Dear Friends,
October is the month dedicated to LIFE. We are called to protect, respect, and value all stages of life, from conception to its natural end. Even the child in the womb, the unborn, bears the image of Christ. In his exhortation on the call to holiness, Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), no. 101, Pope Francis states that “equally sacred… are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly…”
On the 27th Sunday A, we are treated to two great messages, one from the prophet Isaiah and another from the Gospel of Matthew. They are powerful parables that reinforce the call to embrace the responsibilities of our baptismal promise as faithful caretakers of God’s holy vineyard, tending to the people of God as bearers of good fruit.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul writes to the Philippians, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (4: 6).” During these recent days, we have done just this – prayed in petition and thanksgiving for our country, our parish, and the Church and for an end to the dreadful “Covid-19” pandemic. I take this opportunity to thank all who prayed the 54 days of Novena to our Lady of the Rosary, both those who attended in-person and those who prayed at home. Fr. John Patrick and I were pleased that so many of you attended the daily Holy Hour without fail, and I am grateful to Peter and Fran Behrens who led these 54 days of prayers with solemn dignity and the praise that God deserves. I would also like to thank Glenn and Lynne Vera for their service at the media station. These 54 days have been a wonderful blessing and will no doubt bear great fruit!
Once again, I extend an invitation to all the women of our parish to gather for an evening of prayer in celebration of the SJE Women’s Ministry. We will be unveiling some new programs to promote sisterhood, deepen our faith, and enhance our relationship with Jesus. Please join us on 7 October 2020 at 6.30 p.m. in the church.
Be Blessed!
With love, Fr. John
Ecclesia De Eucharistia
For this week, we shall reflect on paragraphs 26 - 28 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. This brings us to the beginning of the 3rd chapter which focuses on the theme: “THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE EUCHARIST AND OF THE CHURCH.”
- If, as I have said, the Eucharist builds the Church and the Church makes the Eucharist, it follows that there is a profound relationship between the two, so much so that we can apply to the Eucharistic mystery the very words with which, in the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed, we profess the Church to be “one, holy, catholic and apostolic”. The Eucharist too is one and catholic. It is also holy, indeed, the Most Holy Sacrament. But it is above all its apostolicity that we must now consider.
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in explaining how the Church is apostolic – founded on the Apostles – sees three meanings in this expression. First, “she was and remains built on 'the foundation of the Apostles' (Eph 2:20), the witnesses chosen and sent on mission by Christ himself” (Visite al SS. Sacramento e a Maria Santissima, No. 857). The Eucharist too has its foundation in the Apostles, not in the sense that it did not originate in Christ himself, but because it was entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles and has been handed down to us by them and by their successors. It is in continuity with the practice of the Apostles, in obedience to the Lord's command, that the Church has celebrated the Eucharist down the centuries.
The second sense in which the Church is apostolic, as the Catechism points out, is that “with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching, the 'good deposit', the salutary words she has heard from the Apostles” (Ibid). Here too the Eucharist is apostolic, for it is celebrated in conformity with the faith of the Apostles. At various times in the two-thousand- year history of the People of the New Covenant, the Church's Magisterium has more precisely defined her teaching on the Eucharist, including its proper terminology, precisely in order to safeguard the apostolic faith with regard to this sublime mystery. This faith remains unchanged and it is essential for the Church that it remain unchanged.
- Lastly, the Church is apostolic in the sense that she “continues to be taught, sanctified and guided by the Apostles until Christ's return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of Bishops assisted by priests, in union with the Successor of Peter, the Church's supreme pastor” (Ibid). Succession to the Apostles in the pastoral mission necessarily entails the sacrament of Holy Orders, that is, the uninterrupted sequence, from the very beginning, of valid episcopal ordinations ( Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Sacerdotium Ministeriale (6 August 1983), 2: AAS 75 (1983), 1005). This succession is essential for the Church to exist in a proper and full sense.
The Eucharist also expresses this sense of apostolicity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “the faithful join in the offering of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal priesthood” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 10), yet it is the ordained priest who, “acting in the person of Christ, brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of all the people” (Ibid). For this reason, the Roman Missal prescribes that only the priest should recite the Eucharistic Prayer, while the people participate in faith and in silence (Cf. Institutio Generalis: Editio typica tertia, No. 147).