Pray – Eat – Love
Here is the audio file of Reflections on the Mass (Eucharist, Holy Communion) that I presented at St Michael and All Angels as part of a study series earlier this year. After the introduction by the Parish Priest, Fr Andrew Starky, the talk is about 25 minutes long:
The outline of the address is:
A missional approach to the Mass/Eucharist
God’s mission has a church
Kataphatic (Cataphatic)
Like this – but bigger, better – almighty…
Apophatic
Not like this
“Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,…
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might.”
“Between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying a greater dissimilitude.” Called the “Major disimiltude”
[Fourth Lateran Council (1215)]
“You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding.” Holy Anaphora of Saint John Chrysostom
“You are without beginning, invisible, incomprehensible, beyond words, unchangeable.” Anaphora of Saint Basil (about ten times a year).
Sign
Needs explanation – “Give Way” sign
Symbol
Doesn’t need explanation – a hug
Sacrament
God effects what it signifies
Sacrament as Presence
Divinisation – deification – theosis
God’s image being Transfigured into God’s likeness
Sacrifice
Being taken into God’s possession
The Eucharist as the repeatable part of the Sacrament(s) of Initiation
of being taken into God’s possession and into God’s mission
If you appreciated this post, consider liking the liturgy facebook page, using the RSS feed, and/or signing up for a not-very-often email, …
image: JESUS MAFA. The Lord’s Supper, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48272
