Fr. Mark Scott continues our series on How the Eucharist Has Touched My Life: “The Christian Eucharist, the Mass, has always been the weekly recreation of the universe as God intended it, the universe made new by the Resurrection of the Lord. The Mass is the stay against the negative forces of history, an antidote to despair.
Saint Paul’s principle for Christian worship is that God is not the god of chaos but of peace.
Someone just coming into the church off the street during Mass should be so struck by what they see and hear that they fall down and worship God, saying, “God is really in your midst.”
This is the kingdom of heaven on earth in sign and in symbol. It is what we are challenged at the end of Mass to go and to make present in fact in the ongoing story of God that is the story of our very ordinary life of Christ-like love, life-giving relationships, and self-sacrificing service.
In the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God’s will is done, on earth, as it is in heaven, in this irreplaceable moment of history that is our life. The weekly Eucharist is our preparation for it all, the Bread for the journey, the oil for our lamps. Thus prepared, satisfied as with the riches of a banquet, we can, in fact, like the 10 Virgins in the parable, fall asleep, and like the wise ones rest secure that even then our hearts will keep vigil, our soul thirsting for God all through the night.”
New Year Blessings,
Your Brothers of New Clairvaux
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