Dear friends,
We have been tremendously blessed by the Lord to have avoided Elsa’s visitation. I am sure it is because you are seriously praying the prayer that I am placing in the bulletin every week.
On the 15th Sunday in Year B, the focus is on hearing what God has to tell us and then being on our mission to bring his Word to the world. Can you open your ears and your heart to listen to HIM speaking to you today?
During this hurricane season, please make the necessary preparations to protect yourselves and continue to pray through the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor to avert the deadly storms and spare us from harm:
“Our Father in Heaven, through the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, spare us and our homes from all disasters of nature. Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.” Also, I recommend that we pray Psalm 91 in appeal for God’s protection. Verses 11 and 12 speak thus: “For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”
As we enter the summer months of leisure and relaxation, I ask that you read a few paragraphs each weekend from Section Two, Article 3 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, The Sacrament of the Eucharist, as we reflect together and begin to more fully appreciate this precious and invaluable gift.
ARTICLE 3: THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
III. THE EUCHARIST IN THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION
The signs of bread and wine
1333 At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took bread.. . ." "He took the cup filled with wine.. " The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine ( Cf. Ps 104:13-15), fruit of the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering (Gen 14:18; Roman Missal, EP I (Roman Canon) 95).
1334 In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the departure that liberated them from Egypt; the remembrance of the manna in the desert will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the Word of God (Cf. Deut 8:3); their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of blessing"(1 Cor 10:16) at the end of the Jewish Passover meal adds to the festive joy of wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic expectation of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he gave a new and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread and the cup.
Be Blessed!
With love, Fr. John