Day 156: How the Liturgy Is Celebrated (1145-1152)

• It’s Day 156!!

• HOW IS THE LITURGY CELEBRATED?

• Remember the four questions in the beginning of CHAPTER 2: THE SACRAMENTAL CELEBRATION OF THE PASCHAL MYSTERY?

• WHO CELEBRATES THE LITURGY?

• Today we learn HOW IS THE LITURGY CELEBRATED?

• WHEN IS THE LITURGY CELEBRATED?

• WHERE IS THE LITURGY CELEBRATED?

• SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

• These are the two key words today

• We speak through signs

• We have heard of sign language, people communicating by using signs with their hands

• BUT…

• WORDS ARE SIGNS!!

• THEY ARE SYMBOLS!!

• They are ways that we communicate

• Any word on a page is a signification

• If you read the word “snow” it SIGNIFIES something

• It is a SIGN for the reality of snow

• Have you ever thought about that?

• Even Fr. Mike SAYING the word “snow” that is a sign that signifies to us the reality of snow

• We communicate to each other through SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

• Why would it be any different when it comes to our relationship with God?

• God speaks to us through VISIBLE CREATION

• God speaks to us through SIGNS

• God speaks to us through SYMBOLS

• In the Old Covenant God spoke through signs and symbols

• We communicate with God in signs and symbols

• In the New Covenant Jesus takes those signs and symbols and FULFILLS THEM

• He MAKES THEM NEW in making them into SACRAMENTS

• HOW IS THE LITURGY CELEBRATED?

• It is celebrated through SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

• So let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise. We ask you in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, to receive our thanksgiving, to receive our praise for you for who you are, for all that you have done. We ask you to please, in the name of your Son, Jesus, send your Holy Spirit out upon us that we can see you. That we can hear your voice. Lord God, in so many ways you have spoken to us. In the most complete and full way you have spoken to us through your Son. We ask that you please help us to be attuned to His voice. Help us to be attuned to His presence, His action, His reality in this world. Lord, for all the people that we come into contact with today, those we will see, those we have seen, those that are around us in this very moment, we ask that you please bless them as well. Because they are signs of your goodness as well. They are signs of your presence. They are signs of your reality. They were made in your image. And so help us to just see. Help us to see, to see you in your Creation, to see you in the people around us, and to see you in all things. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Sometimes Fr. Mike overlooks the reality and the power of SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

• Because we think they’re JUST signs and they are JUST symbols

• AND YET…

• Those signs and symbols are the way in which we communicate with EVERYBODY

• We would not know ANYTHING without signs and symbols

• Remember Helen Keller?

• She was a young girl who was both blind and deaf

• She could not hear

• She could not see

• She could not communicate

• She lived in this darkness and in this silence and was unable to communicate her needs and thoughts

• She didn’t even know what other people around her were thinking and what they wanted

• UNTIL…

• Along came this teacher who was able to communicate reality through touch

• The Miracle Worker is a movie about Helen Keller

• The first time she touches water and the teacher traces a sign on her hand for water

• Helen runs around and touches all these things and wanted her teacher to communicate

• She is given a name for the reality that she experienced so that she could understand them

• She could communicate back to them what had been trapped this whole time inside of her

• We can’t understand ourselves and vice versa without signs and symbols

• The Church says that GOD HIMSELF HAS DONE THIS

• He has written this into humanity

• Paragraph 1146 says, “Signs of the human world. In human life, signs and symbols occupy an important place. As a being at once body and spirit, man expresses and perceives spiritual realities through physical signs and symbols.”

• THAT IS REALITY!!

• St. John Paul II said, “The body and it alone is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and Divine.”

• We have been given bodies

• Through our bodies we are capable of making the visible invisible

• What does that mean?

• No one has ever seen a soul

• I mean, some of us have seen ghosts

• We know that when “Roger” walks into the room, oh Roger is here

• Why?

• Because the body is capable of making visible the invisible

• Roger’s body reveals his soul

• Same thing happens with us

• Everything we know we know in and through our bodies

• So Roger is here and we know he is here because we see his body

• How does Roger communicate anything to us?

• He does not use telepathy

• He does not communicate to us in a spiritual way

• He communicates by using his voice that we hear with our bodies

• Or he waves and moves his hand back and forth

• We communicate with each other with our bodies

• We can even communicate to each other deep and profound spiritual realities

• For the last 156 days we have been listening with our bodies

• We have been processing with our brain that is part of our body

• We recognize deep and profound things with our body

• When we read Sacred Scripture we are reading the Words of God that are coming to us mediated through SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

• THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!!

• Paragraph 1147 says, “God speaks to man through visible creation.”

• You see snow, the sun, rain, or maybe even darkness

• We can read traces of our Creator there

• GOD REVEALS HIMSELF THROUGH CREATION

• The very fact of the reality that Creation exists POINTS TO A CREATOR

• The very fact that Creation is beautiful POINTS TO THE BEAUTY OF THE CREATOR

• The very fact that Creation makes sense, that we can do science, means that the Creator MUST BE RATIONAL 

• NOT ACCIDENTAL

• NOT RANDOM

• Visible creation speaks to us

• We get to express our response to God

• Paragraph 1148 says, “Inasmuch as they are creatures, these perceptible realities can become means of expression who sanctifies men, and the action of men who offer worship to God.”

• Not just in normal creation

• But also in culture

• Think about the normal human actions of washing and anointing

• Yeah you’re washing and putting on oil

• BUT…

• These normal aspects take on a NEW MEANING when they are brought into the religious rites

• Breaking bread and sharing the Cup are ways in which human beings bond

• ALPHA is a program that is an introduction to Christianity that was started by the Anglican Church in England

• The three elements of an evening in ALPHA is to first gather for a meal, have normal conversation while breaking bread

• There is something about that that unites people

• Later on there is a presentation on some aspect of the Christian life and then there is a discussion

• God has taken these normal aspects of human life and they have been ELEVATED

• How have they been elevated?

• Think about washing and anointing

• Think about breaking bread and sharing the cup

• These are normal things people do

• BUT…

• What did God do in the Old Covenant?

• He took them and gave them NEW MEANING

• They became SIGNS OF THE COVENANT

• If you’ve gone through the Bible you know what those signs are

• Circumcision is a SIGN of the Covenant

• How could a little surgery on a baby have any spiritual reality?

• AND YET…

• That circumcision was what brought a man INTO COVENANT WITH THE LORD GOD

• These NATURAL things have been given SUPERNATURAL POWER

• Anointing and consecration, laying on of hands

• We reach out and touch people, we put our hand on their shoulder or on their back

• God elevates that to the laying on of hands for healing and prayer

• People make sacrifices for all sorts of things

• In the Old Covenant sacrifice becomes elevated into worship of God

• Jesus has transformed them and fulfilled them

• Jesus in His very self…

• (SQUIRREL!! 😉)

• Think about how many times Jesus BREATHES ON SOMEONE

• Jesus SPITS ON THE GROUND and makes paste out of mud and puts it on someone’s eyes

• Or the man who is mute and deaf and Jesus heals him by touching his ears and tongue and spitting aka doing physical things  to communicate spiritual healing

• Think about Jesus’ own Sacrifice

• He gives us Himself at the Last Supper

• He gives up Himself to the Father in the Crucifixion at Golgotha

• Why would that have anything to do with us?

• Why would that have any ramifications in our lives?

• WELL…

• It does because these SIGNS AND SYMBOLS, these things that JESUS ACTUALLY DID AND SAID have SPIRITUAL POWER

• That POWER is communicated to us in the SACRAMENTS

• Does that make sense?

• Words are communicated

• Gestures are communicated

• These actions that are NATURAL become SUPERNATURAL

• These actions of Jesus become SALVIFIC and they come to us in the SACRAMENTS

• This is what SIGNS AND SYMBOLS are all about

• These SIGNS point to the REALITY

• These SIGNS AND SYMBOLS make present the reality

• Hope that makes sense!!

• IT IS INCREDIBLE!!

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!