Category Archives: Meditations

Meditations

THE SECOND EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

                                                    THE SECOND EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

 

Rooted in a prayer of the priest St. Hippolytus going back to the earliest days of the life of the Church it is thanks to the Second Vatican Council we celebrate once more the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass within this ancient tradition.

A couple of points: scholars may debate the exactness of whom St. Hippolytus was, or how much of his ‘prayer’ is actually in this Canon, however I do sense in my heart that each time we priests pray this Canon, as with the “Roman Canon”, let us strive to be profoundly aware of all priests who, over the millennia, have celebrated Holy Mass and many, most recently in the last century in concentration camps, in the camps of the Gulag, and still in many places of the world where the Church is under assault have/do embrace martyrdom for the faith.

The second point is well known, indeed I admit sometimes doing so myself, namely using this Canon because, bluntly, it is the shortest one.

Speed defeats being seeped in the very Mystery we celebrate!

Lord, You are holy indeed, the fountain of all holiness.

In some ways a simple sentence, yet so filled with truth the heart should tremble with exultant amazement!

We stand before the All Holy One who does not keep holiness within Himself but lavishes this shimmering light filled reality, this fullness of love and life upon us.

When I was a boy I used to enjoy drinking the ice cold water flowing, it seemed, ceaselessly from drinking fountains in the huge park known as the Public Gardens, in the centre of which was a huge, ornate bronze fountain which showered water from a variety of spouts.

Perhaps the greatest, most thunderous ‘fountain’ I have ever gazed upon, listened too, bathed in the spray from, is Niagara Falls.

Even that massive cascade is like a tiny drop from an eye dropper compared to the endless river of holiness which is poured upon and into our being from ‘the fountain of all holiness.’

Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy,

When I first began this site, began the various meditations and reflections within it, I never expected to be exiled, never expected to be forbidden ‘public’ ministry, never expected I would eventually be so heartbroken by the number of priests who have committed suicide that, while continuing to pray for each, would stop counting how many there are.

In the ensuing years since I wrote the first mediation on the Roman Canon I have been diagnosed with PTSD, struggled through depression by grace, therapy and medication, and am learning that this hidden life of pain and prayer, these are the gifts co-mingled with the bread and wine on the altar.

Each priest who celebrates Holy Mass, and wherever he celebrates, as well as every man, woman and child who participates in Holy Mass, each are themselves, along with all their labours and struggles, faith and doubts, joys and sorrows, sins and virtues co-mingled with the bread and wine, and so when we call upon the Holy Spirit, while first and foremost we are asking Him to come upon the bread and wine we also ask He come upon the fullness of our own being.

so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Servant of God, Pope John Paul II, famously cried out to families to “become what you are.”

When we are nourished by Jesus Eucharist we can become what we are by baptism, more and more fully, more and more disciples, witnesses, heralds of the Gospel of Life, salt of the earth, light shining in the darkness of the culture of death.

Before he was given up to death, a death he freely accepted,

Now in my mid-sixties when I pray these words I am struck in particular by the words ‘before, death and freely accepted.’

What am I willing to freely accept for love of Jesus before my own death?

Indeed, for love of Jesus, am I willing to freely accept death?

I mean here not just physical death but the death of the false self, death of my own life plans, death of the way I think things should be not only in my own life but the life of the Church, priesthood, of the world.

The death of my wants, even needs.

he took bread and gave you thanks.

A dear friend asked of me out of the blue the other day: “Do you give thanks?”

At first I was somewhat nonplussed because the question was so unexpected and I don’t recall ever being challenged about ‘thank-you’ since I was a child!

By the grace of God I was able to affirm to my friend that giving thanks is for me like breathing, from awaking in the morning giving thanks for another day of breath of life, and so on throughout the day.

However so frequently in the Holy Gospel, and not just in the accounts of the Last Supper, is Jesus presented to us giving thanks that clearly this is something critical He wishes us to do in imitation of Him.

Holy Mass is the ultimate act of thanksgiving.

It is also, if we embrace this gift, the source of our own capacity to give thanks.

He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:

I will admit right off here that any personalizing of the rites of Holy Mass disturbs me greatly in the very depth of my being, hence when I see priests who use this Canon, or any Canon, blatantly breaking the Host while proclaiming the above words, yes my being shudders because, more than a serious violation of the rubrics it is out of order.

Jesus, my Lord and my God upon the Cross has His heart broken open, from which open Heart flows the life of the Church.

By His strength, nourished and sustained by Him, I am able to accept having my own heart broken open, that He may enter as He yearns [cf.Rev.3:20] and also that every human being may enter my heart so I might love and serve them as Jesus does.

Part of having my heart broken open is to serve the Church as She wishes to be served, thus Her rubrics, fidelity to them, are one way to serve.

{Of course I never, outside of the celebration of Holy Mass, utter the next words, even though I pray the words of the Canon as I write.}

When supper was ended, he took the cup.

Have you have gazed into an empty cup, chalice?

I mean really contemplated the emptiness?

It is a reality we perhaps don’t think that much about, any more than we focus that much on the beating of our hearts or the reality this entire earth is wrapped in air.

We know air exists, we know we breathe, we also know when air is in rapid movement we feel the caress of a gentle breeze, the exhilarating splash of ocean spray when winds gust or of snow tingling our face in a blizzard.

Mostly though, we rather take the air for granted.

Same thing: with the space, the empty place, of a cup or chalice.

There must be some solid form for there to be that ’emptiness’, which itself finds purpose when its awaiting is fulfilled with hot coffee or cool water on a hot summer’s day.

Jesus we know emptied Himself for us.

If we truly yearn to experience the fullness of Himself poured into us, we must allow the Holy Spirit to empty us of all that is not Jesus.

Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples and said:

Outside of the praise-prayers in the Divine Office or within Holy Mass, how often do I praise the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit?

How much of my prayer is about what I want or think I need?

How much is intercession for others?

When I invite the people and my own heart to proclaim the mystery of faith, is this automatic or truly a wellspring of praise, gratitude, witness from my heart?

In memory of his death and resurrection, we offer you, Father, this life-giving bread, this saving cup.

Friends are deeply involved in the ecumenical movement in England and wrote recently about how some Methodist friends said they wished they could believe what Catholics believe about Holy Mass and the Eucharist.

That truly is the deepest aspect of the divisions within Christianity, for tragic as it is that those Churches which have sustained Apostolic succession, therefore the reality of Sacramental Priesthood and Eucharist yet refuse each other shared Holy Communion, even more tragic is the situation of millions of Christians whose ancestors broke that succession, leaving a hunger for Holy Communion, but do not have it.

Equally tragic: those Roman or Orthodox, Protestant, who presume inter-communion before fullness of union.

During every Holy Mass our hearts should yearn for, and beg for, the day when, truly, we will all be one in Him.

We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you.

We are counted as worthy because we are sealed in baptism and this standing in His presence, the presence of the Father, we are able to do by the action of the Holy Spirit.

Granted most fully and perfectly in Holy Mass, but nourished and sustained by Jesus our Eucharist, every time in each moment we are faithful disciples we are standing and serving.

May all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ be brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit.

Because I celebrate Holy Mass ‘alone’ each day in the hermitage, being among the thousands of priests dismissed from public ministry, and like hundreds falsely accused and yet punished without due process, I am able to take as long with each celebration as I wish: something not possible for priests in parish or other public ministry.

That said when I linger over the above prayer in the Canon I need to look deep in my own heart about my unity, or not, with my Bishop who has acted as he has and cast me out.

Do I truly love and forgive him, remain filially in Christ united with him, my brother priests, indeed with the entire Church, my enemies, the whole human family?

Unity is a Eucharistic grace but it is also a choice of the heart to dwell and act within this grace, or not.

Only if I truly embrace the grace of unity can I sincerely pray as follows:

Lord, remember your Church throughout the world, make us grow in love, together with N. our Pope, N. our bishop, and all the clergy.

The Eucharist, sacrament of communion of love!

Here sometimes I need to struggle, more than linger with affection!

To love, to forgive are not emotions, even though as beings who have emotions we sometimes ‘feel’ love or forgiveness, often as what we need, feeling-wise, but yeah, sometimes as the emotional experience of what we give.

Sometimes a particular Pope, Bishop, Priest, can be, emotionally, very difficult to love, to forgive and then how real is our request that the Lord make us grow in love?

Granted all the above is stating the obvious but in the Gospel context of ‘leaving your gift on the altar and going…’ sometimes here we need to be still and in our hearts go and choose love, choose forgiveness as an act of the will.

Since likely for most of us our emotions are the last wounds to be healed, perhaps only as we are crossing the threshold of hope on our deathbed, best not to focus on what we ‘feel’ in the moment, but rather, by grace, rejoice with what we choose!

Remember our brothers and sisters who have gone to their rest the hope of rising again; bring them and all the departed into the light of your presence.

I am always struck by the profundity of the Memorial of the deceased brothers and sisters in each of the Canons.

It is extremely sacred, but also, if we stand back and really reflect upon it, a deep moment of personal and communal immediate and ancestral awareness, for we can allow all of human history, or rather every human being since Adam and Eve, to pass through the memory of our hearts and the intent of our prayer, confiding each to Divine Mercy.

Here we recognize and honour the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus for the redemption of human beings, and when we pray ‘all the departed’ we confide to His mercy those who, for whatever reason, never met Him or knew Him during their earthly life.

It is a simple prayer of great charity!

Have mercy on us all;

In this moment, in this cry for Divine Mercy, while the “us all” refers in the first instance to those participating in the specific Holy Mass, it is also a cry for the entire Mystical Body, indeed for the entire human race.

Our priestly hearts should be open to a profound awareness of the hopes and anxieties of the entire human family.

make us worthy to share eternal life

Humility in prayer, in imitation of Jesus our perfect prayer to the Father, Jesus of the humble heart, is a stance in truth!

Only Jesus can make us worthy of eternal life and the very sacrifice of the Mass is the truth of His redemptive action on our behalf.

with Mary, the virgin Mother of God,

Pope John Paul chose TOTUS TUUS as his motto: “totally yours”, totally Jesus’ through Mary, a template truly for every baptized life, most especially every priestly life.

with the apostles, and with all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages.

This emphasis on union with the Communion of Saints, both the canonized and not, that is with all our brothers and sisters in heaven, harkens both to Jesus’ word that true believers are not those who exclaim with awe that Jesus is Lord, rather those will, Jesus states clearly, enter heaven who do “…the will of My Father in heaven.” [cf. Mt. 7:21, 22]

May we praise you in union with them, and give you glory through your son, Jesus Christ.

In the book of Revelations we see various examples and hymns of praise, and here we anticipate our participation in that very praise in heaven, by uniting our praise here on earth, with theirs, all in and through Jesus.

Thus the Church wisely urges, if not the entire Canon, at the very least for the priest to sing out the Doxology, more prelude than conclusion of the Canon, prelude to the great prayer to the Father Jesus has given us, the Our Father, whose elements are throughout the Canon we have just celebrated!

Meditations

Living Flame

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Do not grudge burning a wax tape before the image of the Lord during prayer; remember that you burn it before Light inaccessible, before Him who enlightens you with His Light. Your candle is as though a burn offering to the Lord. Let it be a gift to God from your whole heart. Let it remind you that you yourself should also be a burning and shining light. ~~~St. John of Kronstadt

Meditations

Meditation upon the Roman Canon/Eucharistic Prayer I

WE COME TO YOU FATHER

There is a childlike boldness in declaring to Him what we dare to do!

Were it not that the ultimate possibility of this coming to Him is that Christ has gone before us, we could not dare to be so bold.

WE – in the first instance is Jesus the Priest, bound to the ordained man, the priest, through the sacred anointing of ordination: Jesus is more intimate to the priest than the priest is to his very self.

WE – through the infinitude of the Trinitarian oneness in love proclaim the reality that wherever Jesus is so is the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is always ‘about His Father’s business’ and here He is about His Father’s business ‘sacramentally’. The Holy Spirit is sanctifying and sacramentally unfolding the central act [mystery] of our faith.

WE – baptismally incorporated into the Mystically Body of Christ, the Church on earth, in purgatory, celebrating the Heavenly Divine Liturgy. Mary is with us most especially at this sacred time: She who is our Mother, model disciple, and, joy of all who sorrow. Wherever Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth is, so too is her entire court, all the Angels and Saints, for in the Holy Mass, heaven is joined to earth praising, adoring the Most Holy Trinity.

WE – in the heart of the priest, every human being: each man, woman and child upon the earth; believer and unbeliever; friend and enemy of the Gospel; saint and sinner, whatever their condition in life; the souls in purgatory; the blessed in heaven.

WE – ‘I’, bowed down before my own ego and reshaped into a sobornost, a oneness of compassion and love. For the priest must never approach the altar as the ego ‘I’ of stand-alone self, but, being the prayer-voice in persona Christi, with generous passion and joy, he offers and is offered for his brothers and sisters.

There is no greater suffering, no greater joy, no more important being or doing for the heart of the priest than to stand before the Holy Altar, one with Christ High Priest, offering the One True Holy Sacrifice for the sake of all.

To whom do we come, before whom do we stand sinful and sorrowful, bold and trusting, but Our Father! This we can do because Jesus Himself is our perfect prayer. He Himself is our contrition, our confidence, our faith, our yes to the Father’s most holy and benevolent will! We need only cry out: ABBA! ABBA! ABBA! To be one with the priest as he proclaims, ‘We come to you Father…..’

WITH PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING

This is love’s doing, love’s yearning, the inescapable need of the human heart to taste without fear the delight of createdness, to celebrate without restraint the sheer joy of gratitude, to experience from the heart of the cosmos all of creation being alive. This is only possible if we are cleaved to Christ’s own praise of and thanksgiving to, the Father. We who give praise and thanks are alive-sinners, redeemed by the love and blood of the Lamb who was slain.

THROUGH JESUS CHRIST YOUR SON

Do you see His Holy Face? Do you contemplate Him stretched upon the Cross between heaven and earth? It is Time that is no-time – not chronos but kairos. For here at the Holy Altar in the Canon Jesus is! Jesus our prayer. Jesus in whom we have come into being. Jesus our redemption. Jesus our reason for being. Jesus our life. Jesus our way. Jesus our truth. Jesus priesthood of priests. Jesus lavished upon us. Jesus Divine Mercy. Jesus our food and drink. Jesus our beauty. Jesus our everything.

THROUGH HIM WE ASK YOU

Our Father knows all that we need. Jesus has promised us that if we ask we shall receive, if we knock it shall be opened. What dare we ask but oneness with the Most Holy Trinity? What need have we opened to us but the gates of heaven?

On our own we would find that the dark, dead weight of our sins would render us mute with shame; on our own our self-serving egos would ask for what immediately gratifies, rather than for what eternally sanctifies; on our own in all of our pleading we would forget to place the needs of our brothers and sisters before our own.

TO ACCEPT AND BLESS

Acceptance and blessing of that, which of our own, is all that we have, viz.: our total poverty. For what else can we bring but what has already been given to us? Thus we boldly approach with childlike confidence, returning to the Father as gift to Him what He has already lavished upon us, viz.: The Gift, Jesus Christ Himself. At one and the same time The Gift is Himself the blessing.

THESE GIFTS WE OFFER YOU

The bread and wine are both stuff of created matter and the sweat, labour, dreams, expectations, yearnings, the lives of each human being, irrespective of their proximity or remoteness to this Holy Altar. Like the drop of water poured into the sacred chalice, co-mingling mystery and experience, the divine and the human, there is within the history of the bread and wine the co-mingling of the fruits of the earth and the work of human hands. In the generous allowance of divine mercy His tender Fatherly gaze sees in what has been given to us a gift, from us to Him, because He sees His Only-begotten Son’s Self-gift.

IN SACRIFICE

Comprehensible only in awe before the Cross, accessible to a heart only when that heart is immersed in the holy Gospels. We often rush through this reality of sacrifice, fail to allow the word to sear into our being because we see only pain, giving-up, a type of loss or payment beyond our reach. Yet, the resonance of the word is found in all that is sacred. It is an act of love, sacred love, selfless love, Love Himself sacrificing Himself to Love. It is in the sanctifying activity of the Holy Spirit that an offering, a gift, becomes a holy thing, a true – the true – sacrifice.

WE OFFER THEM FOR YOUR HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH

It is as if each holy word uttered, each of the accompanying gestures, leads the priest, takes the priest, and with him all the people, deeper into the following of Christ. And all of this done in the company of every human being as if it were a single movement: every human attempt at offering something to God for whatever reason, which began with the incense-smell of the first offering of Abel and continues down to the tiny flame of a votive candle lit in the darkness of a lonely night by some widow before her favorite statue or icon.

This is an offering for our one true family, a type of Nazareth-gathering, for it is the existence of the Church which assures every human being that they can have a true family, true brothers and sisters.

This is an evangelical, a missionary offering, for unless our brothers and sisters know Jesus Christ they, as we ourselves, shall remain incomprehensible to self. It is the Church’s mission to proclaim Christ Jesus, especially through the lives of the Baptized as they live the Gospel without compromise.

The Church in her fullness is holy and yet, is being sanctified, in her members, her children: ‘catolicos’ [universal], for she embraces all peoples and cultures while straining to be healed of all division, to be one: ‘ecclesia’ [church] for she is the sacred gathering place where the fullness of sacramental life is available to all who would accept the gift of faith and be baptized into the death and resurrection of her Divine Bridegroom.

WATCH OVER IT, LORD, AND GUIDE IT

Lest the enemy prevail against Holy Mother the Church and her children, for until we enter the heavenly kingdom we remain vulnerable to our own sinfulness and to the lies of the prince of darkness. The plea to be guided is a cry for the gift of the Holy Spirit, Counselor, Consoler, Advocate, Spirit of Truth. These words of prayer for protection and guidance resound with confidence in Jesus’ promise never to leave us orphans. How well we know that cut off from Him we can do nothing.

GRANT IT PEACE AND UNITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

Here, standing before the Holy Altar in the midst of a Christian history, blood-red crying out to heaven, each priestly heart experiences the trust of a lance piercing one’s heart, having pierced The Heart: the pain of the Church, the division among Christian brothers and sisters, a yearning and a missionary zeal to proclaim the Gospel and to proclaim ‘that they may all be one’ is the priest’s own pain. Simultaneously the lance is a lance of love: for the Church, for the successor of Peter, for all believers and in a special way for unbelievers.

WE OFFER THEM FOR ~~~~~ OUR POPE

Apostolic succession! Shepherd, Teacher, Vicar, Bishop, Priest! A proclamation of genuine love for our beloved Holy Father.

FOR ~~~~~~ OUR BISHOP

Through whose hands a man receives the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and becomes himself priest. Immediate Shepherd and Teacher, Servant of the local church. Again, a matter of love.

AND FOR ALL WHO HOLD AND TEACH THE CATHOLIC FAITH THAT COMES TO US FROM THE APOSTLES

Treasure of the millennia! Gift handed down with such immense care, fidelity, at such a cost in martyrdom, through the ages, across the nations, over the oceans, to the greatest cities and smallest hamlets: apostolic faith!

A prayer embracing the most vibrant and missionary of religious communities, to the most isolated of families, were rare is the occasion when a priest can come to the village to celebrate Holy Mass and all the other sacraments.

A prayer for the most persecuted ones, languishing in the most forgotten prison cells, yet holding within their believing, baptized hearts what has been handed down, pure, vibrant, treasured as lovingly as when first implanted by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the Apostles.

Held equally and lavished with equal generosity upon all who would approach in faith, reverence and fear of the Lord the sacred waters of Baptism – the Church of the East and the Church of the West.

For the sacred fragments held lovingly and with Christ-centered trust by all those Christian ‘sister churches’.

Taught by the great theologians and by the humblest mother bending lovingly towards her children, where faith is taught with the lyrical simplicity rooted in the very heart of our Immaculate Mother.

Taught by the courage of missionaries shedding their blood like Peter and Paul before them.

Taught by the very life of those who use not the eloquence of spoken or written words, but herald the Good News with cups of water, bowls of soup, and quiet vigil beside those who would otherwise die alone.

Hold and teach: treasured in the heart and lavished upon others at one and the same time. Contemplation and action – yet another sacred co-mingling!

REMEMBER, LORD, YOUR PEOPLE

Father, if You are not mindful of us we should cease to exist!

ESPECIALLY THOSE FOR WHOM WE NOW PRAY

In the silent stillness here before the Divine Attentiveness, in utter selfless simplicity, we have the sacred opportunity to utter the names of those who occupy our heart’s compassionate awareness.

Here we can become the voice for all the living, in particular those who are unaware they have a voice, those whose voice is denied – – – the most vulnerable – – – the unborn facing abortion, the homeless, the refugees, the unjustly imprisoned. A voice for those unaware of their need to plead for His mercy. A voice for those who have forgotten, or have never known, He is their Father.

Each moment of a priest’s life is a prayer for all, but here, in a specific manner, the priest stands before the Holy Altar, ‘in persona Christi’, one with Christ who is Himself our voice to the Father. As priest we are both speaking and echoing, repeating the intimate and passionate prayer of Christ in our own hearts and with our own lips as a voice for all.

REMEMBER ALL OF US GATHERED HERE BEFORE YOU

Blessing beyond compare: to be here!

YOU KNOW HOW FIRMLY WE BELIEVE IN YOU

Perhaps we live as if we were ardent primarily in our own confidence in self – but in truth it is You alone in whom we must believe and struggle to believe and do believe – confident that You, through the Holy Spirit, constantly assist us in our lack of faith.

The weakness of any individual’s faith among those present is strengthened by the faith of the Church and this faith is witnessed by the rest of those here present.

It is a profound moment: the reality of being members of the one Body of Christ wherein the gap of personal doubt is bridged by the faith of the Church.

AND DEDICATE OURSELVES TO YOU

Here our hearts are full, pressed down and overflowing with the marvel of what a small but holy thing it is that we lay at His feet: our whole life!

WE OFFER YOU THIS SACRIFICE OF PRAISE

Face to the ground, the heart enveloped by beauty and awe, for this is no-thing we offer. Our sacrificial offering is Someone! We offer the One who offers Himself! Jesus is our offering, our sacrifice and our praise!

At the same time, in the reality of being priest, ‘in persona Christi’, there is this holy and sublime mysterious reality, that the priest himself is both the one offering and is himself an oblation!

FOR OURSELVES AND THOSE WHO ARE DEAR TO US

Of sinners I am the greatest and the smallest.

Thus this personal plea for ourselves is not merely permitted but is urgently necessary.

And, if we have Gospel hearts, who is dearer to us than our enemies?

There are others who are dear to us and so, in the tenderness of our heart, we also call them to mind in this supreme act of prayerful petition and adoration.

WE PRAY TO YOU OUR LIVING AND TRUE GOD

Prayer as love’s dialogue ‘between two crucified persons’, as the Servant of God Catherine Doherty was so fond of teaching us.

Prayer as the confident leap of a child into the arms of their Father.

Prayer as a passion moving like waves of the ocean moving through our entire being, a surge of love and trust towards the Giver of all that is good.

Prayer as the stance of an uplifted heart, mind, soul, of one’s whole being as they strain to turn towards Love Himself, the way flowers on a spring morning turn towards the light and warmth of the sun.

Prayer as a standing in the depth, the height, the breadth of the ineffable mystery of encounter in communion of love with the Most Holy Trinity.

Prayer as the experience of that one reality: GOD IS! ‘I AM’ in prayer speaks to the depths of our being. And so, WE ARE!

Prayer above all as reception: we listen and it is in our listening to Him that we experience being heard.

FOR OUR WELL-BEING

Very simply that we be configured to Him by the Holy Spirit that we may be made holy by the Spirit as God Himself is holy.

AND REDEMPTION

It is for this that Christ leapt down from the heavens, not clinging to His Divinity but becoming man that He might live, suffer, die, rise from the dead, ascend to the Father and with the Father lavish upon us the Holy Spirit.

Here we acknowledge, proclaim, and in a sense claim, what Christ, Who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, has purchased for us to the last drop of His Precious Blood: our redemption.

Of what more have we any need?

IN UNION WITH THE WHOLE CHURCH

Our Trinitarian faith cannot in any way be egocentric, individualistic but is always and essentially communitarian –‘communio’.

As Aron and Hur assisted Moses on the hill overlooking the battlefield, each of us needs the sacred companionship, the humble loving assistance of one another, that we might lift all up to Him.

It is a matter of the sacred celebration of the fullness of the mystery of faith.

Thus this intercessory proclamation, according to the season of grace, is enhanced to bear witness to the very day when Holy Mary gave the world its Saviour; that light-penetrating day when Jesus, the only Son of the Father, sharing the Father’s eternal glory, showed Himself Incarnate; that night of splendour when Jesus instituted the Most Holy Eucharist and the Priesthood; that very same night when Jesus our Lord and God was betrayed, embraced betrayal, so that in Himself our inherited betrayal from Adam and Eve and our own acts of betrayal, might be forgiven; then comes that most holy of all holy nights, turning night into day – the everlasting 8th day of His Holy Resurrection; there follows the day when, in some mysterious yet tangible truth taking the reality of humanity within Himself, taking us as it were, He ascended into glory to be seated forever at the right hand of the Father; and finally yet continually, the awesome day of the lavish outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

No day is a true day with the Eucharist.

To quote one of the pioneer priests of the Madonna House Lay Apostolate: ‘Once I have said Mass the day is complete. It is a divine success. It is a perfect day.’

WE HONOUR MARY, THE EVER-VIRGIN MOTHER OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD AND GOD

It most pleased Him to come and dwell among us as ‘one like us in all things but sin’ yet ‘becoming sin for us’, through the fiat and person, the heart of Mary.

Clearly it most pleases Him that we should find our way to Him through the tender arms and the Immaculate Heart of Holy Mother Mary.

Who better to teach us how to treasure this entire sacred mystery, to treasure all things, to contemplate all in our heart, to teach us the joy, the love, of our Eucharistic Lord, to be perfect disciples, servants of one another, than she who gave God the very flesh and blood He sacrifices for our salvation?

Towards her, in a sense, each Holy Mass is a type of mother’s day!

WE HONOUR JOSEPH HER HUSBAND

Each act of honouring is an expression of gratitude.

Seeped in the richness of the Holy Gospel we will encounter this man of integrity, humility, courage. This model of how to do little things exceedingly well for the love of Jesus.

THE APOSTLES AND MARTYRS PETER AND PAUL, ANDREW, JAMES, JOHN, THOMAS, JAMES, PHILLIP, BATHOLOMEW, MATTHEW, SIMON AND JUDE; WE HONOUR LINUS, CLETUS, CLEMENT, SIXTUS, CORNELIUS, CYPRIAN, LAWERENCE, CHSYOGONOUS, JOHN AND PAUL, COSMOS AND DAMIAN

First and rightly so we honour the first Pope, the chief Apostle and the Apostle of the Gentiles, for ours is faith and truth ‘handed down from the Apostles’ for we are members of the ‘one holy catholic and apostolic church’.

We are surrounded by such holy companions because the whole heavenly court is with us at the Holy Altar, and we need their example, help and intercession.

These heavenly companions: Popes, Priests, Deacons, holy brothers in the Lord, are living icons of the continuity of Holy Mother the Church, East and West, across the ages and nations.

 

AND ALL THE SAINTS

We dwell in the companionship of all the Holy Ones in heaven, remembered and known by name, those known only to us in the intimacy of our hearts.

Each is a living icon of the possible: all is grace and the fullness of life is living the Holy Gospel.

MAY THEIR MERITS AND PRAYERS GAIN US YOUR CONSTANT HELP AND PROTECTION

Do you see it, feel it, embrace it – – this stupendous marvel of our baptized life?

Sacred Scripture assures us that ‘the prayer of the humble pierces the clouds’, thus those who have gone before us urgently plead our cause, through Christ our Lord, that we too might not falter on the journey, the pilgrimage of and to the Absolute.

FATHER

ABBA!

Because Jesus Himself is our prayer which pierces the clouds to the heavens we can utter this infinite truth: ABBA! God IS our Father!

Because Christ Himself is our prayer, our voice, our plea, there is a type of divine urgency, divine expectation, divine confidence here.

ACCEPT THIS OFFERING

Our offering is Jesus Himself.

‘Accept this offering…’ – – accept Jesus.

Jesus Incarnate. Jesus in the Jordan. Jesus at Cana. Jesus proclaiming the Kingdom and the call to conversion. Jesus transfigured. Jesus instituting this Holy Eucharist and the Priesthood. Jesus in the Garden. Jesus upon the Cross. Jesus in the Tomb. Jesus Risen. Jesus at Your right hand. Jesus returning in glory.

 

FROM YOUR WHOLE FAMILY

Without exception!

The whole family, believer and unbeliever, friend and enemy, saint and sinner.

If our hearts are not full of love and forgiveness then at this moment we must leave our Gift at the Holy Altar and go until we have been reconciled with our brother or sister.

Twice, on two days sacred in a particular way, we express the memorial offering in recognition of the institution of this Most Holy Sacrament and announce the joy of His Holy Resurrection – joy on that day too over those born into new life through the waters of Baptism.

Here the priest’s heart encompasses the whole earth, the entire cosmos, all of human history – each human being whatever their condition. It is an embrace of priestly love, compassion, atonement and intercession – ‘in persona Christi’ most assuredly, but also as an individual ordained man, a baptized person, for with each sacred word uttered the priest is entering ever more deeply into his very reason for being: he is servant, called to bring God to our brothers and sisters, the living and true God, who becomes in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence, Food for Life!

GRANT US YOUR PEACE IN THIS LIFE

Not absence of strain or suffering; not life without the Cross; rather the gift of dwelling always in His presence, His peace, leading lives that are peaceful, thus holy and without sin.

SAVE US FROM FINAL DAMNATION

Never let us be parted from You!

AND COUNT US AMONG THOSE YOU HAVE CHOSEN

Jesus has told us that ‘many are called but few are chosen’; we beg to be counted among the chosen.

In this moment we enter deep into the very essence of our createdness and sinfulness – – out total and utter need of Him.

It is a prayer of sheer trust, for of ourselves we can do nothing, least of all save ourselves.

BLESS AND APPROVE OUR OFFERING

The Holy Spirit moves over the lifeless void of bread and wine.

The Sanctifer Himself is at work.

We are bathed in Divine Fire!

MAKE IT ACCEPTABLE TO YOU

As priests we cannot do this on our own. We are not pure enough, faith-filled enough, strong enough, holy enough; we are unable to stand there but that our hands and our whole being tremble with awe and wonder in the fear of the Lord and His might.

We need the Holy Spirit.

We thus stand with humility, co-operating with the Holy Spirit, as He performs His Sacred Work.

AN OFFERING IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH

Reality!

LET IT BECOME FOR US

This is to experience the fullness of ‘God said…’, and that which was not comes into being!

THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST, YOUR ONLY SON OUR LORD

For Jesus promised us, Father, that He would not leave us orphans, but would remain with us until the end of the age; that He would give us Real food to eat: Himself!

THE DAY BEFORE HE SUFFERED

Once each year we speak out loud the immediateness which is present in the Divine Liturgy of every Holy Mass: ‘to save us and all men, that is, today.’

The full truth of all that He suffered penetrates our entire being and with face to the ground we lie in humble adoration before such a wonderful God who lavishes Himself upon us.

HE TOOK BREAD INTO HIS SACRED HANDS

It takes a grace within the grace of ordination to sustain, in his body, the soul of the priest as these words pour forth in awe and wonder.

There is but this present moment.

There is an all encompassing, universal stillness in heaven, on earth, in all creation; an expectant silence before the incomprehensible, sacred, though marvelously accessible mystery which is unfolding in our very midst.

AND LOOKING UP TO HEAVEN, TO YOU HIS ALMIGHTY FATHER, HE GAVE YOU THANKS AND PRAISE

It is Jesus Himself who is both the humble one and the prayer which pierces the heavens.

Looking into those eyes of glory raised to the Father we know that the Holy Spirit cannot refuse to make holy that which is offered.

This is fundamentally communion of love of the Trinity within the Trinity and communion of love of the Trinity for us!

 

HE BROKE THE BREAD, GAVE IT TO HIS DISCIPLES AND SAID

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WHEN SUPPER WAS ENDED, HE TOOK THE CUP. AGAIN HE GAVE YOU THANKS AND PRAISE. GAVE THE CUP TO HIS DISCIPLES AND SAID

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The most sacred words uttered by Jesus Himself as recorded in the Holy Gospel are so sacred I never utter them outside the actual Sacrifice itself.

In a sense, assuredly so for the priest and in a manner for all the Baptized, it is for this moment that we have been created: to stand in awe, reverence, beauty, gratitude, humble contrition, holy confidence and joy, in this eternal-now of salvation.

For we have been created to know in communion of love: Jesus and through Him, in the Holy Spirit, the Father.

For we been created and redeemed, are being through this Holy Sacrifice, sanctified for this communion of love with the Holy Trinity.

This is therefore the true Trinitarian moment as we experience Christ gifting Himself to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit in this Sacred Eucharist.

And for us, in the rest of the Sacred Canon, after praise, intercession and gratitude, this gifting culminates when the priest lavishes Christ upon us in Holy Communion.

FATHER, WE CELEBRATE THE MEMORY OF CHRIST YOUR SON

What more loving thing can we say to our Abba than this?

We began by asking the Father to be mindful of, to remember us, to sustain us in existence in the depths of His love.

Now is the moment of our remembering, of our celebrating the center of our being – – Christ our Lord and God, our Redeemer – – within the heavenly liturgy celebrated here on earth in this moment -–and this is the very moment wherein, as says the Servant of God Catherine Doherty we enter into what should be the reality of our lives, namely that we should ‘live between two Masses…..the one being participated in and the next one we shall participate in’….for ‘ In God every moment is the moment of beginning again’.

To dwell with our entire being in the awareness that Christ transfigures us, transforms all we are, all that we do, into the reality of Himself, by the action of the Holy Spirit – this is Eucharist lived. This is Gospel life!

WE YOUR PEOPLE AND YOUR MINISTERS

Priests must be priest – nothing less holy.

Laity must be Christ’s faithful lay people – nothing less holy.

Only in the stark purity of the uniqueness of priest and uniqueness of lay person, devoid of all confusion of sacrament and vocation can there be that unity of which the Holy Eucharist is source and summit – our being one in Christ as He and the Father are one.

Love does such things.

RECALL HIS PASSION, HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, AND HIS ASCENSION INTO GLORY

This is our faith.

Ours is the religion of glory.

This is our life.

Our life is participation in the very life of Christ.

This is our proclamation.

To the whole cosmos.

To the entire human family.

To each individual person.

We proclaim the Gospel of Life and Truth.

We proclaim Christ crucified and risen from the dead.

We proclaim love.

To celebrate the memory of all that Christ is and has done for us at the heart of the Sacred Liturgy is so that we can then go forth from here, living between two Masses, into the sacred duty of the moment – for this is where we continue to most intimately encounter Christ in the place where we are called to obey the will of the Father as Christ Himself who says of Himself ‘I have not come to do My own will, but the will of the One who sent Me.’ – Eucharist is not only our moment of being fed by Him but it is also the moment into which and from which we are sent.

AND FROM THE MANY GIFTS YOU HAVE GIVEN US, WE OFFER TO YOU, GOD OF GLORY AND MAJESTY, THIS HOLY AND PERFECT SACRIFICE

Our God, the One True God, the Triune God, is never outdone in generosity.

The altar, the vestments, the sacred vessels, the candles, the books, the bread, the wine, the priest, the people, our very existence – – we can never enumerate all the gifts – each and all IS gift from Him.

And yet all that we are, have, experience, see, touch and hear – – as far as the human imagination can reach – – is only a real and a significant offering because of The Offering, The Gift, The True Sacrifice: Jesus Himself.

THE BREAD OF LIFE AND THE CUP OF ETERNAL SALVATION

The Servant of God, Catherine Doherty, urges us to ‘trust the untrustworthy’ and this too Our Lord and God Jesus Christ has done for us first.

Now, here He is before us, vulnerable, under the appearances of bread and wine – and when we go forth from here we must never forget He is also vulnerable under the appearance of other persons – through whom we may either love and serve Him – or hate and reject Him.

Basically we are, because we are sinners, untrustworthy.

Yet He trusts us not only with this Most Sacred Gift of Himself in the Eucharist but to proclaim His Gospel and to be – through our humble service of one another – His Face to the world.

He trusts here in the Eucharist in particular that we will see The Real before us: Himself.

That we will approach with faith, reverence and holy fear.

LOOK WITH FAVOUR ON THESE OFFERINGS AND ACCEPT THEM AS ONCE YOU ACCEPTED THE GIFTS OF YOUR SERVANT ABEL

Cleaved to Jesus we offer our entire life.

The work of our human hands – and minds, hearts, wills.

The favorable gaze of the Father, this yearning that He look upon us with delight – which He will do because through our reception into our beings of Christ in Holy Communion when the Father looks upon us He will see the Beautiful Face of His Glorified Son who has communicated Himself into our being – includes the cry of Christ that He has come to lavish fire upon the earth and so through Christ we can become flame!

Like Abel we offer the best, the first fruits of creation – and our best, our ‘first’ which we offer is Christ Himself.

THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM, OUR FATHER IN FAITH

In essence the sacrifice of Abraham was an act of faith and holy obedience.

We too believe and trust that what is offered here is real because Jesus Himself offers Himself in obedience to the Holy Will of the Father.

Indeed the night before He died Jesus told us that it is because of His death and resurrection that the Father loves Him so – and we are plunged into that very death and resurrection at the moment of our Baptism, which is the gateway to this very source and summit of our faith – of our baptized lives – which we are now celebrating and wherein again and again the Obedient One cleaves us to His very self so that this sacrifice is even greater and more pleasing to the Father than we can possibly imagine even though in our prayer we strain for holy comparisons.

Whatever of ourselves we treasure as much as Abraham treasured Isaac, this we must join to the offering made to the Father by His Only-Begotten Son.

By this we cling to no-one, to no-thing other than Jesus Himself, willing to loose our life that through Him we might save it.

He is the Lamb who takes our place, dies for us, that we might have life in abundance.

AND THE BREAD AND WINE OFFERED BY YOUR PRIEST MELCHISEDECH

We almost automatically assume that what is accessible to the senses is what is actually real.

In truth which is visible is so damaged by original sin and actual sins its very authenticity is suspect.

Especially our human capacity to perceive reality and truth.

The actual real – such as the reality of the Real Presence under the appearance of bread and wine – is invisible to the naked eye.

Thus without a particular gift of grace we do not appreciate the reality of the Holy Mass, the Divine and Heavenly Liturgy nor its fullness – – that is UNLESS we realize and trust what we cannot ‘see’.

While the Real appears invisible to the senses, He is accessible to the heart by faith.

The altar in heaven and the altar on earth are one and the same – – Christ Himself.

ALMIGHTY GOD, WE PRAY THAT YOUR ANGEL MAY TAKE THIS SACRIFICE TO YOUR ALTAR IN HEAVEN

Here Jesus is the ‘angel’!

The One offering is the One offered and the One offered is the One taking from this altar the sacrifice – Himself – to the Father!

This is why we must cry out at every Mass: ‘Let us proclaim the mystery of faith!’ – a proclamation not of non-understanding but of such sublime and joyful assertion of reality that only a statement of faith such as declaring the reality of Christ’s death, resurrection and return in glory, can possibly express our wonderment and gratitude.

Not for us to yearn for a mere Jacobian ladder vision for we behold in Holy Mass the Angel Himself descending upon the altar to be our Holy Communion and ascending to the Father to be our prayer!

THEN AS WE RECEIVE FROM THIS ALTAR THE SACRED BODY AND BLOOD OF YOUR SON, LET US BE FILLED WITH EVERY GRACE AND BLESSING

Here the priest bows before the awesome lavishness before us on the Holy Altar – – the fullness of divine mercy, beauty, generosity, life, truth, love: JESUS!

To be filled with every grace and blessing is to be filled with Christ.

It is to no longer live but only for Christ to live in us.

Christ is everything.

REMEMBER, LORD, THOSE WHO HAVE DIED AND HAVE GONE BEFORE US MARKED WITH THE SIGN OF FAITH, ESPECIALLY THOSE FOR WHOM WE NOW PRAY

With Christ-like generosity we plead for those no longer able to plead for themselves, especially our enemies, our ancestors, and those who faith is known to Him alone.

MAY THESE AND ALL WHO SLEEP IN CHRIST

This is the ultimate fulfillment of His invitation that all we who ‘labour and are sorely burdened’ come to Him and He will be our rest.

This is also the fulfillment of what the Servant of God Catherine Doherty was inspired to put as the final words of her Little Mandate for the Madonna House Lay Apostolate: I WILL BE YOUR REST.

FIND IN YOUR PRESENCE LIGHT, HAPPINESS AND PEACE

There is no real light but in His presence.

There is no real happiness but in Him who tells us of His yearning that His joy may be in us so that our joy may be complete.

There is not real peace but in Him who says He gives us His own peace.

This is ultimately a prayer for divinization.

FOR OURSELVES, TOO, WE ASK SOME SHARE IN THE FELLOWSHIP OF YOUR APOSTLES AND MARTYRS, WITH JOHN THE BAPTIST, STEPHEN, MATTHIAS, BARNABAS, IGNATIUS, ALEXANDER, MARCELLINUS, PETER, FELICITY, PERPETUA, AGATHA, LUCY, AGNES, CELCILIA, ANASTASIA AND ALL THE SAINTS

To live in the Communion of Saints, to love as they have loved, to lay down our lives in service of the Holy Gospel and of our brothers and sisters is to truly live Eucharist for their real fellowship was and is communion of love with the Father, through and in Christ, by the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit.

True fellowship is Trinitarian.

THOUGH WE ARE SINNERS

We dwell in the mystery, the poverty of the already and the not yet.

We are already baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, already redeemed – – but – – we have not yet fully opened ourselves to nor co-operated with the Holy Spirit, thus not yet fully converted, emptied of false self, we are as yet not fully transfigured, sanctified, divinized.

We are sinners because of this resistance of ours to complete configuration to Christ by the Holy Spirit.

WE TRUST IN YOUR MERCY AND LOVE

This is our hope and joy, this gift of Mercy and Love Himself.

In sin we cut ourselves off from Jesus and thus can do nothing unless we approach, by in faith His grace, the throne of Divine Mercy especially in Sacramental Confession.

Then we approach here, made by grace holy that we might receive Holy Things – Jesus Himself in Eucharist.

The every moment beginning again moment!

DO NOT CONSIDER WHAT WE TRULY DESERVE, BUT GRANT US YOUR FORGIVENESS

What we truly deserve because of our sins is to be cut off from the Blessed Trinity forever.

Because Jesus became a man like us in all things but sin and became sin for us and sacrificed Himself for us He becomes what we truly, truly deserve and thus we are able not only to beg for forgiveness – in particular of our boldness to approach to receive Holiness Himself into our beings – but to receive He who is our forgiveness and thus we are forgiven.

THROUGH CHRIST OUR LORD YOU GIVE US ALL THESE GIFTS. YOU FILL THEM WITH LIFE AND GOODNESS, YOU BLESS THEM AND MAKE THEM HOLY

Gift comes to us from the Father through Christ who is also the Father’s Gift to us and we are only able to receive The Gift because the Holy Spirit Himself comes to help us in our weakness for not only do we not know how to pray as we ought but we do not know how to receive as we ought.

They way we ought to pray is very simply: Give us Christ.

They way we ought to receive is very simple: Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom……..this in essence is what we do when before Holy Communion we speak: Lord I am not worthy to receive You but only say the word……

All gifts are of course facets of the one gift, Christ.

The blessing and holiness of all gifts, and not just the ultimate gift of Eucharist, is Christ.

Christ is incessantly, tenderly, lovingly, with divine passion and compassion, always knocking at the door of our being, begging leave to enter and commune with us, communicate Himself, and with Himself the Father and the Spirit, to us.

This is the indwelling of the Trinity within us promised us by Jesus if we will but open wide the doors of our being to Him.

Thus in a certain sense the reception of Christ in the Eucharist, our Holy Communion, each one from our First Holy Communion until that blessed day when we receive Holy Viaticaum, is both Christ knocking at the door of our being and entering – and thus each Communion is ultimately communion of love with the Most Holy Trinity, and therefore it is fitting and right more than we can comprehend until we participate in the Heavenly Liturgy in the Kingdom of Heaven, that we pray at the end of the Canon:

THROUGH HIM, WITH HIM, IN HIM, IN THE UNITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, ALL GLORY AND HONOUR IS YOURS, ALMIGHTY FATHER, FOREVER AND EVER. AMEN.