My dear parishioners, “the eucharistic sacrifice is the source and the summit of the whole of the Church's worship and of the Christian life”. [Eucharisticum Mysterium 3 1967] The word eucharist (Gk. eucharistein) invokes both voicing and offering thanks to our loving heavenly father. With this in mind, we take great care to participate in Mass with fidelity and observable devotion. This obviously embraces how we pray and sing hymns of praise to God. For God sees, God knows. Certainly, the meaning of Holy Eucharist is profound. Its human and divine significance can never be mastered by human understanding or language. In truth, at our most eloquent, we Christians merely point to God’s unfathomable gift of himself to his human creatures. Nevertheless, we may confidently witness to the miracles, large and small, God works in our lives and how we have been blessed. Mortal man’s ingenuity and industry, though reflecting to some degree the resplendent light of God’s creation, cannot substitute for the love of God in our lives. Nor can imagination and enterprise validate humanity’s existence in the absence of fidelity to true religion and cherishing a moral society. On all sides, we observe how self-worship and instant gratification are applauded. Our social media is awash with sensuality and consumption. The exploitation of spirituality is very troubling. The great multitude of disoriented and lost souls needs a priest, indeed a universal Church of Catholic priests to plead pardon for them before God. They need priests to make atonement and reparation for them through the merits of holy Mass. People everywhere need priests to implore God to grant the world more time in the hope that a few more souls may be saved. My prayer is that you will see and hear for yourselves how God’s Spirit works in your family and the Church. You are not powerless to live the Word of God and participate fully in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the origin and fulfillment of the Church’s glory. By the sovereign word of our High Priest, the son of the eternal father, the Holy Spirit changes the very substance of bread and wine into the living Flesh and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Isn’t it through, with and inChrist that all nature has been created? Cannot God then change nature itself by the same power he wielded to create it (Saint Ambrose)? Therefore God alone makes what is ordinary extraordinary: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’” [Jn 6:53] The Mass reconciles what is divided. It heals what is broken. The Mass gathers in the name of Jesus what has been scattered by the work of the devil. We are privileged to witness the great miracle of faith in every eucharistic celebration. This is the lesson of our liturgy, which is a way of saying, the way we worship God. Our loving God created you to love him, to seek and find him. He created you to worship him. Indeed, God grasps the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist like a pen to inscribe a word of divine love and life on your heart. Human love, if it is to be perfected, attains fulfillment through the self-giving sacrifice of one who lays down his life for his friends: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” [1Jn 3:16] Again I will say, the path to God is love and love alone. And having found God, we gather to celebrate the most holy Eucharist, the heavenly banquet of his love! My dear friends, I give you the joy of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord. Sincerely in the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Your pastor, Reverend Richard Barker. +++
My dear parishioners, “the eucharistic sacrifice is the source and the summit of the whole of the Church's worship and of the Christian life”. [Eucharisticum Mysterium 3 1967] The word eucharist (Gk. eucharistein) invokes both voicing and offering thanks to our loving heavenly father. With this in mind, we take great care to participate in Mass with fidelity and observable devotion. This obviously embraces how we pray and sing hymns of praise to God. For God sees, God knows.