TURN YOUR HEARTS TOWARDS HOME 4
                         

By Glen Leo Mendonca, 

                                                                    Pastoral Associate

The Holy Father (Pope John Paul II) has asked us Catholics to make this jubilee year 2000"an intensely Eucharistic one ". The 47^th Eucharistic Congress is in progress in Rome this June 18f–25.

We believe in faith that Jesus Christ is, truly, substantially and sacramentally present, under the appearance of bread and wine. The Eucharist is a mystery and a reality – wherein Christ makes himself present body, blood, soul and divinity. (Ref. Bulletin 27 & 28 May, 2000)

He is our life giver and by recording this celebration in our hearts, minds, eyes and ears though our partaking, we express who we are and how we want to live in our parish community.

An immediate start would be:

Voluntarily attending the forth-coming 58th annual food and fair festival of St. Mary’s. It would be an opportunity for us to exercise good stewardship (Romans 12) to share our time, talent and treasure ‘money’ and would bring to this event an exuberant mood and an excitement that is pervasive.

The goal we know for this event is that of a "fund raiser" yet, through our participation, in the "one meal" our underlining agenda could be ‘building unity / a oneness’, amid the various peoples of our parish diverse in so many ways - still sons and daughters of God most high.

Traversing and wandering around the Mater Dei parking lot’s various food and game stalls, the Rhythm and Flow of the Eucharist liturgy that we attend can be carried forth towards our brothers and sisters by respecting, appreciating and loving them in reverence for "I see Christ in them".

Our simple gestures honest, down to earth and true by a "Hello" a "Hand shake"  "An embrace" or "A give me five" to the scores of the parishioners of "the one body" or "the one family" that we belong to, could indeed be a thrilling and profound experience.

This annual event has a sentiment and place in the hearts of nearly all our parishioners. Through our love and example the power of the Eucharist in our lives, can be carried across the boundaries of our parish to move the attendees, fulfilling the words (By this will all men know you are mine - by your love – John 13:35).

The challenge each one of us faces, then, is to allow ourselves to become Christ by receiving his Body and Blood, for, as Saint Augustine said, we become what we eat. See you at the fair and food - - !

This is "HALAKHAL" or of walking in God’s truth - each Christian learns, ‘bread’ into His flesh He turns to His precious blood the ‘wine'

Signs, not things are all we see: A sign that really effects what it symbolizes: The God-man is really present in and not just symbolized by, what appears to be a wafer of bread and a cup of wine. (transubstantiation – the elements are changed to the Body & Blood of Christ - His real, living and active presence)

Eucharistic prayer # 2"Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. - - - May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit."

Through this is my Body and this is my Blood we encounter the risen Jesus in a tangible way - a living encounter with the risen Jesus and a bonding like no other.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy #10, 4 Dec. 1963, states "the summit toward which the activity of the church is directed and the fountain from which all its power flows" meaning it is a sacred life giving ritual.

I Imagine – the Almighty God suffers me to touch him, move him and eat him! When I move my hand to my mouth with the Host, I move God through space. When I put him here, he is here. When I put Him there, he is there. The prime Moves lets me move him where I will. It is amazing as the Incarnation itself, for it is the Incarnation, the continuation of the Incarnation.

A weakness is that through ignorance, of what the Sacrament is. The meaning and purpose might have escaped us, or through routine celebration of the same, we could treat it as "dead" rituals like one that has become rote or gone awry, an amnesia, dullness, emptiness or one of spiritual laxity and fatigue.

The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a magnet drawing us to Him (especially the lost-sheep and the-would-be-strays) The Church’s biggest drawing card is not what she teaches, crucial as that is, but who is there. "HE IS HERE! THEREFORE YOU AND I (ALL OF US) MUST BE HERE." All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do.

What are the reasons of us (YOU & I) coming together for Mass?

Is it a celebration of our faith in God?

Is it merely fulfilling an obligation or going through the motions?

Is it just the continuing of a custom that has become a habitual part of our weekly schedule?

We are reminded of the enormity and profundity of God’s gift to us in Jesus, and that we are to appropriate that gift, not merely in a ritual manner or an annual basis but by a thoroughgoing conversion and a daily cooperation with God’s ever-present and ever-active grace.

Is there a genuine concern to form one body in Christ – a life sharing relationship?

It however does require a knowing, conscious, active, deliberate and sustained response to God that is to be reflected in the day-to-day life of us believers.