The spiritual life is rich, beautiful, and complex. Nothing can exhaust the spiritual treasury of the Church or the soul that seeks union with God. Nothing can quench the desire within the human heart, once it’s awakened to encounter God and share in his fellowship.
As the soul is awakened, it wants to be in God’s company and know of his closeness. Such a soul is like a person lost in the desert and desperately looking for an oasis.
In response to such a thirst, the Church provides certain oases, certain wellsprings. Such wellsprings are meant to be a help and a rejuvenation to a thirsty soul.
The first wellspring listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the Word of God, and shortly after it, the Church highlights her sacred liturgy.
The Eucharistic Sacrifice is “the summit and source” of the entire Christian way of life. Everything we do in following Jesus Christ draws its life from the Mass and simultaneously points us back to the Mass. The New Passover, the Holy Sacrifice, is the continuous playing out of God’s saving action among us until the Lord returns in glory.
In the Mass, the person who prays encounters and experiences in an on-going, new way the redeeming presence of Jesus Christ. In the Mass and flowing from it, the heart that prays carries forward the mystery of faith.
The Catechism explains: “In the sacramental liturgy of the Church, the mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present, and communicates the mystery of salvation, which is continued in the heart that prays.”
By directing us to the heart that has the desire and discipline of prayer, the Church is showing us its importance. The Catechism comments: “The spiritual writers sometimes compare the heart to an altar.”
We cannot grow in the interior life, if our heart is not shouldering and assimilating the Paschal and Eucharistic Mystery of the Lord. In this way, the heart itself becomes a type of altar in which we follow the Lord as he lives, dies, and lives again.
Through this dynamic, the Eucharistic Sacrifice resonates with the person of prayer as the sacrifice on the altar is also the sacrifice in their hearts. The person can look and say, “Yes, I know this Crucified and Risen Lord. I live his passion, death, and resurrection every day in my own life.”
The Eucharistic Sacrifice, therefore, becomes familiar and tenable. It is something that is lived and experienced every day. It is not a cold and removed ritual, but is the living, vibrant source and summit of our life of prayer and of our entire lives. In this way, the Mass is an event that connects us to the Lord Jesus and one another. It is a sacred action of communion, relationship, covenant, worship, and instruction. The Mass is where our prayer finds its origin, structure, and fulfillment. The Eucharistic Sacrifice truly becomes the culmination of prayer and of a life lived completely in the Lord Jesus and his Paschal Mystery.
The Catechism teaches us: “Prayer internalizes and assimilates the liturgy during and after its celebration. Even when it is lived out ‘in secret,’ prayer is always prayer of the Church; it is a communion with the Holy Trinity.”
By flowing from the sacred liturgy, our prayer continues to marvel and dwell upon the sacred mysteries contained within it. Our prayer is ordered and guided by the sacred liturgy itself. In this way, our prayer matures, grows, and develops within the movements and flows of the sacred words and actions of the Church’s worship.
In particular, by bringing our life of prayer into the Paschal Mystery made present in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, our prayer becomes more Trinitarian. A prayer that once simply spoke to “God” is led by the sacred liturgy to use the intimate term “Father.” The sacred liturgy also gives us an approach to the three divine persons. Our prayer is ow directed to the Father, in the Son, and by the Spirit. What was once a distant salutation to a generic God, now becomes a family affair and the salutation of a son or daughter to their heavenly Father, divine Older Brother, and eternal Advocate and Guide. In this way, our prayer has been enriched and enmeshed in the revealed mystery of God’s identity and presence.
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