Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 171.
(Youcat answer) Liturgy is always in
the first place communion or fellowship with Jesus Christ. Every liturgy, not
just the celebration of the Eucharist, is an Easter in miniature. Jesus reveals
his passage from death to life and celebrates it with us.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 1085)
In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that
Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his
Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his
Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away:
Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of
the Father "once for all" (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27; 9:12; cf. Jn 13:1;
17:1). His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it
is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away,
swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot
remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that
Christ is - all that he did and suffered for all men - participates in the
divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them
all. The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life.
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) The most important Liturgy in
the world was the Paschal Liturgy that Jesus celebrated with his disciples in
the Upper Room on the night before his death. The disciples thought that Jesus
would be commemorating the liberation of Israel from Egypt. Instead, Jesus
celebrated the liberation of all mankind from the power of death. Back in Egypt
it was the “blood of the Lamb” that preserved the IsraeLites from the angel of
death. Now he himself would be the Lamb whose blood saves mankind from death.
For Jesus’ death and Resurrection is the proof that someone can die and
nevertheless gain life. This is the genuine substance of every Christian
liturgy. Jesus himself compared his death and Resurrection with Israel’s
liberation from slavery in Egypt. Therefore, the redemptive effect of Jesus’
death and Resurrection is called the Paschal mystery. There is an analogy between the life-saving blood of
the Lamb at the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (Ex 12) and Jesus, the true
Paschal Lamb that has redeemed mankind from the bondage of death and sin.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 1084)
"Seated at the right hand of the Father" and pouring out the Holy
Spirit on his Body which is the Church, Christ now acts through the sacraments
he instituted to communicate his grace. The sacraments are perceptible signs
(words and actions) accessible to our human nature. By the action of Christ and
the power of the Holy Spirit they make present efficaciously the grace that
they signify.
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