Jun
15
The Same Mass
June 15, 2008 |
This morning, we had a visiting priest at Sunday Mass. He is from Uganda and is here to learn about us and raise some much needed funding for his missions.
And, guess what? It was the same Mass and he seemed perfectly at home in celebrating it.
The same Mass here as in Uganda, as in Rio, as in Paris, as in Warsaw, as in Vietnam, as in the Philippines. The same Mass throughout the world.
The Catholic Church is the one place where we are all one people dedicated to a common purpose - glorifying God and accepting his Son into our whole being both physically and spiritually. And we do this through our coming together to celebrate the Mass and then going out into the world with renewed strength to build Christ’s kingdom.
It really does amaze me, the universality of the Mass. I’m struck by it every morning when I pray the part of the traditional morning offering that has us offering our day “in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.” I feel connected to others in a way that I can’t get elsewhere. I feel whole when I know that, in the Mass, I am offering up one prayer in union with not only the rest of my parish, but with all of the other faithful in my archdiocese, nation, and throughout the world.
It’s just a shame that too many Catholics decided to sleep in this morning or haven’t been to Mass in years. It’s too bad that they have closed themselves off to a rather remarkable way that God and Christ have chosen to bring us together and make us feel part of a greater whole.
And speaking of feeling part of a greater whole, today is the day we celebrate Dads. For me, it’s a day to celebrate being a Dad, the single greatest gift that God has bestowed on me. It’s also a day to celebrate my Dad who took a little orphan boy and made me into who I hope is a good man. He didn’t have to do it - adopting an older child out of an orphanage - but he took on the Christ-like challenge and made a loving man out of a wounded little boy. It still amazes me what he did, but he did do it and his and my Mom’s love saved my life.
Comments
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The same Mass. It is a nice way of saying something I’ve noticed without putting into words. In the Navy I traveled to many countries and went to Mass around the world. I won’t lie and say I always understood the homily, but the Mass was always basically the same. On one of my ships we had a chaplain who was a Catholic priest from India with an accent that was very difficult at first (okay, not just at first). However, he one Sunday gave a homily that dealt with our Catholic reverence for the Blessed Mother Mary that I still relate to others years later. He spoke so clearly about how some question our love of Mary and then asked if we love Jesus what better way to show that then to love the mother he so adored. Maybe he just caught me on the right day or whatever, but the way he explained that just really stuck with me.
The same Mass indeed! Amen.
Wow. What a beautiful post.
I don’t often comment, but I regularly read your blog and find it wonderfully inspiring. Thank you.