I'm getting more comfortable each day with presiding at Mass, but as I do I'm able to really pray the Eucharist. And as I'm able to pray, certain moments strike me more forcefully.
It happens especially when I pronounce the Lord's words over the bread and the cup. I'm never bothered by the standard question, 'how can this host be the body of Christ?'
What goes through my mind is more like the question, 'what kind of God is it that decides to hide himself in bread?' It turns all of our expectations and human expectations of deity upside-down.
4 comments:
My kind of God.
I read something very beautiful from the Carmelite Pere Jacques today:
Ah, to see Christ! Each morning during Mass, we share the immense Joy of the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. When we priests experience the wondrous joy of seeing the living Christ and touching him with our hands, 1 do not have to tell you our reaction. We want to close off the chapel and bow down in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. There is an especially beautiful moment in the Mass, when the priest, as he holds the host, makes the sign of the cross three times over the chalice and twice between himself and the chalice. Then he raises the chalice and says: "per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso..."' It is the living Christ through whom, with whom, and in whom, "all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father." It seems to me that at that precise moment, the priest shares in the omnipotence of God. At that precise moment our prayer has extraordinary efficacy, because the living Christ is as truly present as on Calvary. We climb toward God, as we pray wholeheartedly for the whole world, for our loved ones and for those requesting our remembrance.
Sorry, bad link.
Pere Jacques
I hope you don't mind my linking to this. I should have asked first. Since reading it, your description has echoed so playfully in my mind.
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