Next Week: October 25 Mass Appeal

The Mass is the source and summit of Catholic worship. It is a form of worship that can "feel" very different from Protestant services. and is indeed very different in form.

For next week, please read the links on the Mass. While you are at it, read the link on Original Sin, too. We won't be getting to that for a while, but this is a powerful post!

As you read about the Mass, keep in mind several things:

(1) We come to Mass to worship God. He is central in the Mass; we are not. Not to put too fine a point on it: It's not about us. It's not about the music, or the preaching or the people sitting next to us. It's about worshipping God in the manner that He prescribed at the Last Supper and in the way that the Apostolic Church has worshipped from the beginning. It is about preparing ourselves to serve Him by asking for and receiving His grace.

If we keep that perspective, we receive more than we could ever imagine from the Mass. When we enter into the Mass as one long prayer and act of worship, we are fed at a banquet that surpasses or expectations and meets our every need. But perspective is important! Preparing yourself for Mass is an important part of being ready to receive what it has to offer.

(2) Worshipping at Mass is obligatory for every Catholic, every Sunday, except in cases of illness or great hardship. Remember, at Mass, we are truly present at Calvary, we truly receive Christ Himself, body and blood, soul and divinity. What more do we need, and what on earth should keep us away?

(3) In Mass, we hear God's word both in the readings and in the liturgy, but we also receive His Incarnate Word, Christ, in the Eucharist.

We receive Christ at Mass to take Him forth in the world and share Him, through our lives and ministry, with others. We receive Him so that we enter into His life, and He can enter into ours. The grace received from the Eucharist helps strengthen and confirm our faith in very real ways.

The Catholic faith is Incarnational in theology and in liturgy, and this can be a very confusing perspective for Protestants who are accustomed to seeing communion and other rites of the church as merely symbolic. The Incarnation refers to God becoming truly man, and entering into the physical world.

Just as God chose matter (a human body) to bring Himself to Earth and to bring grace to humankind in the person of Jesus, He continues to use matter, in the liturgy of the Church, to impart grace to us for our spiritual journeys. The water of Baptism confers regenerative grace by the act of Baptism. The laying on of hands in Confirmation transmits the grace of the Holy Spirit. And the Eucharist, the Precious Body and Blood of Christ, communicate grace to us to strengthen us in our faith and in our lives.