Today's Mass readings can be found: [HERE].
Today, nationally, we celebrate Memorial Day, during which we honor our fallen comrades who paid the ultimate sacrifice for God, country, and family. We call to mind their memory, and visit their tombs. We decorate their graves and offer up a prayer of gratitude for their service.
From a natural standpoint, it is right and just to honor these heroes who spilled their blood to preserve us a nation.
As the saying goes, grace builds upon nature, and we see how this natural instinct reaches perfection at the Holy Mass through God's grace. At the Holy Mass, we honor Jesus Christ, who offered himself in sacrifice as the Lamb of God who is the perfect holocaust before the Almighty God. He did this for all of humanity and to restore creation.
But we do more than merely call him to mind. We go to Mass to encounter Him. We meet and receive him in the Holy Mass as the Eucharist. And we do more than recall a memory of him. Through the Mass we actually enter into the original event. Christ's Resurrection from the dead has shattered the limitations of time and space, so that at every Mass, we truly enter into the paschal experience of 2000 years ago.
It is right and just to glorify Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, the Father. The Lord is the true hero, the Christ, the Messiah, who spilled his blood on the Cross and from the Chalice to preserve his chosen people.
In our gospel today (Jn. 16:29-33), Jesus tells his disciples: "I am not alone, because the Father is with me." Further, Jesus is not alone because we are with him. As he said before, he would be in us; the Father in him, and he in us. At every Mass, we truly rest in his divine presence. May God bless you.
Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper: image retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)
Comments