Dear Friends,
Let us continue to work together in fighting this pandemic especially as Florida tops the chart in the number of people testing positive. Let us continue to pray for God’s grace and mercy. Your health and wellbeing is very crucial to our community at St. John’s. I am very happy to welcome Gavin Keith to our staff as the IT coordinator. Welcome Gavin and thank you for sharing your gifts to our community.
I am edified seeing the enthusiasm amongst our community to read the encyclical “Ecclesia De Eucharistia” (The Church draws her life from the Eucharist) by St. John Paul II on the vital role that the Eucharist plays in the life of the Church. Today let us reflect on the 6th and 7th paragraphs:
6. I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic “amazement” by the present Encyclical Letter, in continuity with the Jubilee heritage which I have left to the Church in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte and its Marian crowning, Rosarium Virginis Mariae. To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the “programme” which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization. To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize him wherever he manifests himself, in his many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and his blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist; by him she is fed and by him she is enlightened. The Eucharist is both a mystery of faith and a “mystery of light”. (Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (16 October 2002), 21: AAS 95 (2003), 19). Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Lk 24:31).
7. From the time I began my ministry as the Successor of Peter, I have always marked Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and of the priesthood, by sending a letter to all the priests of the world. This year, the twenty-fifth of my Pontificate, I wish to involve the whole Church more fully in this Eucharistic reflection, also as a way of thanking the Lord for the gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood: “Gift and Mystery”. (This is the title which I gave to an autobiographical testimony issued for my fiftieth anniversary of priestly ordination). By proclaiming the Year of the Rosary, I wish to put this, my twenty-fifth anniversary, under the aegis of the contemplation of Christ at the school of Mary. Consequently, I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the “Eucharistic face” of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist.
From it the Church draws her life. From this “living bread” she draws her nourishment. How could I not feel the need to urge everyone to experience it ever anew?
Be Blessed!
With love, Fr. John
Questions for July 12, 2020 Bulletin based on Ecclesia de Eucharistia
Paragraphs (4-5)
- According to “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”, what is the Church’s foundation and wellspring?
- Jesus was referring to _______when He said, “Father save me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this ”
- The introduction of the Agony on the Cross during Good Friday, began with_________ .
- The “Ecclesia de Eucharistia” brought about a ____________between the Triduum and the passage of the centuries.
Questions for July 19, 2020 Bulletin excerpt from Ecclesia de Eucharistia
Paragraphs (6-7)
- To contemplate Christ involves being able to___________ him wherever he manifests himself….
- The Eucharist is both a mystery of faith and a_____________ .
- The Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world, uniting _____ and_____