WHAT HAPPENS AT MASS?

What happens at Mass?

We have a beautiful moment in these next few months to pray and reflect on this question, as we anticipate Advent, when we will start using a new translation of our Mass prayers.

The Mass is ever ancient and ever new. Many of the prayers we hear and say in the Mass were written before the ninth century. Many are taken almost word-for-word from the sacred Scriptures or adapted from the preaching of the early Church Fathers.

We should go to Mass every week aware that we are sharing in the spiritual worship that has nourished the family of God since the day of the Resurrection.

We know the story of that first Easter: how the risen Jesus met two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

The disciples didn’t recognize him. But as they walked, Jesus proclaimed the Scriptures to them. He explained how the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in his preaching of the Gospel.

The disciples’ hearts burned within them. And they responded with words of faith, urging Jesus: “Stay with us!”

We know what happened next. Jesus did the same thing he did at the Last Supper. Seated at table, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to his disciples.

And they came to know him, St. Luke said, “in the breaking of the bread.” This is the first name Christians used for what we now call the Eucharist or the Mass.

In every Mass, the risen Jesus comes again to walk with us and talk with us. He opens the Scriptures for us and challenges us to open our hearts to believe in him. He breaks the bread for us and gives himself to us in his Body and Blood.

Jesus taught the first Christians that when we gather on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, we aren’t gathering only with family and friends in our parish here on earth.

In a mysterious way, our Mass on earth unites us with all the angels and saints gathered around God’s throne in the eternal liturgy of heaven. Our worship in the Mass also makes us one Body with our fellow Catholics everywhere in the world — in every nation from the rising of the sun to its setting.

So we should approach every ...