Page 18 - LOTN Autumn Issue 54 2023

EDUCATION AND FORMATION

Detail of “At the Cross Her Station Keeping” by Roxolana Luchakowski Armstrong. From the University of Dayton Marian Library
Art and Artifacts Collection
stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on Isn’t that a powerful image? The demons trembling before
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a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus you because of Christ’s presence within you. Sometimes I
had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he think that would be a good thing to tell little boys to get
bowed his head and gave up his spirit. them excited about receiving First Communion!
Perhaps you might be asking yourself, if we’re talking I wonder how Mary would have received Holy
about devotion to the Eucharist wouldn’t it have been Communion. Certainly, she was part of the earliest liturgies
more suitable to take something from the Last Supper, after Christ ascended into heaven. With what reverence
when Christ instituted the Eucharist? must she have received Our Lord, especially after being
The Cross and the Last Supper are not disconnected. The present at His physical sacrifice. Perhaps she thought back
Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting Sacrosanctum to that moment on the Cross as well as when she saw
Concilium (2nd Vatican Council) states “At the Last Supper, Him after the Resurrection. Let us take Our Lady as our
on the night he was betrayed, our Saviour instituted companion at each Mass. Let us ask her to show us how to
the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he live out each Mass as she lived it out during her life on earth
did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross and as she lives it out now in the heavenly liturgy.
throughout the ages until he should come again, and so Of course, the Mass is an important aspect of your life as
to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, especially
of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of since this is probably where you often serve. Certainly,
unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ devotion to the Eucharist implies participation in the
is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge Church’s liturgy, especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
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of future glory is given to us.’” So as I’m sure some of you However, truly living the Mass doesn’t just mean showing
already know, at every Mass the mystery of Christ’s death up at Mass (although this is already very good!). The Mass
and resurrection is made present sacramentally. Maybe we should penetrate the rest of our lives – particularly our
weren’t physically present when Christ died and rose again, life of personal prayer – and our personal prayer should
but through the Mass that event comes to us, so to speak. In prepare us for Mass.
Holy Communion, we receive that Body of Christ, “given up One excellent way to do this is Eucharistic adoration. As
for us” as Jesus said. St John Chrysostom said that when you I’m sure many of you already know, Eucharistic adoration
turn around coming back from the altar with Communion is spending time with Jesus present in the Eucharist. Like
inside of you, the demons look at you and they tremble Mary at the foot of the Cross, we simply remain with Christ.
because you appear to them like a lion who’s breathing fire. When Jesus was in agony in the garden of Gethsemane
and found Peter, James and John asleep, He asked, “Could
1 Catechism of the Catholic Church 1323, quoting you not watch one hour with me?” This is where we get
Sacrosanctum Concilium 47.
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