The Catholic Mass Explained - A Biblical Walk Through The Mass - Dr Edward Sri

[Music] I want to start off with a story. I start off with a story. Um, there was a friend of, uh, my cousin actually, who came from Italy and he came to the United States for the first time and visited me in Chicago and my family. And he had never been to America before and he wanted to really experience life in America. And we wanted to give him a unique American experience, something he could never get in, in Italy. And you know what we did? We took him into downtown Chicago. We took him to the big stadium for an NFL football game with the Chicago Bears. Uh, now I got to tell you, my cousin Stafeno, he loves football. He is passionate about football. He knows everything about football. The only problem is his football is what you and I call soccer. So, he has no idea about American NFL football. And so, you can just picture like, you know, we'd, you know, make a great play and everybody's standing up and cheering. Yay. And then Stafeno looks at me and he goes, "Yay." And he goes, "Did we win?" Said, "No, we just made a good play." And then the referee makes a bad call and we all put our fists in the air. Boo. And then he says, "Boo." And he goes, "Did the other team score?" "No, no, it was just a bad call." And you know, if you've never seen American football, it's really complicated. You don't really know what's going on. But we made an amazing play. We scored a touchdown. Everyone's jumping up and down. They're high-fiving each other. And Stafeno is high-fiving all these people he doesn't know. And he looks at me with a little smile. He doesn't even bother asking a question. He's just kind of smiling as if to say, "I have no idea what's going on, but I'm sure it's good for the Chicago Bears."

And I share that story because, you know, he was kind of just going through the motions with everybody else, standing up, cheering, booing, shouting, high-fiving, but he didn't really understand what it was all about. I think that could be many people's experience of the mass. That they show up at mass and they go through the motions with everybody else. They stand, they make the sign of the cross, they say, "Thanks be to God. Allelujah. Holy, holy, holy." Uh, we go through the motions, but do we really understand all that we're saying and all that we're doing in the liturgy?

I remember one time I was flying to go give a a talk on the mass. Uh, and there was sitting next to me this woman who, as we got up in the air, she puts her tray table down and she pulls out a Bible and a little devotional book and she's got these colored pencils and she's highlighting things and making notes in her journal. And I thought, "Wow, she's doing a Bible study at 36,000 ft. This is awesome." And so I asked her, I said, "Excuse me, are you a Christian?" and she says, "Oh yeah, I'm a Pentecostal." And she says, "Are you a Christian?" And I said, "Oh yeah, I'm a Catholic." And she looked at me a little funny going, "Are Catholics Christian?" Just kind of wondering. But she was a sweet lady. Um, and I asked her where she was traveling. She told me about her travels. And she asked me where I was going. I said, "Well, I'm going to a Catholic conference where there's going to be a thousand Catholics gathering together and they're all learning about the biblical basis of our Catholic faith. And I'm actually going to be a presenter there. I'm giving a talk about the mass. And I'm going to be talking about how everything we say and do in the liturgy is all rooted in the Bible. And the more we know the Bible, the more we could give ourselves to Jesus in the Eucharist." And she looked at me a little overwhelmed. But she was a very kind, sweet lady. And she goes, "You know what? I attended a mass once. I was 16 years old. I went with my Catholic friend in high school. And man, I showed up and there was a lot of standing up and sitting down and kneeling and reading from a book and crossing themselves. I had no idea what was going on, but I had a sense that there was something deeper happening in the mass." And I love that from this outsider's perspective. She wasn't Catholic and at first she's like just going through motions, but she had a sense there was something deeper happening.

I want to bring you today into that something deeper, which is, and I want to be clear, the deepest thing that's happening is is the bread and wine being changed into the body and blood of Christ. The real presence of Jesus. What looks like bread, tastes like bread, feels like bread, smells like bread, and sounds whatever bread sounds like. According to all of our senses, it it seems like bread, it seems like wine. You put under a microscope, you're not going to see Jesus' cells floating around. You're not going to see a divine kidney. It's going to have all the chemical properties of bread and wine. But we believe as Catholics that at that moment of consecration, underneath those appearances, of outward appearances of bread and wine, Jesus is really present. That's amazing. And thankfully, more and more Catholics are starting to learn again about the real presence of the Eucharist. But what most of us Catholics don't know is the rest of the liturgy. That from beginning to the end, from the opening prayer to the closing prayer, there's so much God is inviting us to. And all those beautiful prayers and all those beautiful rituals, do you know where they come from? There's a secret code book that answers all the questions about where these prayers and rituals come from. Do, do you know about that secret code book? It's called the Bible. You own one. And we're going to talk about that. So, you ready to jump in?

>> Okay. Let's ask for Mary to pray for us again here. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. >> Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Who knows the opening prayer of the Mass? What's the first prayer of the Mass? >> It's We just did it. The sign of the cross. Isn't that cool? Did you know the sign of the cross isn't just the way Catholics begin prayer? It's actually a powerful prayer in and of itself. And there's two things we're doing when we make the sign of the cross. On one hand, we're calling on God's name. We're saying the words, "In the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit." And secondly, we're tracing the cross over our bodies.

Let's talk about the words, "In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit." In the Bible, when we call on God's name, we're invoking his holy presence. We're inviting his holy, sacred, powerful presence in our midst. We see this at the very beginning of the Bible. I don't know if you know this, but Adam's own children in the book of Genesis chapter 4. We read about the sons of Adam, the son of Seth and and then his descendants. And it says that at that time they began to call on the name of the Lord. Abraham calls on the name of the Lord. Moses calls on God's name. David calls on God's name. Invoking the presence of God in worship. So it's saying that what I do in this sacred, this place, this time is different than what I do out there. I'm invoking God and inviting him in. That's why Jesus, do you remember what he says? "When two or three are gathered in my name, what does he say?" "There I am in your midst." So how beautiful it is that we don't just go, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. No, no. We, we were saying, "I am inviting you, almighty, all-powerful, all-holy God, to be right here with me in my midst." That's a beautiful way to begin the liturgy.

And then we trace the sign of the cross over our bodies. Did you know that even that ritual of tracing the cross has profound meaning? In the Old Testament, there was a a story in Ezekiel chapter nine. Now, I, I'm pretty sure most of you have a big devotion to Ezekiel. You probably used it for, uh, Lexio Divina this morning, right? Is what you did. But just for the rest of you that maybe don't know, I'm going to tell you. Just kidding. We all don't probably don't read Ezekiel that much. But let me tell you what was going on in Ezekiel's time. It's a time of great cultural crisis. It's a time when many of the the Jewish people were becoming paganized. They started worshiping the pagan gods in Jerusalem. Even the priests, the Jerusalem priests are bringing pagan idolatry in the holy temple. This is a time of great unfaithfulness. And God gives a warning in Ezekiel 9 that he's going to come in judgment on the city. If the city doesn't repent, a foreign nation, Babylon's going to come and destroy the city, destroy the temple, and the people will be carried off into slavery. But there's some good news in the midst of this bad news of darkness. The good news is that not everyone has gone astray. There are some faithful Jews in Jerusalem that are remaining loyal to the ways of God. And those are those ones are not going to suffer the great crisis coming. They're going to be protected. And there's a sign of their, of their closeness, a sign of God coming to them and helping them and protecting them is, is this, this, this mark that they're going to get on their forehead. It's a spiritual mark of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is the, the Hebrew letter Tav. Now, if you know what that letter looks like, it looks like this. It's kind of like a cross. And so that was a sign that these are the faithful ones. It also was a sign that these are the ones that God's going to protect when the judgment comes. And the early Christians understood that when they made the sign of the cross, they're standing in that great tradition. They're standing in the tradition of Ezekiel. What they're doing is, if you're a Christian in pagan Rome, you're saying when you make the sign of the cross, "I choose to follow God's ways, not the world's ways. I'm going to follow the cross, not what the culture is saying." And it was also a sign of their own protection in their lives.

So, I want you to hear what one of the early church fathers said about the sign, the power of the sign of the cross. This is St. Cyril of Jerusalem. He said, "Let, let the cross be made with our fingers on all occasions, over the bread we eat, over the cups we drink, in our comings, in our goings, before sleep, on lying down, and rising up, when we're on our way, when we are still." Notice they didn't just make the sign of the cross before, "Bless us, O Lord," or before going to mass. They made it all the time. It was a powerful prayer they brought into their daily lives. And they said, "The sign of the cross is a powerful safeguard. It's a badge of the faithful, a sign of our faithfulness, and it's a terror to the devils." I love this. Many of the church fathers understood the power of the sign of the cross that the demons would flee when a Christian would make the sign of the cross. Cyril goes on to say, "When they, when the demons see the cross, they're reminded of the crucified one, and they fear him who has crushed the head of the serpent, the head of the dragons." And so this is the beauty of this prayer. I want to just encourage you before we continue looking at the mass, just to know that the, the sign of the cross is a prayer you can bring into your daily life. When you notice yourself getting angry, you can make the sign of the cross. You can know when you notice yourself getting discouraged, you can make the sign of the cross and the demons of discouragement will be driven away. You're struggling with purity, make the sign of the cross. You're struggling with being anxious about something, you can make the sign of the cross. It's a powerful prayer. And for those of you who are parents, you can trace the sign of the cross over your children. What you're doing is you're setting them apart, setting them apart to be the faithful ones and asking for God to bring protection in their lives. So the sign of the cross in and of itself is a powerful prayer.

Now let's turn to a the next prayer. What do we say next? The priest says what to us? >> The Lord be with you. And then we say, >> "Right, you all know the New Mass Translation." You got it down. Way to go. But "The Lord be with you." Did you know what those words meant originally? Did you know that those words were used by God or by God's angels to address certain men and women when they were being called by God to a daunting task, a sacred mission, something that where they're going to be stretched like never before. They're going to have to rely on God like never before, which is why God or the angel say to that person, "The Lord is with you." Uh, so for example, you remember the story of Moses? I remember as a kid, you're thinking of Moses in the burning bush. I remember thinking, "Wow, that'd be really cool if I went in my backyard and God talked to me in a bush. That'd be really amazing." But think about it. If you're Moses, think about what God asked him to do. It's pretty daunting. God says to Moses, "Hey, Moses, I want you to go back to Egypt where they were trying to kill you. I want you to go confront that wicked dictator, Pharaoh, and go try to convince Pharaoh to let the people go." Now, how many of you think that was a job Moses was gunning for? No, he tries everything to get out of it. He says, "Lord, I don't know much. I'm not a good leader. I'm not eloquent. The people aren't going to listen to me. I don't know much about you." He tries everything to get out of it. And what does God do? Does God go to Moses and say, "Oh, Moses, no, you're a lot better than you think. You got this. You can do this." Is that what God does? No. God basically says, "That's a good self-assessment. Yeah, you're pretty pathetic." But you know what? Moses, it's not about you. It's not about you. And he reveals his name. He says, "I am who I am." In other words, it's not about you. I will be with you. He says in Exodus 3 and 4, over and over, God says, "I will be with you. I will help you, Moses, to do what you cannot do on your own." And, and, and you see this pattern, and not just Moses. Joshua, when he's getting ready to go into the promised land, large army, he's ready to pounce on the Israelites, what does God say to him? Be courageous. I'm going to give you a big army. No, he says, "Be courageous because I will be with you, Joshua. I will protect you and the people. I'll help you do what you can't do on your own." Gideon in the book of Judges 6:12, do you know Gideon was called by God to go fight off the Midianites who were attacking the people? You know how much military experience Gideon had? Zero. Do you know how much army he had? Zero. But the angel says to him, "The Lord will be with you." David becomes the first king. And what does God say? You're just amazing. You took that great leadership class. That's why I chose you. No, you're the youngest. You're the smallest. You're the last person anyone would think about, but you're going to be a great king. Why? Because I will be with you. The prophets heard these words when they began their prophetic ministry. And a young virgin from Nazareth heard those words when she was called to become the mother of the Messiah. "The Lord will be with you." We hear those words every time we go to mass.

And what does it mean in the context of the liturgy? What do you think it means when we hear, "The Lord be with you"? On one hand, on a basic level, I think God is speaking to us through whatever it is we're feeling burdened by. Wherever we're feeling, "I don't have enough. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough energy. I don't have enough talent. I don't have enough wisdom. I don't have enough money." Whatever it is, like, like God wants to support us. He's going to be with us in whatever we're carrying in life. I think we can take that away from that. But I think there's an even more important message in the context of the liturgy. Just as God came to Moses and Joshua and Gideon and Mary and David and the prophets and called them to a big daunting mission, do you realize that in the liturgy you are being called to a sacred journey? Something that is going to stretch you like never before. Something that's going to require God to be with you. You are not going to be able to proceed in this sacred liturgy without his help. Do we realize that? Well, what do we, I'm just going to church. What's the big deal? Why do I need to compare myself to Moses and Joshua and David? No, no, you're not just going to church. When we come to mass, we're not going to church. I mean, we might go to this building, but that's not what we're doing. And so many Catholics, "I'm going to church today." No, no. We are going to encounter Almighty God himself in the sacred liturgy in two main ways. What are the two main ways we encounter him? We encounter him first over here in the Liturgy of the Word. Do we realize that God is coming to speak to us in the Liturgy of the Word? This isn't just a bunch of readings from a sacred text and stories from a long time ago. No, we believe that this sacred text is inspired by God. It's God's word and the words of men. And God is coming to speak for you. He has a word for you in those readings. And what the word he has for you might be different than for you. It might be different for you. Might be different for you, but there is something he wants to encourage us with, inspire us with, challenge us with. These are the inspired words of God. Did, and we have to get ready for it. Did you know that when the Israelites got the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, they did not get those Ten Commandments on the tablets of stone at first? That came later. Do you know how they heard about the Ten Commandments first? God spoke the Ten Commandments to all the people. He spoke them. They heard it first. Later it was written down. First he spoke the words. And did you know, read Exodus 19, when God was preparing the people, he told Moses, "Get the people ready. I'm going to come speak to them. Prepare them. Get them spiritually ready." He said, "Consecrate them. Have them consecrate themselves for three days so that they can be ready to hear me." Wow. Three days of intense spiritual preparation to hear God speak. What do you do to prepare to come to mass? Most of us go, "I'm going to church." You know, we're listening to our favorite playlist. We're listening to some sporting event or a podcast on the way in. We're just talking about the weather and then we just walk in. No wonder we don't get much out of mass. People say, "I don't get that much out of mass." Well, how much are you giving? How much are you preparing? The Israelites consecrated themselves for 3 days so that they could adequately hear God speak to them. But we have all this noise in our head. We have all this pressure, the to-do lists on our head. We're thinking about what people said in the day. We're just, we're just not present to Jesus. Can we do something to prepare ourselves for this sacred encounter with his word? Can we show up for mass early and just have time to quiet ourselves down? That would be a good thing. Maybe you have the readings. You can look at the readings before mass. You could do it from home. You could do it earlier that morning or earlier in the week. Look at what are the readings on Sunday so that you can prepare yourself so that God may speak to you. When the priest says, "The Lord is with you." It's like a trumpet blast. Get ready. You are getting ready to encounter the Almighty God who's coming to speak to you in his word. "The Lord be with you." May he be with you to prepare you for that.

But that's just the first half. The second half is God is going to come down on our altars. The bread and wine is going to be changed into his body and blood. God is going to be in our midst, but not just on our altars. He's going to enter your very soul through Holy Communion. Are you ready for that? I mean, sometimes I think this opening exchange, the sign of the cross, "The Lord be with you," and "With your spirit." You know, right back at you, Father. We just kind of just take it for granted. But if we understand this biblically, this is meant to be a wake-up call. That what we're doing now is different than everything else we do in this world. What we're doing now is the most important, the most amazing thing happening in the universe. More important than whatever is happening with Taylor Swift and her engagement, more important than whatever is happening in the news highlights. More important than whatever is happening with my favorite sports team or what's trending on social media. Infinitely more important is what's happening. God's coming to talk to you and he's coming to enter into you in communion. We got to get ready. That's why the priest says, "The Lord be with you." And the whole opening prayers are all about getting ready. We invite God's presence in, "In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit." "The Lord be with you." Okay, I got to get ready. And then what's the first thing you think we need to do to get ready? If I want to encounter God worthily, what do I need to do? I need to confess my sins. And that's what I do in the Confiteor prayer. And then I cry out for his mercy in the "Lord, have mercy" prayer. Let's think about this prayer for a moment. I want to linger on this one biblically. What does mercy mean biblically? Mercy, the Hebrew word for mercy is *hesed*. God's unconditional love. God loves us even though we don't love him. That's what mercy is. Now, as a child, I didn't think of mercy this way. You know what I thought of mercy? And in the States, we have this little children's game kids play. It's called Mercy. Do you, do they play that here? Little boys play Mercy. Do they, What's your name? >> Martin. >> Martin, would you come up here? Can I use you as, you know, the game? Okay, come up here, Martin. So, you put your hands together. Is this how you play it here in Australia? And then what you're doing is it's like a tournament of strength. You're trying to overpower the other person. But Martin's a lot stronger than me. So, Oh, wow. He's just like, like breaking my wrist. And the only way the game ends is if I cry out, "Mercy," and then Martin lets go. He wins. I lose. Let's give it up for, for Martin here. Thank you. I used to think that that's what mercy was about. That mercy was about, you know, God is mad at us. He's going to pour out his wrath on us because we sin. But if I just cry out mercy, he'll pardon me and let me into heaven. That is so far, so far from who God is. And it's so sad that so many Christians have this weird view of God. It's not their fault. It's the way they were taught or the way they were raised. Our parents often give us the primary image of who God is. If we had a very, you know, demanding parent like that, we might project that onto who God is. No, God is just love. God is love. And he loves us even when we don't love him. And that's why that Hebrew word for mercy, *hesed*, is so important. Yeah. They, it's kind of like this. Like in my, my kids years ago, I remember when they were young. I had two of them that were in this room and they didn't know I was watching them. And all of a sudden, the older sibling came and took the little sibling's toy and she just walked off with it like this. Now, what do you think happened to the little toddler when, when the older sister took away the toy? What did he start doing? >> No, he didn't cry. >> You haven't had kids in a while. He did what I called the delayed cry. It goes like this. He went like this. [Laughter] And I was over here in the other room. I noticed that and I thought, uh oh, okay, that's a, that's a yellow card. Okay, you can't, you can't do that. And I was going to go in and issue discipline. But they didn't even know I was watching. All on her own, she, she noticed that her little brother was really sad and she felt bad about it. And so she went right back and she put the toy back in his lap and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry. Here you go.' And gave him a big hug. And I was over here going, "Whoa, did that just happen? Wow, that was amazing." I was going to come in and issue discipline, but in the end, I was just like, "Oh, that was awesome. Way to go, kids. I just love you guys." Because I saw not what she did. I saw more than the legal violation, the thing that she did that was wrong. And she did do something wrong. I saw more than that. I saw her heart. And her heart was recognizing, "Oh yeah, there's a part of me that wishes I didn't do that. So, I want to go set things right. I'm going to give him back the toy. I'm going to tell him I'm sorry. I'm going to make a repair." All on our own. So, we might do things that are wrong in our lives, but that's not the whole of us. Usually, there may be other parts of us that recognize, "Oh yeah, I don't resonate with that." And those parts are really good. And if we can lead from ourselves and know, okay, hey, yeah, I shouldn't have done that. And, and I trust that God is up in heaven not going, "Oh, you did something wrong. You broke this rule. You broke this commandment." No, no, no. God sees the whole of us. He sees all the parts of us. And, and he, and he sees the good parts. And there was that other bad part there that did something wrong, but he sees the good parts. And he can build off of that. This is mercy. This is covenant *hesed* love that we're not defined by our sins. We don't have to be completely defined by them. We are not the sum total of our weaknesses. John Paul II said, "But the sum total of the Father's love for us." And we should have confidence and trust that I can go to the Father no matter what I've done, no matter how serious it was, no matter how many times I've done it, I can go to him and trust myself to his *hesed*, his mercy. Especially in the sacrament of reconciliation. We do it in a, in this way in the *Confiteor* or in the "Lord, have mercy" prayer every time we go to mass. But especially those serious sins, we want to bring to him in, in confession.

Okay. So let's, let's move ahead. Next prayer. The Gloria. Do you know where the Gloria came from? Do you know who wrote the Gloria? >> The angels. The angels who appeared to the shepherds over Bethlehem. They're the ones shouting out, "Glory to God in the highest and peace to people of goodwill." It comes from the angels. It's a beautiful hymn and it, it's the first Christmas song. So, here's my question. Did, did, are you going to sing the Gloria tonight or tomorrow when you go to the Sunday mass? Why are we singing Christmas songs in August? Why are we singing them in July? Why are we singing them in March? Well, actually, maybe in Lent, we don't use it. So, but why, why do we sing Christmas songs? Do you know why? Because in a sense, the mystery of Christmas is reenacted at every mass. The same God that came into our midst in Bethlehem in the manger. And the angels welcome him with those words, "Glory to God in the highest." That same God is coming in our midst, on our altars, and on our tongues, and in our souls. And so it's fitting that of all the things I could say in this moment, I echo the words of the angels welcoming Jesus 2,000 years ago.

All right. Then we have the readings from God's word. I've already talked about this. This isn't just readings from a long time ago. And we want to prepare ourselves for the Liturgy of the Word. So I'm going to skip over this because I've already talked a bit about this. I want to turn to the Creed, though. I want to ask you, why do we have to recite the Creed every Sunday? Can't we just do a one-year annual renewal? That's what I do with most of my online prescriptions, right? You know, subscriptions, you know, I'm just renewing myself, you know, just once a year. Why do I have to do this week after week after week? Is the church just checking up on you? "Hey, I want to make sure you still believe in the Trinity. I want to make sure you still believe in one, holy, Catholic, apostolic Church." You know, what is this all about? Why do we say it over and over again? I think the first words of the Creed, understood biblically, is really helpful. In Latin, it's *Credo*, but it's the words "I believe." I want to understand belief biblically. Did you know that the word belief in scripture has kind of two levels of meaning? Catechism 150 brings this out. On one hand, belief is an intellectual assent. It's something of my mind. My mind ascends, affirms everything that God has revealed through his Church. So there's an intellectual component to belief, but that's only half of what belief is. There's also the personal entrusting of myself. That's the second aspect of belief. Demons may know the truth of the real presence of the Eucharist. They just don't like it. They hate it. They hate Jesus. But they, they, you can know, you can memorize the Bible and the Catechism and not give yourself to the God who's revealed himself to you. So it's this personal entrusting. That's the second aspect of belief. I like to think about these two aspects of belief as, like, the difference between them is like the difference between a marriage and a math equation. In a math equation, I could say 2+2=4 and my mind ascends to it. I know 2+2 is 4. That's intellectual. But when I look my wife Beth in the eye and I say, "I believe in you," I'm not saying I believe Beth exists. No, I'm saying I believe in you. I entrust myself to you. I give myself to you. And that's what God is wanting to, to us to grow in. And week after week, yes, I am. It's good for me to remember the story, remember the Creed. That's good to constantly go back to that. And it's good for me to reaffirm my belief in this. But it's more than that. I'm re-entrusting myself to God. It reminds me of the story. Have you heard about the story that was about the guy that was climbing the tightrope over Niagara Falls? Do you remember the story? So, he makes it to the other side and all the people cheer him on and they say, "Do it again. Do it again." And he says, "Do you believe I could do it again?" And the people say, "Yes, we believe in you. Do it again." He says, "Do you believe I could do it again blindfolded?" And they say, "Yes, we believe in you. Do it again." He says, "Do you believe I could do it again?" blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrow over the tightrope. And all the people cheer him on. "Yes, we believe in you. Do it again." And then he says, "Do you believe I could do it again?" blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrow over the tightrope with somebody in the wheelbarrow. And they say, "Yes, we believe in you. Do it again." He says, "All right, who wants to get in?" You see, there's belief and then there's belief. It's one thing to say, "Oh, I believe all the Catholic teachings." It's another thing to jump in the wheelbarrow with God. How is God this Sunday inviting you to jump in the wheelbarrow with him more? What's that area of your life that you're afraid to hand over to him? You're afraid to let him in. You're afraid to entrust to him. Every Sunday after Sunday when we recite the Creed, we are standing up before God and each other and saying, "Lord, I reaffirm the story of our faith, the Creed, but I'm also, I, I want to jump in the wheelbarrow with me. I want you to be the foundation for my life more."

So, that's the Creed. Now, I want to talk about the next part of, uh, the liturgy. We have, we begin the Eucharistic Prayer. And here, this is an amazing prayer. You know, when I, when I wrote this book, I wrote this book many years ago, "A Biblical Walk to the Mass." And I had been teaching on it for, you know, 15 years previous. But as I wrote the book, I had to do research and get into, you know, the nooks and crannies of liturgy. This was one of those spots, and there were many of them, where I never really gave much thought to this, like, what does this really mean? And, uh, I was looking at the Church Fathers and I, I came across how much they emphasized this beautiful prayer. You see, the heart in the Bible is the center of all of our attentions. The center of our desires, all of our actions flow from the heart. What I'm doing is saying, "Lord, I want to give you everything. I want to give you my attentions, my desires, everything in the liturgy here as we approach the supreme moment of the words of consecration." But there's a, many of the Church Fathers realized, like I said earlier, we're not angels. We get distracted at Mass. It's too hard to pay attention to every part of a whole Mass. But if there's one part of the liturgy we want to really concentrate on, it's this part right here as we're getting into the climax in the Eucharistic Prayer. So I'm going to read for you here again. This is St. Cyril of Jerusalem. What he said about this idea of lifting up your heart. It's so beautiful. Um, hold on here. Okay. He said, "The meaning of this prayer, 'Lift up your hearts.' In this sublime moment, the heart should be lifted up to God and not be allowed to descend to the earth and to earthly concerns." I think about, again, it's, it's human. We're going to get distracted. But how many times I kind of just go through the motions even in the Liturgy of the Eucharist here and I want to really try to give God my best here. But instead, I'm thinking about the donuts they might serve after Mass, or I may be thinking about a project I have at work, or I think about what are we going to have for lunch. You know, really important things. But Cyril says, "With all possible emphasis, the priest exhorts us to lay aside all the cares of this life, all domestic worries, and let our hearts lift up to God in heaven." Direct our hearts to God in heaven. And then here's the line that really convicted me. I remember when I read this. He said, "Let there be none among you who shall confess with his lips, 'We have lifted up our hearts,' and allowed his thoughts to remain with the cares of this life." Think about how many times I've just gone through the motions and said, the priest says, "The Lord be with you." Say, "And with your spirit." "Lift up your hearts." "We have lifted them up to the Lord." I'm just like robotically saying the words. I'm saying with my lips I have lifted up my heart, but my mind is still thinking about those donuts or thinking about something someone said to me earlier that day or something else. I, so I, I say I'm lifting up, but I'm not. And I still, I want to admit, I still struggle with this even though I wrote the book on all this. But I will say more often than not, I am reminded of this at this moment. More often than in the past, I'm reminded, "Oh, lift up your hearts." This is an exhortation to give everything now.

Okay. "Holy, holy, holy" is another great prayer. When we sing the "Holy, holy, holy," this is when God, God is coming in our midst. That's what this reminds us of. Did you know where these words were first used? "Holy, holy, holy." In the Bible, in the book of Isaiah, in the book of Isaiah, we read in chapter six about how Isaiah has this vision of the angels around God's throne and they're bowing down, covering their faces, and they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." It's beautiful. And so, they're coming with such humble reverence. I mean, these are the great seraphim and cherubim, the angels closest to God, but they don't feel worthy to be in God's presence. And they bow down in humble reverence before God. And that's meant to be a reminder to us that when we come to Mass, we want to approach the Mass with a sense of reverence. We don't treat this sacred place like we treat other places. This isn't the place where we come and we just hang out and socialize. No, this is sacred space. I want to come in. And this is why when we come into a church and we see the tabernacle, we, we genuflect. We make an act of reverence to Jesus who's present in the tabernacle. We spend time with him after Holy Communion. There's things we do differently here. We don't treat it like an ordinary place. We treat this with humble reverence. If the great angels bow down before God and they even cover their faces and they're the sinless angels, how much more so I as a mere human being, a sinful human being, I, I shouldn't just treat God casually. "Hey, I'm going to church today. Hey, God, how's it going?" Now, you should talk to God as a friend. I talked about that, you know, of course, but we want to treat him with reverence.

Another thing about this prayer is, did you know, again, it's fitting, right, that if God's coming on our altar, it's fitting we repeat the words of the angels, what they say in his presence? But do you remember the other part of this prayer? What else do we say? "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest." Does anyone know where those words come from? Who remembers? It's a great feast day in the year. Palm Sunday. Excellent. That's what the people said when they were waving their palms and welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem. "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest." And we echo those words because we're welcoming that same King Jesus coming not on a donkey but coming under the appearance of bread and wine. Isn't that beautiful?

All right. So, everything we do, are you getting a sense? We're not covering every prayer, but every prayer has this profound biblical background. Can I give you one? I normally don't get to do. I just feel inspired right now. Like, even there's one little thing like right over here when the priest is getting ready for the Mass, he washes his hands over there. He washes his hands. It just seems like sometimes I can view that part. Okay, I can check out now. It's like halftime. You know, the priest is doing his thing. You know, I don't really have any responses right now. I don't need to do anything. I can just check out and think about other things. When you see the priest washing his hands, you should all be like, "Whoa, this is the big moment." This isn't like, "Okay, I'm going to go wash my hands, you know, after going to the bathroom." No, that's not what this is in the Bible. When the priest washes his hands, he's doing this as he's preparing to offer sacrifice, as he's preparing to approach the Holy of Holies, the holy presence of God. So, when you see the priest washing his hands, that's like this is the supreme moment. We're getting ready for it now. And we want to get our hearts ready for it like the angels singing "Holy, holy, holy."

All right. Now we get to the high point here. Are you ready? This is the biggest thing I want to share with you today. I want to talk about these words of consecration. You know these words. You've heard it, many of you, since childhood. "This is my body, which is given for you. This is my blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of." We've heard these words from our childhood, most of us. What do they really mean? Now, you remember those sad days of COVID, March 2022, April or 2020. Yeah, I know it lasted in especially in Australia all the way to 2022. Um, but do you remember those months and years where we could not receive Communion and how sad that was? Now, in America, things opened up quicker. I remember we were able to go back to Mass in June of 2020. We had to be socially distanced, only a few at a time, and many of the elderly and frail were given dispensations, they'd have to go. But I remember I only went like maybe a couple weeks with or a couple months without receiving Communion. And then I was blessed to be in a certain situation where there's only five of us in our office and a priest was one of them. We actually got to have Mass on some regularity even in the height of the pandemic. So I was very blessed. But my family could only receive, you know, very, we had to go many weeks and do on Sundays we were from home watching on TV like the rest of the world. And I heard many Catholics in those months of 2020 around the world share their heartbreak of not being able to receive Communion. How much they missed receiving the Eucharist. They missed Holy Communion. And that was very moving. I was encouraged to hear how much people longed, and that was a good thing that they longed for it. But I have to say, what was really sad for me is that I did not hear one single Catholic, I never heard of a Catholic, maybe they did, but I never heard of it, never heard of a Catholic ever say, "I miss the sacrifice of the Mass." They all said, "I miss Communion." Nobody that I heard ever said, "I miss the sacrifice of the Mass." And that tells me something. That tells me we have a catechetical crisis that most Catholics do not understand the sacrifice of the Mass. I know there's a lot that don't even understand the real presence of the Eucharist, but we don't understand the sacrifice of the Mass. People weren't longing for that. I remember just going, "Oh, I, I long to participate in the sacrifice." But it dawned on me that many people don't have a reference point for that. And I would, I would dare, I would bet that the majority, vast majority of even committed Catholics, if they had to explain why is the Mass called a sacrifice and what difference does this make in our lives, 90, over 90% of Catholics couldn't do it. I want you to be in the top 10%. So I want, we're going to cover this because I really want you to know this is so central to our faith. There are three aspects of the Eucharist. Do you know the three essential things you need to believe about the Eucharist as a Catholic? You even, can you even name them? It's not just real presence. I mean, that's beautiful and essential. But do you also know about it? So that the Eucharist is real presence. The Eucharist is Holy Communion. But there's a third thing that most Catholics don't know. The

Eucharist is sacrifice. And I want to walk you through this. Are you ready?

So this is what we're going to do. We're going to get in a time machine. We're going to go in a time machine. We're going to go back to the first century. And I want you to imagine being one of the apostles at the Last Supper. And these words that are very familiar because you hear them at every Mass. You've heard many of you from childhood. These words, I want you to hear them anew. I want you to hear them as an ancient Jew would hear them. If you were Philip, or you were James, or you were Andrew there at the Last Supper, what would these words have meant to you? And we're going to see that this foundational teaching of the Eucharistic sacrifice is so important for our day-to-day lives. If you want a better marriage, you want to be a better parent, if you want to grow in virtue, if you want to change and become more and more like Christ, you need to understand and live the sacrifice of the Mass. And the vast majority of Catholics have no clue about this. So, you ready to jump in the time machine with me? We're going to go.

So, here's what happens. You're Peter, you're Andrew, you're James, you're John. We walk into the Last Supper. And one of the first things that would have struck you is, is, is what Jesus says here at the Last Supper because the Last Supper was celebrated not at any ordinary, as, as an ordinary meal. What kind of meal was it? Do you remember?

It was a Passover. Now, for the Jews, Passover is like the, the, the highest feast day. And every year they would celebrate it on this certain calendar day that was on the same calendar day in which the first Passover was celebrated. And they did three things every time they celebrated the Passover. The father gathers everyone in the house and they celebrate the Passover. They do three things. First of all, they retell the story of the first Passover. So there's a retelling of the story. So they go through and they remember the fateful night in Exodus 12 when they took a lamb, and when they're under slavery in Pharaoh, and they took a lamb, they sacrificed the lamb, they ate the lamb quickly, and they put the blood on the doorpost. The angel of death passes over and they escape from slavery, and it was the beginning of their nationhood. And every year the Jews would retell that story.

But that's not all they did. They did a second thing. You know what they also did? They reenacted the story. They didn't just retell it. They did a, a, a skit on it. They did a reenactment of it. They actually took a lamb, had it sacrificed, and they ate the lamb.

But they didn't just retell it. They didn't just reenact it. The third and most important thing that I want to make sure you get is that they celebrated it as a memorial, a biblical memorial. What does memorial mean in the ancient Jewish biblical world? Memorial doesn't mean just to remember, to recall the past. It means to make present, to make the past event present. And so this is what the, the Hebrew word, uh, *zikaron* means, translated into Greek as *anamnesis*. Memorial is to make the past present. So the Jews believe that as they retold the story, they reenacted the story, the first event was mystically made present to them. That they were at one with their ancestors. That Moses and Aaron and Joshua, the original Israelites were spiritually present to them. As they were celebrating this ritual, there was a rabbi, a generation, just one generation after Jesus, that said, "When we celebrate the Passover, it's as if we ourselves are walking out of Egypt with Moses and Aaron and all those original Israelites. The past is made present." That's what memorial means.

Now, there's an example I like to use. Do you know in the United States, there's a certain day in July that we celebrate as the big founding of our country? We call it Independence Day. What day in July is that? Do you all know?

That's, I think it's fascinating. You all know the 4th of July. I'm sure you have your important dates, and I wish I knew them. You can tell me later. But on the 4th of July, we, everyone's off of work, and we have big picnics and barbecues, and we have parades and fireworks at night. Now, imagine though, if we, in, in the United States, celebrated the 4th of July, Independence Day, as a biblical memorial. We wouldn't just have a barbecue and fireworks and a parade. You know what we would do? We would gather, and we would retell the story of the founding of our country, but we wouldn't just retell it. We would do a reenactment. I'd be in my home, and I would get a, a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I would gather my children and our neighbors. We gather together, and I would solemnly read the original Declaration of Independence. And then every person would come up and write their, sign their names on it, reenacting the story. And as we did it, we would believe, if we were doing it as a memorial, that the past was made present, that the founders of our country, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, all these people were mystically made present to us as we were going through that. That's what memorial means. Does that make sense? Okay.

So, let's continue our journey through the time machine. We walk into the Last Supper. We're one of the apostles. And the first thing we're going to notice is, wow, something is different here. When Jesus says, "This is my body offered for you. This is my blood being poured out for you." What's very fascinating is that he doesn't reference a lamb being offered up. Isn't that interesting? Because what's the main dish of the Passover?

The lamb. The lamb was offered up in sacrifice. But Jesus doesn't mention a lamb. You know what he does? He takes this language that's from the Passover ritual, but he says, "This is my body which is being offered up." That's technical language from the temple sacrificial system where you would take the body of the lamb and have it offered up in sacrifice. Jesus takes that and applies it to himself and he says, "It's my body being offered up." And then when he talks about the blood, normally you would have the blood of the lamb poured out over the altar for forgiveness of sins. But that's not what Jesus says. Jesus says, "This is my blood which is being poured out for the forgiveness of sins." In other words, he's saying, "My body, my blood is like the body and blood of the Passover lamb. I'm the new Passover lamb being offered up in sacrifice. It's my body being offered up, my blood being poured out."

And then what does he say at the end of it? "Do this as a memorial of me, a remembrance of me." And *anamnesis*, the Greek word for memorial. What does memorial mean?

To make present. To make the past event present. What is Jesus commanding the apostles? Make this present. Make what present? This offering of my body, this pouring out of my blood. Make this present for future generations to enter into. When is Jesus's body and blood fully offered up? On the cross the next day. That's why we talk about the Mass, the Eucharist, as a sacrifice. Because the sacrifice of Jesus 2,000 years ago is made present at every Mass at these words of consecration. Did you know that when you go to Mass, it's like you're going to Calvary, or Calvary is coming to you? You become like the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John underneath the cross. Why is the cross made present to you? Catechism 1368 gives the answer. So that we can join our lives. We unite all of our works, all of our joys, all of our sufferings with Jesus as he offers himself to the Father. So I'm uniting all of my life with Jesus. This is what we hear these words. I want to give you everything, Jesus. I give you all the joys of this week, the sorrows of this week, the successes of this week, the hardships of this week. I give everything. I unite my whole life with you.

Why is this important? You see, as Catholics, when we look at the cross, we don't just see somebody who died for us so we don't have to die. Somebody who sacrificed for us so we don't have to sacrifice. When we look at Jesus on the cross, we see the fullest revelation of God, the God who is love. St. John Paul II said, "In Christ's passion and death, we have the fullest revelation of God's love." If I want to know what love is, I look at that. That's love. And when I see Jesus, I see his love on Good Friday. I'm inspired. I'm so thankful. But Jesus doesn't just want our applause. He doesn't just want to say, "Hey, good job, Jesus. Thank you." He wants our hearts. He wants to relive what he did on, on Good Friday. He wants to relive it in us because that's what we're made for. We're made to give everything to God.

And when I look at the cross, I'm challenged because I'm inspired and I'm thankful, but I'm also challenged because I look at Jesus. I see such gentleness, such compassion, such patience with the people that hurt him, that frustrated him, that misunderstood him. He's so gentle and compassionate with them. And I know when people let me down, or people hurt me, or they misunderstand me, or they don't appreciate me, I don't respond that way. I can get real whiny, or I can get defensive. And I, I want to, I want to take on your heart more, Jesus. I want to love more like you love. I want to be kinder and gentler and more compassionate. I, I need your heart to change my heart.

And I look at the cross, I see such courage, such willingness to endure suffering, to make sacrifices for the good of others. And I look at my own life and I see how I, I just like comfort. I like comfort. If it's a little too cold, I, I can kind of whine inside, or it's a little too hot, I can complain, or I need more air conditioning. I'm too attached to, to my comfort. And I look at Jesus, and he gives everything. He's courageous. I see Jesus does really hard things, and sometimes I don't want to do hard things.

I look at Jesus and I see such forgiveness. He forgave the people who were driving the nails through his hands. He forgave them. And I sometimes hold a grudge when somebody's five minutes late. I, I'm just, I, I look at this and go, there are so many areas I fall short in love. I see Jesus full of trust. He surrenders everything to the Father. He says, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." He puts everything in the Father's hands. And I look at my own life and I know I, I keep things in my own hands. I'm afraid to surrender this part. I'm afraid to let Jesus in this part. So I look at Jesus and I see his perfect love, and I see the many ways I fall short.

But when we come to the liturgy, to the sacrifice of the Mass, that total, perfect self-giving love is made present to us so that our hearts can be changed. Can I ask you, is there anybody here that has areas in their heart where they do not love totally, perfectly, sacrificially like Jesus does? Does anyone have that? Is there anyone here that has achieved that perfection? Is there anyone that's achieved perfect, total love? Because I want to meet you. Because if, if you've achieved that, that means you're a saint. And if I were to touch you, then I, I could say, I, I became a third-class relic because you're a saint. It'd be amazing. None of us have that, right? We're all struggling.

But did you know if you long to live greater self-giving love in your marriage, to really honor and love and cherish your spouse more, you need the sacrifice of the Mass. You need Jesus living, reproducing his perfect love through you to have a better marriage. If you long to be that, that better parent for your children, or a better grandparent to your grandchildren, you need Christ and his total, perfect self-giving love shining through you. If you long to trust God more with your life, you need the total, perfect love that we see on the cross coming through you. And where, and that can happen through prayer and through Bible reading and your devotions. But the number one place to grow in self-giving, sacrificial love is when we encounter sacrificial, total, self-giving love himself in the sacrifice of the Mass.

This is what it's all about. Our faith is not just about what do I get out of it? Did I receive? It's about also giving. It's a reciprocal relationship. I can't give if I don't receive. So, we want to receive Holy Communion, but in 2020, all I heard was about what I get, which is good. I want to get Jesus, God himself, dwelling within me. I missed that. But the fact that I did not hear anybody talk about the sacrifice of the Mass tells me that we have a, a little bit of a one-way street view of our Catholic faith. Maybe sometimes that we're looking more at what God does for me and what he gives me. Jesus wants to fill us with his life so that we, in turn, can join him on the altar and give ourselves in him to the Father in perfect self-giving love. Amen.

Okay, last thing. Right before we come up to receive Communion, the priest holds up the host. He says these words, "Blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb." Do you know who those were? Those words come from? They come from the Book of Revelation. Revelation 19:9, the climax of all of scripture. Revelation 19, the angel announces the wedding supper of the Lamb. This angel blows the trumpets, and then there's these words, "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

What is this mystical marriage feast all about? You know, in the Bible, there are many images that are used to describe our relationship with God. God is creator. God is lawgiver. God is the all-powerful one. When the Bible wants to describe our closeness with God, it may use things like God is a father. Jesus is our brother. But the image that describes our most intimate, close relationship with God is that of marriage. Where the Bible uses marriage to describe the closeness God wants to have with us. And it's so beautiful.

So at Mount Sinai, the ancient rabbis believed when they got the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments were like the wedding vow. And that Yahweh and Israel were married at Mount Sinai, and the desert wanderings was like the honeymoon. And Israel's faithful to the covenant, she's like the pure, spotless bride. But when she's not faithful and she breaks the commandments and she worships idols, she's like an adulteress or a harlot, even. But even though Israel has been unfaithful, remember God is faithful. He has covenant steadfast love. And so the Bible talks about this, that God is going to seek us out even when we've turned away from him. Hosea chapter 2 describes how God one day will come as bridegroom. He's going to come as the bridegroom, and he's going to go and seek out the unfaithful bride, though, and woo her back, win her heart back. That's how much God loves us.

And so there's these prophecies about the Messianic bridegroom, which is why it's no coincidence that the first miracle of Jesus takes place where? At a wedding feast. John chapter 2. In the next chapter, John chapter 3, John the Baptist says, "I'm just the best man. Jesus is the bridegroom." And all of this reaches its climax in Revelation 19 when the angel says, "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb." And the priest echoes those words at this moment, right before we get Holy Communion.

So, do you realize that when the priest says those words, do you realize what he's saying to you? Do you ever get a wedding invitation in the mail? Well, every time you go to Mass, you're getting a wedding invite. You're being invited to come to the wedding supper of the Lamb. And when you come down the aisle to receive Communion, you are no ordinary guest at this wedding. Who are you? You're the bride. You're the bride. As we come down the aisle, it's like, "Here comes the bride," and your divine bridegroom is coming to meet you, is coming to unite himself to you in the most intimate way possible here on earth.

That's why when you go back to your pew after receiving Holy Communion, this is not the time to look around and see who's there and what they're wearing. This is not the time to be developing your parking lot exit strategy. This is the time to rest with your bridegroom, to tell him you love him, to listen to him, to thank him, to pour out your heart and your need for him. Linger with him.

Let me close with this reflection from JPII about something I'd never thought before, never thought about. And I read this, I was like, that's amazing. JPII, the mystic, one time was thinking about Mary, what it would have been like for Mary to receive her first Holy Communion. You think about what that would have meant for Mary. Think about Mary at the Annunciation, conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives under the signs of bread and wine the Lord's body and blood. So she kind of anticipates the Eucharistic belief, right? She carries in her womb the very body and blood of Jesus. So, just, just think about this, that she just, you know, she has this anticipated Eucharistic, Eucharistic faith. And then we have the Last Supper. There's no evidence of Mary being there. She probably heard about it from one of the apostles. John Paul II says, "What, what must Mary have felt? What must Mary have felt as she heard from the mouth of Peter, James, and John, the words spoken at the Last Supper, 'This is my body which is given for you'?" The body given up for us and made present under sacramental signs was the same body which she had conceived in her womb. Isn't that amazing? She'd be like, "Whoa, Jesus giving up his body. That's the body that was in my womb."

And then JPII beautifully draws out the unique meaning Holy Communion would have meant for Mary. For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers. Think about that. Mary carried that baby Jesus in her womb for those nine months, gave birth to him, raised him, sent him off in the public ministry, accompanied him all the way to Calvary, rejoiced in his resurrection, was with the disciples for those 40 days, and then Jesus ascends to heaven. And then one day, Mary went to her first Mass. I don't know when exactly, but she went to her first Mass. Imagine what receiving Communion would have meant for her at that moment. For Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers.

My friends, when we understand the biblical background of the Mass, we see that this is our bridegroom dwelling within us. I'm sure Mary, in those moments, lingered with Jesus, just rested with him. Just how tender those moments would have been. How much she missed her son, and she was just so excited to be with him. What do we do after we receive Communion? We're like, "Okay, got to get out. Gotta go beat everybody out the parking lot." No, this is the time to rest with Jesus. There's the great tradition of making thanksgiving. You don't have to dart out the door right after Mass. You can actually just sit with him for three minutes, for five minutes, for 13 minutes. Just to sit in quiet prayer is a beautiful thing. He loves you so much. He's coming to you in Holy Communion. Will you take time to be with the one who is so close to you in those intimate moments?

Well, my friends, this has been such a delight being with you here. Um, okay, there we go. There's the book that I wrote called "The Biblical Walk to the Mass." If you want to learn more about this, Charbel and the Peruseia team have these at the, at the, at the table. There's the whole study program that you can get. They have the DVDs and a workbook, so you can, I know a lot of families use this with their kids. A lot of parishes use this for small groups for Bible study. You can also stream these online. You go to Peruseia Media to learn more about that. But you can get the book here.

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