Living the Mass: A Deeper Look at the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist

By Christopher Lucas

In Living the Mass we encounter the Holy Eucharist as paschal mystery, the "Source and Summit of the Christian Life." We encounter God's love for us through what God has done and is doing for us in the Eucharist. The book presents the paschal mystery defined in a Trinitarian mode as the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It also presents new theology on the paschal mystery based primarily on the abandonment text of Matthew 27:46.

God gives God's self to us in love through the Mass as the ongoing work of redemption, and we imitate that love in response by living the Mass in everyday life—professing Christ, growing in virtue, overcoming sinful tendencies, increasing in knowledge of God, and exercising faith, hope, and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paraclete Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781612618548

Christopher Lucas

Christopher Lucas, Ed’s youngest son, is an actor, author, New York City tour guide, and Disney historian. He lives in New Jersey with his two young sons. Look for him on the web at ChristopherPatrickLucas.com.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

—MATTHEW 10:39

SELF-GIVING LOVE

SELF-GIVING LOVE IS OUR GREATEST ACT, and without it we are nothing. Such love makes the person; that is, we transcend ourselves when, transformed by grace, we achieve this higher level of life, which we also call holiness. This love is the true source of happiness. Self-giving love is precisely what the paschal mystery and the Eucharist are all about.¹ God pours himself out to us in love and calls us to love in return, never stopping throughout eternity.

This book is about the Eucharist as the paschal mystery and how that affects us. Since the paschal mystery is the mystery by which we are saved, first we must ponder how salvation comes through it. Also, through the paschal mystery we learn of God as the Trinity, for in it we see all three Divine Persons at work in the process of offering salvation. Thus, this book takes a Trinitarian approach.

WE ARE SAVED BY THIS LOVE

Christians believe that salvation comes through the death of Jesus by crucifixion. But how does the death of a man on a cross save us? How does Jesus’s death bring life everlasting? How does it make us whole, as the word salvation implies?

Jesus’s words and actions during his hidden life and public ministry were already leading toward salvation, because they anticipated the power of his paschal mystery.² But only in death was Jesus poured out for our salvation. Jesus is our salvation. Out of self-giving love he sacrificed himself to atone for our sins. Atonement is not appeasement of God, nor Jesus being punished in our place. Nor is it a payment to the devil to free us from his enslavement. Christ’s death as sacrifice, his offering of his life to God, is an expression of perfect obedience to the will of his Father. As an act of atonement, which means "at-one-ment," it is Christ making us one with God, in and through himself. Self-giving love is what has always mattered in Christian sacrifice.

IMPORTANCE OF THE PASCHAL MYSTERY

So, we are saved in response to the three Divine Persons giving us themselves in the paschal mystery—the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This divine self-giving is the very act of God being God; this act is not only revealed to us but also realized for us insofar as we live an authentic Christian life.

In the paschal mystery, the Father gives himself to us in his Son, abandons Jesus on the cross, and sends forth his Holy Spirit through Jesus. The Son, in doing the Father’s will, suffers and dies, abandoned, and in death breathes forth the Holy Spirit. These are the roles of the three Divine Persons in the Trinity: the Father initiating, the Son responding, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. Each one’s personhood is realized in the unreserved gift of self, in loving communion.

Theologians call the mutual, loving self-giving of the Divine Persons to each other in the Blessed Trinity circumincession, which literally means dancing around, as it were, in everlasting joy. That is how God is God, a community of love.

And love is what God is calling you and all his beloved people to in the paschal mystery. We become Godlike insofar as we give ourselves in love. Experience tells us that people become devout to the extent that they realize they are loved by God and called by that love to love in return.

For us, the paschal mystery is the most personal of all realities in our life. Nothing should be more intimate, more magnificent and important to you, for through it God is calling you to live by his divine love for all eternity in everlasting joy. Nothing deserves your attention and response more than this great mystery. You have already experienced it because all true human love is part of this self-giving love—requiring self-sacrifice that is a death to your false self and rebirth to your true self. This love is life-giving to you as well as to others.

REDEEM THE WORLD

As a Christian, your calling is very great. You are called to redeem the world! What? you say. Redeem the world? I thought Jesus did that and only he could do it. He did, but not completely. The truth is, out of incredible love for us, he left his work incomplete in order to give us a wonderful share in it. And that’s where you come in. You must cooperate with Jesus in your own redemption and that of others. God calls us to intimate participation in this great work, especially through the paschal mystery in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. You are intimately involved in the Eucharistic work of redemption whether you realize it or not. This work means most importantly two great acts: worship of God and proclamation of the Gospel—all to the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

This book presents six different perspectives for understanding the Eucharist as the paschal mystery—six ways of understanding how we come to salvation. Each constitutes a chapter of the book. Each brings out different aspects of how we are affected through our participation in the Eucharist. All will show how, through the Eucharist—as celebrated on our altars and as lived out in our everyday lives—we can most profoundly experience the paschal mystery and share that experience with others.

Chapter 7 explores how these perspectives are expressed through the Mass; and chapter 8, the final chapter, explains how they are reflected in the Mass as the remembrance of Jesus.

1  The term mystery is understood in this book as a reality or truth so rich in meaning that we cannot on earth fully understand it, and so it is always open to greater exploration.

2  Catechism of the Catholic Church, English translation for the United States of America, copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Liberia Editrice Vaticiana, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, #1115 (henceforth CCC).

Chapter 1

PROCLAIMING THE WORD

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

—MATTHEW 27:46

WORD ANNOUNCED ON EARTH

AT THE ANNUNCIATION, GOD THE FATHER announced his Word in human form. This