed liturgies of the monastic community. I plan to share with you some of what I have learned over the many years of celebrating liturgy as a monk and as a priest. As we journey through the riches of the liturgical year I’ll reflect on the major feasts along the way. I’ll also explore the reasons for and the principles behind the upcoming changes in the Roman Missal which the Holy See hopes to see published by the end of 2010.

There is a magnificent paragraph in a document of the Second Vatican Council called Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. That was the first document approved by the Council which indicates the importance of liturgical celebrations in the life of the Church. In that document the Council Fathers said:
The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ's faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God's word and be nourished at the table of the Lord's body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all (SC, # 48).

It is in and through the many liturgies of the Church that we most effectively become engaged in and celebrate our faith, especially through the liturgy of the Eucharist. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
It is [the] mystery of Christ that the Church proclaims and celebrates in her liturgy so that the faithful may live from it and bear witness to it in the world: For it is in the liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, that "the work of our redemption is accomplished," and it is through the liturgy especially that the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church (CCC,#1068).
These two quotes set the stage for my reflections. I pray you may be drawn ever closer to Christ through a greater appreciation of the liturgy, which is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed [and] at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows (SC, # 10).”

Fr. Paul White
Director of Liturgy