Sunday, 9/20/15
First Century Christian communities had a great little
handbook for conducting baptisms and for offering the Mass.Its English name would
have been The Teaching of the Apostles; but since no one spoke English
back then it was known by the Greek word for teaching, which was “Didache.”
(pronounced did-a-kay)
For the Mass the Didache said something like this, “When you
come together on the Lord’s Day, begin by confessing your sins, so that your
sacrifice will be pure. And. if anyone has a difference with another, let them
be reconciled, so that it does not ruin your sacrifice; for the Lord has said
that we must have an unblemished sacrifice in all places.”
Two things that stand out there, are first of all, is that
our Mass is three times referred to as our sacrifice; and secondly, with no
mention of a special role for a priest, it is everyone’s sacrifice.
Christians for three centuries had debates over the question as
to just what made this ritual a sacrifice. Many people thought that a sacrificial
act was represented by the body and blood being separated as in death.
But, after three hundred years, St. Augustan settled the
matter. He told us that the sacrifice consists in Christ and us people
submitting our wills to God as a pleasing gift. . We call our sacrifice “the
Eucharist” which is Greek for a “Pleasing Gift.”
Each of us takes a full part in the sacrifice of the Mass by joining Jesus in completely
submitting our wills to the will of God in one “Pleasing Gift.”
The reason we receive communion in this sacrifice is that at
the same time we are mentally one with Jesus in the Pleasing Gift, we might
also be physically one with him in our Eucharist.
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