Dear Friends,
Today we celebrate the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time. While daily life is anything but “ordinary” these days and, for so many, filled with fear of the unknown, Jesus in the Gospel invites us to trust in Him. I would ask that you pray and meditate on His words of consolation to the terrified disciples on that wind-tossed boat: “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid” (Matthew 14: 27).
Congratulations to the children who received their First Communion on Saturday, 8 August 2020! Parents/guardians, thank you for your commitment to continued sacramental preparation in your homes during this unprecedented and challenging time. I am indebted to our Faith Formation team – catechists and staff alike – for their thoughtfully creative approach to teaching and prepping our children for this significant event in their lives.
After prayerful consideration of the demands of her ongoing studies, Charlene Robinson has decided to step down as Youth Minister at SJE. While we appreciate her consideration of the position and will miss her enthusiasm for teen ministry, I am happy to announce that Molly Smith, a Life Teen Core Team member, has joined our staff as the new Youth Minister, effective 1 August 2020. Welcome to SJE, Molly, and may you both inspire and empower our teens to grow deeper in their encounters with Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
I am indebted to the CCW, particularly Linda and Marion, for their dedicated support of our gift shop throughout the years. Their labor of love helped to raise a significant amount of monies for various parish projects. Moving forward, I’d like to introduce and welcome Terry and Nicky Gallagher, our new team of gift shop volunteers. Many thanks to them … and please be sure to visit our new gift shop location in the parish hall!
I am also happy to introduce a new parish ministry, the “Digital Media Ministry.” We have been so blessed in the past with expert assistance in photography and videography from several talented parishioners, but now I would like to bring them together as a group to both harness and channel their God-given talents for God’s purposes. This new ministry will be headed by Lou Seiler, and we already have many “professionals” who dedicate their time, energy, and talents to capturing parish life. I thank them profusely for their service to this ministry, and if you are passionate about photography and interested in joining this ministry, please contact Lou Seiler. Have a Blessed Week!
With love, Fr. John
Ecclesia De Eucharistia
For this week we shall delve deeper into the beauty of the encyclical “Ecclesia De Eucharistia” (The Church draws her life from the Eucharist) by St. John Paul II on the vital role the Eucharist plays in the life of the Church. Today, let us reflect on the 12th and 13th paragraphs:
- This aspect of the universal charity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is based on the words of the Savior himself. In instituting it, he did not merely say: “This is my body”, “this is my blood”, but went on to add: “which is given for you”, “which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:19-20). Jesus did not simply state that what he was giving them to eat and drink was his body and his blood; he also expressed its sacrificial meaning and made sacramentally present his sacrifice which would soon be offered on the Cross for the salvation of all. “The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood” (CCC, 1382).
The Church constantly draws her life from the redeeming sacrifice; she approaches it not only through faith-filled remembrance, but also through a real contact, since this sacrifice is made present ever anew, sacramentally perpetuated, in every community which offers it at the hands of the consecrated minister. The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age. “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice” (CCC, 1367). Saint John Chrysostom put it well: “We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another tomorrow, but always the same one. For this reason, the sacrifice is always only one... Even now we offer that victim who was once offered and who will never be consumed” (In Epistolam ad Hebraeos Homiliae, Hom. 17,3: PG 63, 131).
The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it (Cf. Ecumenical Council of Trent, Session XXII, Doctrina de ss. Missae Sacrificio, Chapter 2: DS 1743: “It is one and the same victim here offering himself by the ministry of his priests, who then offered himself on the Cross; it is only the manner of offering that is different”). What is repeated is its memorial celebration, its “commemorative representation” (memorialis demonstratio), (Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (20 November 1947): AAS 39 (1947), 548) which makes Christ's one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time. The sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary.
- By virtue of its close relationship to the sacrifice of Golgotha, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the strict sense, and not only in a general way, as if it were simply a matter of Christ's offering himself to the faithful as their spiritual food. The gift of his love and obedience to the point of giving his life (cf. Jn 10:17 -18) is in the first place a gift to his Father. Certainly it is a gift given for our sake, and indeed that of all humanity (cf. Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20; Jn 10:15), yet it is first and foremost a gift to the Father: “a sacrifice that the Father accepted, giving, in return for this total self-giving by his Son, who 'became obedient unto death' (Phil 2:8), his own paternal gift, that is to say the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection” ( John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (15 March 1979), 20: AAS 71 (1979), 310).
In giving his sacrifice to the Church, Christ has also made his own the spiritual sacrifice of the Church, which is called to offer herself in union with the sacrifice of Christ. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning all the faithful: “Taking part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God, and offer themselves along with it” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 11).