Friday, September 14, 2018

171. The essence of the liturgy


The essence of the liturgy
YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 171
Ave Maria series
171  What is the essence of every liturgy?
Liturgy is always in the first place communion or fellowship with Jesus Christ.  Every liturgy, not just the celebration of the Eucharist, is an Easter in miniature.  Jesus reveals his passage from death to life and celebrates it with us.  [1085]


The Last Supper by  Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The Last Supper was painted between 1495 and 1498. …..171

The most important liturgy in the world was the Paschal liturgy that Jesus celebrated with his disciples in the Upper Room on the night before his death.  The disciples thought that Jesus would be commemorating the liberation of Israel from Egypt.  Instead, Jesus celebrated the liberation of all mankind from the power of death.  Back in Egypt it was the “blood of the lamb” that preserved the Israelites from the angel of death.  Now he himself would be the Lamb whose blood saves mankind from death.  For Jesus’ death and Resurrection is the proof that someone can die and nevertheless gain life.  This is the genuine substance of every Christian liturgy.  Jesus himself compared his death and Resurrection with Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt.  Therefore, the redemptive effect of Jesus’ death and Resurrection is called the Paschal mystery.  There is an analogy between the life-saving blood of the lamb at the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (Exodus 12) and Jesus, the true Paschal Lamb that has redeemed mankind from the bondage of death and sin.
“The blood (of the lamb) shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”  Exodus 12:12-13f
Sacrament: (Latin sacramentum=military oath of allegiance; the usual translation for the Greek mysterion=mystery) Sacraments are holy, visible signs instituted by Christ of an invisible reality, in which Christians can experience the healing, forgiving, nourishing, strengthening presence of God that enables them to love in turn; this is possible because God’s grace works in the sacraments.
Christ’s Work in the Liturgy
Christ glorified . . .
1085 In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father "once for all."( Romans 6:10; Hebrews 7:27; Heb 9:12; compare John 13:1; Jn 17:1)8 His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that Christ is - all that he did and suffered for all men - participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

JT  Last Supper by


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