With the shortage of priests in some areas, there developed prayer services for Sundays, which were called “Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest” (1993). This has sometimes led to an ambiguity or even to some confusion as to the meaning and value of the Mass. This reflection is intended to rejuvenate the sense of awe and reverence for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and to locate Holy Communion within its essential context of the Mass.

The Sacrifice of the Mass is the sacrificial offering of Christ, offered on the Cross on Calvary but made eternal by virtue of His divinity. He is King, Glorious in Heaven, yet He also remains Priest and Victim–Priest because He offers His one eternal Sacrifice to God the Father forever on our behalf, and Victim because the Sacrifice He offers is No One other than His very Self. This eternal Offering of Himself, begun on Calvary and eternal in Heaven, becomes *present* in reality at *every* Mass, but hidden and invisible.

The infinite power of the Son of God’s divine love, expressed ultimately through His complete sacrifice of His human Body in His Crucifixion, is *made present* at every Mass on earth. Only a sacrifice by God the Son could atone for the Original Sin against God the Father, the Sin which originated all suffering and allowed death into life. Only the Son of God could suffer the pain of every victim of every sin in history; only the Son of God could suffer completely the entire punishment deserved by every sinner in history.

Why do we go to Mass instead of praying at home? At home, we pray and offer what we can to God, but our prayer has limited value, finite value, because we are limited, finite human beings. In the Mass, however, it is JESUS Who prays as High Priest in Heaven, and our prayers and offerings are offered to God *through HIM* and through His perfect and eternal sacrificial Offering of Himself; and therefore, our limited, finite, imperfect prayers are taken up into His unlimited, infinite, perfect offering as God the Son to God the Father.

At the Mass, the Sacrifice of Calvary is present, which is the same Sacrifice of the Son to the Father eternally in heaven, which is the same Sacrifice offered sacramentally with the Apostles at the Last Supper. Therefore, at every Mass, the graces (all conceivable graces!) that Jesus won for all humanity in all of history are *APPLIED* to those who are present, to the degree that they pray with faith and hearts cleansed and open to the Lord’s graces. The Mass, the Eucharist, is the *source* of all Christian life, so all the sacraments flow from it; but the Eucharist is also the *summit* of all Christian life, so all the sacraments lead back to it, because nothing surpasses its power, its value, and its perfection, because no one other than Christ Himself–as God and Man–offers the Perfect Sacrifice of Himself to God the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Eucharist as Holy Communion is inherently linked to the Mass and should never be thought of separately from it. Every smallest particle of Holy Communion is the complete, whole Jesus Christ, God and Man, united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and united with every saint and angel in heaven. Holy Communion is the summit, the high point of the Mass–it is the fruit of the Lord’s *Sacrifice*, because the words of Consecration are words of *Sacrifice* (“This is My Body, which will be given up FOR YOU”), and these words of Sacrifice are *precisely* the words that make Jesus, God and Man, present in the Blessed Sacrament.

There can be a great risk of devaluing or neglecting the critical and *essential* link between the Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion, for example, if one attends Mass with the mentality of going “just to get Communion”–or if one habitually receives at Communion services in the absence of a priest. Without the priest, there is no sacramental action of the High Priest; without the sacramental action of the High Priest, no Eternal Sacrifice is made present at the altar; if the Eternal Sacrifice is not made sacramentally present, neither are the unsurpassable graces present in their fullness of forgiveness, redemption, reparation, and salvation–the graces that were won by that One Sacrifice and that the Lord intended to be applied through His institution of the Mass at the Last Supper.

“Communion services” in the absence of a priest were intended for extraordinary circumstances on Sundays in cases where the faithful were not able to attend Masses at nearby churches. For days when there is no obligation to attend Mass, if a weekday Mass is completely available, one would do beautifully to develop a spirituality of making “spiritual communions.” St. Thomas Aquinas described spiritual communion as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament and in lovingly embracing Him as if we had actually received Him.”

Blessed John Paul II wrote in Ecclesia de Eucharistia #35:

The Eucharist thus appears as the culmination of all the sacraments in perfecting our communion with God the Father…In the Eucharist “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union”. Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of “spiritual communion”, which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. Saint Teresa of Jesus wrote: “When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you”.

For example, an “Act of Spiritual Communion” is a prayer by St. Alphonsus Liguori:

 

“My Jesus, I believe that Thou art truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love Thee above all things, and I desire to possess Thee within my soul. Since I am unable now to receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace Thee as being already there, and unite myself wholly to Thee; never permit me to be separated from Thee.”

But one can make a spiritual communion with any sincere prayer that expresses the desire to be spiritually in communion with the Lord. By doing this, one receives the graces one would receive spiritually with sacramental Communion (to the degree that one is disposed and in a state of grace), and the desire and love for the Mass deepens. Why not try this beautiful spirituality that has been the practice of great saints with great love for the Lord and His Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

 

Tags : BLD, Calvary, Christ, Communion, Eucharist, priest, SUnday
Categories : BLD Notices