Bishop Barron: The Mystery of the Mass - The Source and Summit of Christian Life

[Music] Bishop Robert Baron is the founder of word on fire Catholic ministries and auxilary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles he's also the host of Catholicism a groundbreaking award-winning documentary about the Catholic faith Bishop Baron is a number-one Amazon best-selling author no less and has had his books sold over 400,000 copies he's a religion correspondent for NBC and has also appeared on Fox News Donald Trump's favorite waste of time well CNN succeeding news and EWTN now Bishop Barron's website word on fire org reaches millions of people each year and he's one of the world's most followed Catholics on social media his regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 30 million times and he has over 1.5 million followers on Facebook take that Donald Trump well god bless you all thank you very much and good morning what an uplifting thing for me just to see so many of you here I was up in Scotland a couple days ago any Scotsman here I was up at the Usher Hall in Denver uh and spoke to about 2500 people there and they were just wonderful but to see now even more here lifts me up spiritually and I'm so glad the archbishop thank you by the way Archbishop McMann and Cardinal Nichols for having me so glad he mentioned the Beatles because when I come to Liverpool and the Beatles when I was about 12 years old I discovered the Beatles and they followed me my whole life long I was here about five years ago for the first time I've just made a beeline to John Lennon's house to Paul McCartney's house and then to the cavern club which I loved went down there and listened to some music and I bought when I was there this is really cool photo of the Beatles and I put it up in my office when I was wrecked her at one de Lyonne Seminary anyone here from Leeds by the way okay well your former bishop mr. Arthur Roche is a friend of mine and Arthur came to see me when I was rector and he walked in and he said why you have a picture of the Beatles and I said well sure I love the Beatles he said do you know I saw the Beatles in the cavern club when I was 17 and that gave me a whole deeper appreciation for Arthur Roche but gosh thanks for your presence thanks for your exuberance today means a lot I think for the church which as you know is going through a painful time and during these periods I think it's so important that we return to the fundamentals and that means above all Christ in the Eucharist and so wonderful that we are gathering to celebrate to speak about to understand more deeply the Eucharist and what I'm going to talk about everybody in this brief time we have is this splendid mystery of the mass as you know Vatican 2 called us to realize the mass is the source and the summit of the Christian life the Vatican two fathers wanted a revival of the Manns which is what I think a lot of them are turning in their graves at the situation today in my country maybe 20% of Catholics go to Mass I think it's even worse over here in Europe isn't it to think that you know 75 or 80 percent of our brother and sisters in the Catholic faith stay away from the source and summit of the Christian life something's the matter calling us back to the mass reviving the sense of this full conscious and active participation in the supreme mystery is a central concern of the church at all times and especially now you know my conviction is based on many years of being a priest and now a few years as a bishop is that even a lot of Catholics who come demands often I think don't quite appreciate what it is Oh sort of religiously themed Jamboree around the theme of Jesus but what the mass is this supreme mystery so what I want to do is just begin with a few general remarks about the mass and then briefly walk through the great moves of the liturgy so we can deepen our appreciation of what it's all about here's the first general observation about the mass the mass I think is the privileged encounter with Jesus Christ see mind you Christianity is not a philosophy is it primarily it's not a political movement or a social theory Christianity is a relationship with a person it's a friendship with Jesus Christ there is no more intense encounter with the Lord than the man's think about this everybody when you meet with someone you meet with a friend or friends are coming over to your house what do you typically do well typically we talk for a while right the guest doesn't come you say oh by the way here's dinner sit down you know we we talked for a while we visit we speak and we listen and then typically we sit down for a meal so I would say in this great encounter with Jesus Christ first we talk and then we eat first we listen and we speak back we converse with the Lord and then we sit down at the great banquet of the Lord's table it's the privileged moment of encounter here's a second general observation about the mass and I've used the word already a couple of times the mass is the supreme mystery you know we say let us prepare ourselves to celebrate these sacred mysteries don't we I like Abbot Jeremy Driscoll's definition of a mystery here's what he says a mystery is a concrete something that when you bump into it it puts you into contact with a divine reality that's good in them it's a concrete something so it's it's oil its water its wine is bread etc that when you bump into it puts you into contact with a divine reality everything in the maps from candles to cross to vestments to gesture to to symbol etc all of it is a mystery it's a it's a it's a series of mysteries concrete some things that when we bump into them put us into contact with the divine reality here's a third general remark about the mass and I get this from the great liturgical theologian Roman old cordini Bardini said the mass is the supreme form of play a supreme form of play now what do you mean he meant play is the most serious thing in life no high it's counterintuitive I know but there are useful things in life things we do for the sake of something else right so I get my car fix that I might be able to drive it somewhere and enjoy some place or some people I want to see the fixing of the car is subordinate to those further ends people work on these microphones so that I might be able to speak this this lecture those are useful things but then play things like listening to the Beatles for example is a form of play why it well it's not subordinated some end beyond itself it's simply good in itself it's beautiful reading the comics you all look in the newspaper we think over serious sections dealing with politics and business but see that's all practical useful material the serious parts of the paper really I would say are the comics and the sports page because they deal with useless things and an S high praise that's high praise what I was teaching philosophy many years ago I'd always tell the first-year students welcome to the most useless class you will ever take but of course I meant it as the highest praise to philosophy those kind of questions aren't useful it's just beautiful in itself to ask and answer them so with the man so with the mass it's the most supremely useless thing we do because it's the highest thing we do wasting time with God sitting uselessly with the Lord yep that's the mass the highest form of play here's another general comment and I'm glad right behind me we adore Ramos the great title let us adore the mass is the supreme form of worship or adoration go back to the year 2005 Pope Benedict was speaking in Cologne at World Youth Day and he told the young people there that the etymology of the word adoration is very interesting odd or rot Co and Latin odd or oh sorry means mouth to mouth to the mouth of odd or rot Co when we adore we are mouth to mouth with God see I mean it means were aligned unto God ordered unto God I think the master theme of the entire Bible is adoration is teaching first Israel than the whole world how properly to adore the Lord because by implication when we adore something other than God we're mouth to mouth with money or with power or with pleasure with honor with country whatever it is then we disintegrate we tend to fall apart but when we adore the Lord were aligned unto God mouth to mouth to God then we become rightly ordered on the inside and peace tends to break out around glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of goodwill do you see how that's kind of a formula if I give glory to God above everything else I adore him alone then peace breaks out in me and around me the mass everybody is the supreme form of worship oh that word comes from an older English word worthless worst of the what's the highest worth to you when we come to mass what we're saying look with our very bodies is Christ is of highest worth to me and in that great act I become rightly ordered that's what the mass is about one more one more general observation the mass is a great call and response between Christ the head and all of us the members of his mystical body go back in the old testament to the great song of songs that love poem right between two young people and you hear this delicious call-and-response one calling out to the other the other calling back and in that process they grow in their love so the mass is a call-and-response between christ the head and the members of his mystical body now say more about it now as I go today but in that process the mystical body becomes more tightly connected unified all of us gathered now together under the headship of Christ but we come to mass to hear him call out to us in love and then we respond to him with an answering love okay those are just some general remarks about what the mass is but now what I want to do in the remainder of the talk is just to sort of walk through this great liturgy this thing that we're so familiar with but often we don't think about sufficiently and I'll need a little drink of water before I start okay let's talk first about the introductory rites of the mass you know in some ways everybody the mass begins before it begins now what I mean is by the very act of gathering we are experiencing a mystery we come together for mass from all social groups all different educational levels all different backgrounds all different races the two genders etc we come together in our great diversity to this one place for this one act in that very act of coming together what's being expressed is the church at lovely Greek word for church at kasya right and our terms ecclesiastical and all that come from that word ecclesia is based on two Greek words Eck and Colleen it means to call out from the church the ecclesia is a community which has been called out from something into something else it's been called out from the world if I can use biblical language out from the world of hatred and violence and division and stratification and us-against-them and who's better and who's up and who's down the world we know all too well we are at Colette ode out of that world into a new space the space of the church and you see it don't you as the church gathers you know Dorothy day the the co-founder of a Catholic Worker movement is a great hero of mine and Dorothy day when she was considering becoming a Catholic said she was deeply moved by the fact that in the Catholic Church she saw all the different economic levels all the different educational backgrounds everyone seemed to come together it was the ecclesia that was moving her and so the mass begins really before it begins we tend to commence the mass with singing don't we now don't think of singing at the mass as merely decorative wouldn't it be nice to have a little traveling music as the priest comes up the aisle you know the singing is extraordinarily important why because it's one of the ways that this new ecclesia expresses itself here are all of us in our different voices but coming together oddly in this harmony here's something I've actually asked of musical friends of mine about isn't it weird that in this room 99% of us are pretty bad singers right this room having a handful or really good singers but but nevertheless when we sing together isn't it weird that we don't sound too bad you know we sing a hymn together and it sounds pretty good but it's sort of like you know here are here are you know 12 football players and they're all individually lousy but when they play as a team they're great I mean that this doesn't work does it but it works weirdly when it comes to singing so in our singing we express the harmonic quality of the ecclesia something else too about singing and it echoes throughout the liturgy is our singing here below is meant to be an echo of the heavenly singing and see everybody this is not pious boilerplate you know isn't that sweet we talked about the singing of the angels no no it's very important even it's unta logically important what do I mean well this harmony that comes from write praise from Auto ROTC oh it obtains already in the heavenly realm of the angels and the Saints what do they do all day well for one of a better term they sing they sing all day in their harmonic peacefulness together around the throne of God now it's symbolic language I'm using but you get the point they live in harmony based upon Auto ROTC or so so when we sing we're meant to echo them remember it before the Santos you know may our voices blend with theirs may our voices be won with theirs it's not just pious poetry that's deep metaphysics if you want you know I won't name the song but there's a song that I really don't like and it's been sung now for many years in Catholic churches and one of the lines is not in some heaven light-years away but here in this place do you know what song I'm talking about that's a terrible line everybody because first of all heaven isn't light-years away that's a silly way to think about it but but secondly though the mass is meant to be heaven on earth it's meant to be the place where heaven meets earth it's not we're setting up a distinction between oh what's way up there somewhere in this irrelevant heaven no no it's when heaven and earth embrace that's the mass and the singing expresses them okay the ritual proper begins now with the great sign of the Cross right gosh how important that is in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that we claim ourselves as belonging to the Trinitarian God now I say especially today everyone how important that is the common view today especially in the West is I invent myself through my freedom I decide my values I decide my identity I decide who I am man is that boring first of all that's the problem that's a boring perspective you know my little ideas hole hump no no the beauty of it is I don't belong to myself I belong to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and see how wonderful that I'm not as we're outside of the Trinity bidding and beckoning I'm signaling that I live in the Trinitarian love see I live in the in the Holy Spirit that connects the father and son in love and at the beginning of mass I signal this great identity and how wonderful - by the way that I signal it on my body see this we don't play a gnostic game whereby oh the serious stuff is going on inside or spiritually and the body is more of a problem no no no no God made us body and soul found all of it good and I claim with my body and on my body Who I am I belong to the Trinity it's hugely important a word now about the the priest or the bishop who's leading the worship of the church it's so important everyone that the priest is not operating in his own name it's so important I came of age at a time right after the council went there there was a kind of clone new clericalism I think where the the personality of the priest came to the fore very much now you know we're not meant to mask our personalities but symbolically speaking the fact that I put on vestments that cover up as it were my ordinary identity that I address people not so much as Robert Barron Robert Barron says hi to you this is years and years ago in the States when there's lawless liturgical experimentation and there was a priest who began maceió the Lord be with you and we didn't know what we said and also with you and then he would say thank you and I'm not kidding because we were kids so we began saying you're welcome you know well that's what happens when you forget you're in a ritual space and you're not greeting people in your own name rather your greeting person people in Persona Christi capitis right the priest is operating in the person of Christ the head remember I mentioned the head of the mystical body and when the people respond and with your spirit it's not a dualistic thing like you'll not with your body only with your spirit it doesn't mean that Thomas Aquinas said that the soul is in the body but not as contained by it but as containing it that makes sense the spirit contains the body so what are you saying with your spirit what you're saying is we're awakening this Christ that through ordination is dwelling in you see so the the call and response between the head and the members of the mystical body begins at the very beginning okay what's practically the first thing we do at Mass is we acknowledge our sin now it's very good right now because these bright bright lights are shining at me I really can't see any of you at all but what's good is he has these bright lights are shining on me what am i noticing all these little imperfections on my glasses I can see little scratches and dust particles and I clean them this morning at the hotel you know I clean them up see here's the thing about sin you tend to see your own sin not when you're driving away from the light but when you're driving into the light you know if you're driving along and it's a and you're away from the Sun your windshield can look fine right hey it's clean but now the next morning you're driving into the Rising Sun and suddenly it's it's practically opaque you know you see so many smudges and all the dirt so it goes in the spiritual order hey I'm okay and you're okay remember that book from the 1970s I'm glad you don't actually I hope being good day can that's a stupid thing you know I mean if hey I'm fine and so are you we're all great then these were writing away from the light right but when you've turned toward the light of grace see that's precisely when you know you're a sinner and so at the beginning of mass as we turn in adoration toward the light yeah we acknowledge our sins and like bartimaeus we cry out hurry a Alea zone you know in the bartimaeus story in st. mark that's what he says in Greek is lay is on may lay is on me have pity on me and so we're just like Bartimaeus lord have mercy Christ have mercy lord have mercy good you know that there's song a few years ago by Christina Aguilera and I love the melody but gosh the words were awful it was I'm beautiful in every way and your words can't bring me down okay I think we're all beautiful in some ways but I mean in every way I mean that means I'm driving away from the light no no we we Christians happily acknowledge our sin that we're not beautiful in every way that we stand as forgiving sinners in the presence of the Lord that's a terrific right after the Kure a I've already alluded to it comes one of the most beautiful prayers in the whole liturgical tradition and we could do a whole talk based on it but that glory in prayer see that's the the stance of Mater Otsu glory to God in the highest next time you pray that our sing it at mass ask yourself what really is highest to me Paul Tillich the Protestant theologian said all you need to know about someone you can find out by asking really one question what do you worship it's good innit everyone worships something the atheist worship something some things have highest worth to you what do you give glory to the highest - this prayer is meant to say to God to God to God and only then will peace break out in me and around me think about that everybody next time you sing that great prayer of the church okay so those are the introductory rites of mass ending of course with a great colic to prayer but now we move into the Liturgy of the word so here's the moment when in our encounter with Christ we listen and we speak how important first of all that it's a conversation we are indeed going to hear the word speak but we're going to speak back in all sorts of powerful ways we're conversing with the Lord Carl Bart another of the great Protestant thinkers of last century said the Christian distinctiveness is this odd claim that Deus Dixit that God has spoken God has spoken we don't think God is a distant principle we don't think God is simply some mystical abstraction no no the biblical God is a person who speaks now don't think of voices booing from the clouds that's a symbol of what I'm talking about God's a person who speaks who addresses us in all of creation yeah the heavens proclaim the glory of God quite right in all of human history yes in a way through God's providence but especially and most powerfully in this holy people Israel through its prophets and patriarchs through its great traditions through the temple and Torah etc God has in a much more pointed way spoken to us and then finally and I can't put it better than the author of the Hebrews in times past God spoke and fragmentary and varied ways to our fathers through the prophets but in this the final age he has spoken to us through his son whom he has made heir of all things and through whom he first created the universe now the God who speaks speaks utterly in and through the son his word made flesh during the Liturgy of the word we listen to this God who speaks to us in this most pointed way you I've already referenced this but a state again the Stanley Hauer was the great Methodist theologian said that the the standard view today is the only story we have is the one that we make up for ourselves that's the to me the sadness of much of modernity the only story I have is one that I make up Alvis I no no we biblical people know we belong to a greater story what does Paul say there's a power already at work in you that can do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine you're part of this great story that God is telling but learn the contours of it learn were you belong in the story of creation of the fall of Israel of the coming of the Messiah and now we the church the prolongation of the Incarnation across space and time see that's where we belong everybody but we need to hear that story told over and over again that's why so many Catholics staying away from the mass of course they start believing all the nonsense they hear of course they start believing yeah I guess I make up my own story no no we who come to stubbornly sit and listen as the great biblical story is told again and again and again that we might discover who we are that makes sense to be drawn out of our own little self preoccupation that we're part of this infinitely more interesting story that God is telling that's the Liturgy of the word you know a word about dumb the Old Testament so the first reading coming invariably from the Old Testament friends one of the earliest heresies the church fought was the heresy of Marcion ISM it might sound like a real arcane reference but man is it alive and well today marsinah Marcin was a Roman from the second century who taught a version of Christianity in abstraction from the Old Testament oh the Old Testament that old you know those stories about the violent God and all that strange stuff and let's just jettison all that and we'll just tell the story of Jesus based on the Gospels actually only certain parts of the Gospels he thought just an ancient thing and I in my internet work I run into it all the time this contempt for the Old Testament oh the violent God you know putting the ban on people and full of anger and all this business let's get rid of that I like the god of Jesus this friendly compassionate God well first of all you're not reading the New Testament very carefully if that's all you see right but from the beginning Christians realized you're not gonna get Jesus right unless you understand the Old Testament and isn't it true every single of author in the New Testament talks about Jesus kata tug Rafa and Crete according to the writings according to the writings were they meant but we call the Old Testament that's how they read him so the church week in week out day in day out stubbornly reads from this great collection of text called the Old Testament because we are not Marcia Knight in our spirituality think here of Luke chapter 24 right the road to Emmaus what does Jesus do what sets their hearts on fire when he takes them through the Old Testament and shows the links between those texts and himself so we do it everybody at Mass weekend week out day in day out we interpret Jesus against that Old Testament background okay having heard the first reading now we respond now here's a kind of pet peeve of mine based on years and years of presiding at mass is I think way too often people think of the responsorial Psalm is now like a little nice musical interlude so we've heard this you know puzzling thing from the Old Testament I don't really understand it and now I'm gonna sit back and then and now the choir is gonna sing a song or the organist will play a little no the whole point of the responsorial Psalm is that we are now responding to the word that we've heard I mean how strange if you had someone over to the house and they told you a little story and you just sat there no I bet you respond to them hey yeah that's interesting it's wonderful oh how terrible or oh my gosh and you respond to them right well see how do we respond we respond with this brilliant song book of the church called the song and now we all know as anyone that praise the song is their anger in the Psalms you bet is their frustration in the Psalms absolutely is their exuberant joy in the Psalms yes is their is their hatred of one's enemies in the Psalms yes is their great love for God in the Psalms celebration of life in the Psalms yes it's all there which is why it's such a splendid book to govern our response to the Word of God so think of that next time your your reciting or better singing the responsorial Psalm it's you're talking back to the word who has addressed you second reading invariably and apostolic reading right usually from Paul but also let me John and James and Peter represented Epis taluk we're in epistatic faith a faith based upon those people who knew him powerful it is there's always a tendency everybody to reduce Christianity to a sort of Gnostic philosophy oh it's a spirituality like many other spiritualities no it's not it's not one thing I've always noticed is in the early Christian texts did they sound to you like people who are kind of musing philosophically on timeless spiritual truths no they sound like people that want to grab you by the shoulders and tell you something you know I'm saying a wonderful quote it's from an anglican bishop and he said when paul preached there were riots when i preached they served me tea you know and what he was catching beautifully was how radical the apostolic preaching was because they were grabbing the whole world by the lapels of saying Jesus Christ is Lord have you heard about this Jesus this particular Jesus who was crucified by Pilate but God raised him that one see that's the Epis taluk quality of our faith and it's signaled beautifully in the second reading which is grounded in the Apostolic witness and then finally of course we hear from the gospel itself here's the word in person speaking Y beautifully we accompany that proclamation by the Alleluia by the by flame and by smoke and so on with with heightened solemnity we listen as the word speaks now do we stop for responding at this point no no the homily in many ways that I'm speaking especially now to the priests and bishops those deacons who preach preach is very important moment I think in the mass because it's a kind of bridge does the homily further explicate and unpack as we say the Word of God yeah it's a continuation if you want it's an application of the word of God to the present situation but you know how in a really good sermon the preacher is also channeling the fears and aspirations and desires of the people he's also standing as a kind of representative of the members of the mystical body he's a bridge figure there it's the words spoken but also our words spoken back then the cream I think way too often people think well I get another interlude you know in the mass now we're gonna we're gonna pause and I guess we're gonna recite this old thing from the you know from the fourth century this very didactic theologically sounding thing no no think of the Creed as part of our great response to what we've heard the Creed if you want everybody is a one page summary of the Bible it's putting in very laconic doctrinal language a summary of the whole biblical revelation we hear about creation we hear about the Incarnation we hear about the dying and rising of Jesus etc and what do we say what do we say I believe I believe I believe see you next time you're reciting the Creator singing it don't just think of it as a little interlude that's your moment to stand up having heard the Word of God and you now say yes I believe it I accept it you know what that means of course so much more than just in your mind I accept it with my whole body so I believe it's a very powerful moment and then wonderfully in the prayers of the faithful having heard what God has done in the Old Testament in the history of salvation in Jesus Christ crucified and risen having heard that great story again what do we do we now come back to God with a with a confident request Lord as you've done great things in the past we are confident you will do great things now and so we make bold to ask and ask and ask you see how the prayers the faithful are part of this call-and-response process okay with that now let's turn to the Liturgy of the Eucharist head and members having called out to one another having been knitted together are now ready to make this great act of sacrifice now I know sacrifice is kind of alien to us when I was coming of age we were very big on the the banquet and the table of the Lord etc and that's essential as I'll say to the man's it is indeed banquet is indeed table of the Lord we were uneasy with the idea though of sacrifice and if altar and of priesthood that all seemed a little bit alien you know they say by the way if someone today went in a time machine back to ancient times what would most strike us in in the ancient cities would be the prevalence of sacrifice how central it was to the ancient religions including a Jewish religion but animals would be sacrificed to God or to the gods how central it was to the way cities were organized they always say by the way that as the Israelites approached the temple they could smell it long before they could see it it smelled like a great barbecue all these animals being sacrificed and we say oh how odd and how peculiar that is well in a way the logic of sacrifice is pretty straightforward we take some aspect of God's creation and we symbolically return it to God as a sign of adoration reparation Thanksgiving sorrow does God need our sacrifice no it's extremely important point theologically we're not dealing with Greek and Roman gods right who were hungry and thirsty for our sacrifice sacrifice to me or I'll get angry with you that's all mythology that's not the biblical view how could the creator of all things ex nihilo need anything from our little world I'm driving it and don't you see it for example in in the prophets and psalms okay give the guy in need the smoke of your sacrifices it's not a question of God needing it rather by these acts of sacrifice we become rightly ordered aren't they acts of odd or ROTC oh by these symbolic gestures we become aligned unto God we give back to God so that we can become ordered that makes sense of it it's a really important point don't fall into a mythological understanding we benefit from worship not God God doesn't need it but we need it and so we make sacrifice to the Lord look at these opening moves now in the Liturgy of the Eucharist that we gather and bring forward gifts for the sacrifice now bread wine water and also money right now I know I'm gonna sound like just a money-grubbing Bishop when I say this but money is it's a very important liturgical moment see again that's where people tend to look at the watch and I know they're collecting the money you know no no that's of liturgical important moment cuz think of that money you know most of us know the little bread and wine and water in the back of church we don't even think about it I guess someone paid for those somewhere it doesn't really affect me but isn't it true when you reach in the old wallet and you have to pull out money and put it in the basket that costs you a little bit because you know that money stands for you know blood sweat and tears that money stands for hard work that you've done that money stands for something you could use for things you need it costs you a little bit good good that's why it's important liturgically it's an act of sacrifice now the bread and the wine those little elements that we barely notice but see they're meant to symbolize everybody the whole of the universe bread to say bread is to say the Baker that made it is to say that heated the oven to say bread is to say the wheat from which it came to say the wheat from which it came is to say the earth and rain and the Sun to say the Sun is to say the solar system same is true of the wine right the person that that prepared the wine to say that is to say the grapes from which it came to say grapes is to say vine to say vine is to say the earth and the rainwater and the Sun and to say the whole cosmos in those little puny gifts were meant to see all of creation and see how important this is coming to this moment of Auto rotc Oh as we lead this great praise of God we the members of the mystical body but in a way all of creation which is precisely why the priests at that moment in the great Baraka Prayer says blessed are You Lord God of all creation for through your goodness we've received the bread we offer you see the whole thing I've been saying is in those words it's all of the universe now being presented to the king of the universe as a great act of sacrificial adoration that make sense that's what's going on that part of the mass now in a Greek mythological context the gods need this so they'll be satisfied and they may be will be kind to us that's not the biblical thing what's the biblical view think now of of the feeding of the 5000 Lord there's all these people what are we gonna do what do you have oh nothing little business it defeats so many it's impossible give it to me give it to me and you will find it's sufficient for the feeding of the multitude when we give in a great act of sacrificial offering to God what God doesn't need God in fact now elevates and multiplies it for the feeding of the world what happens at the mass everybody is these little elements these these little container of bread and wine which would barely satisfy the physical hunger of a couple of people because God doesn't need it we'll come back to us elevated transfigured for the spiritual feeding of the world that's what's happening in this great act of offering to the Lord how about just a word about the about the Eucharistic prayer and the power of the word Karl Rahner the great Catholic theologian made a remark I've always found fascinating he said the Eucharist is a word event the real presence is a word event now what do you mean well the Council of Trent said Christ becomes really truly and substantially present how the verb Oram Latin for by the power of the words by Christ's words over these elements they are transfigured and transubstantiated now what does this mean well think for a minute how our puny words can change reality you know if I say something to you that's very cruel that can pierce you to the heart they can change you psychologically for years think of a kid who heard some very harsh word from his parents or a teacher or turn around a word of a praising of gratitude I mean can set you on a path changes your life I heard one of Thomas Aquinas arguments for God's existence when I was 14 freshman in high school changed my life there's no question about it set me on a path I've never left its true words words changed me well if that's true of our little words how about God's Word let there be light and there was light let the earth come forth and it came forth let animals team upon the furthest surface of the earth and so it happened in other words God speaks things into being doesn't it Thomas Aquinas said that our language tends to be passive and descriptive what he means is like oh there were I don't like 4,000 people in this arena so I came here I took it in and then I described it right I didn't make this reality happen I'm just describing it oh but God's Word says Aquinas is creative what God says is who's Jesus Oh a great prophet oh that's all he is the heck with him there's a thousand prophets right no no Jesus is the Word made flesh the word by which God makes the universe now becomes flesh so that what Jesus says is little girl get up Thani Takumi and she got up Lazarus come out and by God he came out my son your sins are forgiven and by that very act his sins are forgiven what Jesus says is now the night before he died Jesus takes this Passover bread and pronounces this is my body over the Passover cup this is the chalice of my blood look we can engage in little symbolic activities I could take my picture of the Beatles and say let's have the gathering of the Beatle society and that picture will symbolize our love for the Beatles great we can all do that if that's all we're talking about who cares know what Jesus says is that's why we speak of his real true and substantial presence in the Eucharist next time you're at Mass notice something that when the priest is doing the so-called institution narrative describing what happened that I before Jesus died he begins in the third person right Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to his disciples so he's he's telling you in the third person a story but then a very important moment he then switches to the first person gave it to his disciples saying take this all of you and eat of it for this is my body at that moment the priest is most fully in Persona Christi capitis in the person of Christ the head speaking not his own puny words but the words of Christ himself which have this transformative power and that's why we speak of this transubstantiation now look head and members knitted together turned now toward the Father to offer this great act of adoring sacrifice what do we give the father now not just symbols gathered from our ordinary earth but now we can present to the father the son and all of us United to Christ the head that's the moment everybody that's the moment of supreme adoration that's the moment we become properly aligned that's the moment when creation is knitted back together now does God need our sacrifice no rather any sacrifice we make breaks against the rock of the divine self-sufficiency and comes back to us what happens to that sacrifice offer to the Father it now comes back to us we are now fed with the body and blood of Jesus we're not modifying an angry god but no in this great act of sacrifice we ourselves become fed there's the the climax of a mass everybody that's what we're therefore that's what the call and response was about that's what the gathering was about to bring us to that moment then lastly and I'll bring this to a close having received the body and blood of the Lord having eaten and drunk we are now sent out do you have over here in England the the book the hymn book gather you sing from that I guess not it's very big in the spaces it's a big song book called gather one of the liturgical theologians I know in the state said that's fine but there should be a second handbook called scatter because because having gathered having been fed having been kristef ID now we are sent out here's something that there's no exception of those nobody in the Bible it's no exception of this nobody in the Bible is ever given an experience of God without being sent this is not some kind of mysticism whereby I just go to the top of the mountain to commune with God everybody in the Bible once they've encountered the Lord sent Fulton sheen the great American preacher said the Christian life has lived out in between two great commands come and go Jesus says come and follow me come and stay with me come and you know come apart and rest but then invariably he says go he sends them out all rida luboc the great French theologian said after the words of consecration the most sacred words of the mass and he was referring to the Latin Mass of his time our eta Missa asked our goal the mass is ended after the words of consecration the most sacred words are go and look everybody we know this now you don't have to fly over oceans to get to mission territory do you today you walk outside the door of any church in the Western world you're in Mission country you know with this rising tide of secularism and I see it every day especially among the young people losing a sense of God losing a sense of the transcendent they need us everybody they need us we who have been krysta fide at the mass now were sent to kristef i the world there's Vatican 2 in a nutshell if you want lumen gentium right the light of the nation's Christ the idea Vatican 2 wasn't so much to you know turn the church into the world it was to turn the world into Christ go go the mass has ended go and bring the light that you've seen bring the Christ that you've become to the world and that's the missionary purpose of the mass listen god bless everybody thank you for coming today and thanks for listening [Music] you

Channel: Catholic Church England and Wales

Views: 191,798

Rating: 4.7155108 out of 5

Keywords: Bishop Robert Barron, Word on Fire, Adoremus, Keynote, Speech, Eucharist, Christ, Christian, Catholic, Life, Mass

Id: DPR2u6NkZeU

Length: 58min 23sec (3503 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 12 2018