Introduction
Sunday is the center of the Church’s life. It is the first day of the week, the memorial of the first day of creation. It is also the eighth day, when the Sabbath finds its fulfillment and culmination in Christ’s Resurrection. Chronological time, in which death comes for all that are born, intersects with transfigured time, which participates in the eternal. Sunday marks the beginning of a new time and space: life in the Kingdom.
On Sunday, we practice how to live each day of the year in a holy way. It is a day of celebration and rest; a family, cultural, and social day; a liturgical day and a day of prayer par excellence. The Church prescribes the obligatory participation of the faithful in the Sunday Liturgy, although she also strongly encourages participation in the Eucharist more frequently, even daily, as a privileged means for Christ to be all in all.
The Eucharist
The Eucharist is the sacrament of sacraments, the source and summit of the whole Christian life. Within it are gathered together all the spiritual goods of the Church: on the one hand, Christ himself is brought to earth and by his incarnation, death, and resurrection the world is sanctified; on the other, our worship, prayer, and offerings in the Holy Spirit raise us to heaven and reach Christ and the Father. Our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions are inspired, confirmed, and strengthened by the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s sacrifice and of his Body, which is the Church. The one sacrifice of Christ is renewed and made efficaciously present in every Eucharist; the sacrifice of the faithful is united to him, thus acquiring a new value of intercession for all creation. The Eucharist renews the center of salvation history through Christ’s action and the Church’s response.
The Eucharist is called by various names, which underline different aspects of its inexhaustible richness. It is worth meditating on the meaning of each of them. Some of them are: Eucharist, because it is thanksgiving and praise; the Lord’s Banquet, because it is Christ’s last supper with his disciples and a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem; the Memorial of the Lord’s passion and resurrection; Holy and Divine Liturgy, because it is the center and richest expression of the holy life; Communion, because it brings about the union between Christ and his Church; Holy Mass, because the celebration of the mystery of salvation culminates in the sending or mission of the faithful to fulfill the will of God in ordinary life.
Preparation for the Eucharist
The Eucharist is the great celebration. Like all festivities, it begins with the excitement of the preparations, continues with its rites, and lives on in us once it has been celebrated.
Before attending the Eucharist, it is good to prepare the mind and heart. Perhaps it is a good time to go to the sacrament of Reconciliation, as well as to make peace with our brothers and sisters, so that nothing will weigh down our hearts when Christ comes to meet us. We can also ask ourselves for whom or for what we are offering the Mass, and what our spiritual contribution to the Offertory will be, alongside the bread and wine, so that Christ may fill it with his life and make it holy. What do we want to ask of the Lord? What do we want to give the Lord for him to sanctify and incorporate into his Kingdom?
Celebration of the Eucharist
The opening rites are part of the preparation: they transfigure space, time, and the heart, and they assemble the faithful together with Christ, the invisible head of the Church. The entrance; the priest’s reverence of the altar and greeting to the people; the sign of the cross, by which we renew our baptism and our participation in the eternal family (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); the penitential act and the singing of the Kyrie Eleison, by which we recognize ourselves judged and saved; the Gloria, in which heaven is opened and we hear the angels announcing the Incarnation; and the collect prayer, which highlights the meaning of the celebration.
The Liturgy of the Word reveals the Lord, who comes to meet us. It is the movement of love by which the Father gives us his Word to awaken our faith and asks us to accept it and bring it to life. The Reading of the Word makes us the Bride of the Lamb: by welcoming and listening to the Word, we become his body. He calls us; will we respond?
During the presentation of the gifts (the offertory), the priest, in the name of Christ, will offer the bread and wine to the Father, so that Christ may transform them into his Body and Blood. With the priest, we place our prayer, sufferings and works alongside the bread and wine, so that Christ may incorporate them into the Kingdom. He alone can bring to fulfillment all human attempts to offer sacrifices.
The Eucharistic Liturgy is the heart and summit of the celebration: the bread and wine will become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. By participating in Holy Communion, we receive Christ himself, who gave himself for the life of the world. The rite of Communion finishes with a moment of sacred silence and thanksgiving, followed by the closing prayer.
The Mass ends with a sending forth, a mission: to bring the new life transfigured by Christ to our personal life, family, work, society, and culture. “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life!”, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!”
Prayers In the Presence of the Eucharist
The Liturgy of the Eucharist is full of actions, words, prayers, and songs that together express an inexhaustible richness for our intimate relationship with Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. The times of silence are also signs: expectation, penitence, listening, praise, glory, adoration, thanksgiving. Silence helps us to ponder what has already occurred and prepare ourselves for what is about to happen. Tradition speaks of the great silence or sacred silence after Holy Communion, in which the Church recommends that there be no singing, so that the Word, the Liturgy, and the inspirations we have received can echo in our interior.
We have prayers that help prepare us in the presence of the Eucharist. Others help us intensify our Eucharistic sentiment. Others help us pray during certain moments of the celebration. Keeping in mind both the richness of the sacrament and the recommendations of the Church, together with the stage and state of our spiritual life, we can discern, with the help of our spiritual director, the usefulness of praying one or more of these prayers.
Many of the faithful remain in the church once Mass has ended to spend a moment in personal, spontaneous, or vocal prayer. Some Regnum Christi communities maintain the tradition of praying for the Pope and for vocations when the Celebration of the Eucharist has finished.