Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

[Blessed soon to be Saint John Paul II had this to say about the Eucharist: “This Sacrament of Love shall be the center of the life of the people of God.”]    (Source: Wikimedia Commons) “The Blessed Sacrament is Jesus living in our midst to fulfill a promise made long ago: ‘I Myself will pas­ture my sheep. I Myself will give them rest, says the Lord God. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal’ (Ezek 34:15-16).

           Far too many Catholics complain they find the Mass to be “boring” or that they “get nothing out of it”.   It is unlikely they would feel that way if they knew the answers to the following questions:   What is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? What happens at Mass? Who is present there? What benefits do we receive by participating at Mass?             In his powerful book, The Way to God, Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. tells us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass “is not a mere commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross.   No it is the same, the actuality, the renewal, the continuation, the representation of the sacrifice of the cross… so that when I assist at Mass I am present at the Sacrifice of the cross as much as Mary, John and Magdalen were.   It is the unbloody renewal of the bloody Sacrifice of the cross.” Does this essential truth of our ...