THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

It is not correct to claim, as some are doing, that Masses have been cancelled or suspended.  Every priest in our diocese has been asked by Bishop Zubik to be faithful and steadfast in celebrating Mass privately every single day.  I have the joy and privilege of doing that every day and I do it mindful and intentional of the souls that I have been given responsibility to serve - the faithful of our parish grouping.  As your pastor I continue to lift up the needs of each of the faithful in this difficult time when public Masses and services can no longer take place.  Masses are being celebrated by every priest every day for the faithful. I know how painful it is for the faithful not to be able to participate in the Mass and to receive Holy Communion.  But this is only for a time and in this time we are joined intimately and closely in the bonds of spiritual communion with our Lord, His Church and with each other who make up the Body of Christ.

In his “Holy Thursday Letter” addressed to all of the priests of the Church in 1999, Pope John Paul II taught, “In the Eucharist, the priest personally draws near to the inexhaustible mystery of Christ and of His prayer to the Father.  He can immerse himself daily in the mystery of redemption and grace by celebrating Holy Mass, which retains its meaning and value even when, for a just reason, it is offered without the participation of the faithful, yet always for the faithful and for the whole world” (#6).  

As a minister of word and sacrament and as one who acts in the person of Christ, the identity of the priest becomes most clear in the offering of the Mass, the source and summit of our Catholic spiritual life.  The Mass is a memorial, but in the biblical sense, in that it makes present the event itself.  Therefore, the Mass entails both memory and presence.  Through the Mass, one not only recalls the saving event of the Last Supper, the passion, death, and resurrection, one enters into the ever-present, ever-living reality of that saving event.  For the priest, he enters into the very mystery of his priesthood.

When the priest offers the Mass, he invokes and calls down in the epiclesis the Holy Spirit who makes present anew the saving event on the altar.  Here the priest extends his hands over the bread and wine and says, “Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Pope John Paul II taught, “The priest truly acts in persona Christi.  What Christ accomplished on the altar of the cross and what earlier still He had instituted as a sacrament in the Upper Room, the priest now renews by the power of the Holy Spirit.  At this moment the priest is as it were embraced by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the words which he utters have the same efficacy as those spoken by Christ at the Last Supper” (Gift and Mystery, p. 77).   When the priest pronounces the words of consecration, the bread and wine become truly, really, and substantially Christ’s own body and blood, and they represent in a sacramental, unbloody manner the bloody propitiatory sacrifice offered by Him on the cross to His Father for the salvation of the world. Jesus Christ, therefore, is the principle actor, and the priest speaks and acts in the person of Christ to make His sacrifice present in a new way.

The Church and her priests have not abandoned the faithful in these days when we face the coronavirus pandemic.  We willingly and lovingly risk and sacrifice our lives every day in serving God's people. We will continue to do so as best we can.  But we simply cannot be a risk to those we serve and all who are connected to them.  But as we adhere to the restrictions given to us by our government and health authorities, and the Church, we continue to serve the faithful. And what we can do most beautifully is to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is efficacious for all the faithful and for the Church.  I pray for all of you every day at Mass.  We join the sacrifice being asked of all of us in these days to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,. our Eternal High Priest, on the Cross at Calvary for the redemption of souls.