Fr. Eric: A man was walking down the street and he fell into a deep hole where the walls were very steep. The first person to come by was a doctor. And he said, hey, buddy. Can you help me out of this hole? The doctor reaches in his pocket, takes out a piece of paper, writes him a prescription, throws it down the hole hole, and moves on.
The next person come is a priest. Father, can you help me out of the hole? The priest writes a prayer, throws it down the hole the hole, and moves on. The third person is a friend, Joe. Hey, Joe.
Can you help me out of this hole? And immediately, Joe jumps into the deep hole and hits the bottom with him. And his friend says, are you stupid? Now we're both down here. And Joe goes, I know.
I've been here before, and I know the way out. That's Catholic liturgy. That's the mass, caring for each other. At our very baptism, the promise of the training in the practice of the faith was to love God, and to love neighbor. In order to worship God, to give adoration to God, it is also included in how we love our neighbor.
And liturgy just doesn't focus on worshiping God alone, but it's done together because each of us have been there before, and we know the way out. All three readings give a special line that talks about how people are included in God's plan of salvation. The first reading from Isaiah. Israel, do you think so little that I've only come to save you alone? Are you the only ones I'm going to say, and the Scripture ends what my salvation will reach till the ends of the earth.
That's everyone's invited. Saint Paul writes the Corinthians and says, all of us are called to be holy, and we are in this together with everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. Not just your special parish, not just your special denomination, all who call on Christ are included in God's salvation. And then John's gospel today, where John the Baptist points his finger at Jesus and says, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. All those things include people.
And so liturgy, the Catholic mass reflects our baptism, loving God and neighbor, and reflects everything in scriptures that God's salvation reaches to the ends of the earth.
Eric Tamayo: Similar to last week as we talked about the liturgy of the word, this week we'll be breaking open the liturgy of the Eucharist. And when we come to mass, we are primarily nourished two ways. Right? We talked first about through scripture. Right?
Hearing the word of God. We come to know who God is. We come to know who we are as people of God, and we come to know how we are called to live with one another. Right? The second way, of course, we are nourished with the Eucharist, the presence of Christ that we receive and carry with us.
And as we left off last week with, the prayers of the faithful, now we begin liturgy of the Eucharist with the operatory.
Fr. Eric: So you know that whenever I teach a class or give instructions on the faith, there's always one right answer. Because the central theme of Christianity is dying and rising. Who was the twelfth pope? Dine and rising. You're right.
How do you spell? You know how to spell transubstantiation? Dine and rising. You're right. That's very central in dying and rising.
So we reach the part called the offertory, the presentation of the gifts. And we bring up gifts, first of all, of bread and wine. Gifts that are crushed to bring new life. What do you do? What do you crush to make bread?
Wheat. What do you crush to make wine? Grapes. Those two things bring to the table of Christ whose life was crushed for us, and the same thing will happen to us when we experience death, but something new comes from it. So that's the offertory.
Now the other part is probably the pastor's favorite part of the mass, the collection. And we call it the offertory. Here's the most beautiful thing about the offertory is you bring to God what God has given you. No one here is a self made person. I did it all myself, and I got help from no one, and God stood out of the way.
Everything we have according to scripture says, it comes from god. And the most humbling thing is being your pastor and watching you leave the pews coming forward to leave your gifts. Even after hearing a difficult homily, you still come up. I'm grateful and relieved. And yet, you come up to lay your gift.
Whether it's finances, which helps pay the bills, APS doesn't just accept prayers, you know. They have to take money, so it helps the work, the mission of the church as well. But also, it helps us then charity and the work beyond here. So you come forward, and whether you place your finances, we ask you to write down your prayer requests because those gifts are prayed over every Wednesday by our staff and also works of service. I listened to someone going through a divorce, someone who felt lonely.
I helped change a flat tire. Those are things you can write down, place in the operatory baskets, and present those gifts to God.
Eric Tamayo: So it's during the operatory where you might notice the priest saying a few words to himself as well. It's in this moment when the priest is praying the prayer over the gifts that we have brought. And as father Eric mentioned, this is also opportunity for ourselves through our baptism to offer ourselves, to offer our own our own gifts and service as well. But you might notice the priest praying this prayer on the week weekends. You get to hear this prayer out loud during the week or during the weekends, we have music playing, so you don't get to hear the words.
But the basic prayer is the priest is acknowledging all our need for God. The fact that we are here, that we need God in our life, that we need his healing presence, that along the journey, we also fall short. Right? And so the priest is praying this prayer for himself and on behalf of the entire community. And he even invites us all, Pray brothers and sisters.
Right? And this is the moment when we all stand. And you'll see that the liturgy of the Eucharist very much reflects the ancient prayers of Jews during that time as they celebrated a meal. Right? The head of the household, he would take bread.
He would break bread and pass it to everyone around the table and say a blessing. Then at the end of the meal, the the head of the household would then take a cup of wine and say a longer form of a blessing and pass it around as well, very much like our liturgy of the Eucharist. But there's a special prayer that the priest prays called the preface during this time and it varies from week to week, but in this time we are giving praise to God, we're giving thanks, and we are praying that this gift that we the gifts that we bring be acceptable to God. It's also during this moment when we are called to lift up our hearts. Right?
We hear this ancient dialogue, the Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the lord our god. Right? And we are called to respond.
Right? And we should respond proudly because it makes a difference. Right? We should be all saying proudly, we lift our hearts up to the lord. Right?
Presenting ourselves to god. And this dialogue is actually ancient dialogue. It's first recorded in the third the early third century. And so just think that this this call and response was taking place from the early years of the church, the celebration of the mass. And centuries later, we're still saying that same prayer.
And so the Eucharistic prayer is a chance for us to recenter ourselves at this preface as we prepare ourselves to receive the body of Christ.
Fr. Eric: And now we say the words or pray saying the words, holy, holy, holy, also known as the sanctuos. And what that is, it's said three times the words. The three we say that each time three times. Three in the scriptures represents wholeness, unity with God. And so this comes from Isaiah chapter six when all the angels say, holy holy holy Lord.
And so you are saying the very words of the angels. The very words of the angels that heaven and earth come together at this table. Lot of times you and I speak of heaven is up there. You know grandpa died and he's golfing every day in heaven. Grandma gets to shop every day in heaven like it's far away.
The altar represents heaven and earth coming together. Why do you think we have these three angels? Some of you think it's for the Los Angeles angels in baseball. No. It is simultaneously we are about ready to eat heavenly food.
And so we join with all the angels to say those words of Lord God of power and might. Now the word hosanna means either save us or we give you glory and praise, that we ask God to help us to be worthy to participate in this banquet. And then what we do is we go through what is called the Eucharistic prayer. This is the prayers of the priest here leading the community in prayer. There are a number of options that the priest can use of different forms of prayer.
Whenever there's a playoff game, I always use Eucharistic prayer number two because it's the shortest one. If it's baseball season, I use the longer ones because we're in no hurry. And so in those Eucharistic prayer, here's what we do. We give thanks and praise to God. Remember, Eucharist means giving thanks and praise.
That's why we're here. You're not here to check off an obligation to make sure God doesn't strike you down or you feel better when you leave. You are here to give praise and thanks to God. That is a central part of the Eucharistic prayer. And then we ask the Holy Spirit to come upon us.
When you see the priest extend his hands over the bread and wine, that is calling the Holy Spirit. The fancy word, so you look good in a cocktail party next time, is epiklesis. Can you all say epiklesis? Epiklesis. Say it again.
Oh, you're gonna look smart next time. I always love telling the story when I was first ordained in the station at Saint Maria Goretti. It was a girl that was her family was a friend of mine. She was 14. And when the teens go on retreat, they sign up with whoever's on the core team to take a ten minute walk around and talk about spiritual life or life itself or whatever.
So the one girl walks with me, and she goes, father, I just have to tell you that there is something happening at every mass I go. And I said, what is it? I always see a wiggly figure over the priest there. And I'm thinking, what is she smoking? Thinking, what are you talking about?
Yeah. So I just decided to test her and say, tell me when you see that. And she does no theology. She said, whenever the priest goes like this over the gifts, Oh my god. That's when the holy spirit comes upon.
So whether you believe or not, this girl who knows no theology is seeing something. And she did it the right way of saying, when the holy spirit is called upon it, that wiggly figure is there. Epiklesis is the word. And then we use the words that Jesus used. This is my body.
This is my blood. Do this in memory of me. That's why mass still exists today. It's celebrated three hundred sixty four days out of three hundred and sixty five days a year. And then we remember to proclaim Jesus' passion, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the promise that he said he will come again.
And then the last part, here's why I love being a priest because in your name and my name too of the church, I pray for these things. First of all, we pray for the whole church throughout the world, not just Roman Catholics, not just Notre Dame football fans. Everyone in God's people. So we pray that. We're not selective.
We're not only saying only the good people get it or whoever or they think like us. And then we pray for all the living that we can be one. In every Eucharistic prayer, we say, Lord, may this spirit make us one as we partake in this meal. Do you know who that includes? We pray for everyone one day in heaven.
We wish now, but unfortunately, we're too human, that we pray for all people. I want you to tell people you see our brothers and sisters at Scottsdale Bible this week, that we pray for them at every mass. I want you to tell the Lutherans at 96th And Shea that we pray for them at every mass. I want you to tell the Presbyterians at Hayton and Mountain View, we pray for them at every mass. Our brothers and sisters, Greek Orthodox on Cactus, I want you to tell them we pray for them at every mass.
And we pray that one day all of us can eat at the table. Some Catholics are like the police, worried about who's receiving and who's worthy, and whether they should or not, I just wanna let you know that your jobs will no longer be needed in heaven. The Jews, the Hindus, the Greeks, the atheists will all be together because God is the only one who judges, and he knows hearts. Because look at our prayers when we pray for all who have died. For our brothers and sisters who are baptized.
Yes. Whether Roman Catholic or not, we pray for them. But for all who have left this world in your friendship. For all you know whose faith is known to you alone, because God you're the one that reads all hearts. You know all.
And so as your pastor, that's the only thing that's keeping me, because there's some days I don't wanna be your pastor. A lot of you are pain in the butt. My life is a pain in the butt sometimes. You know? I don't always feel the best there.
And other days, I'm on fire, and I love it. Just like you in your life. But you know what I love most of all? I get to pray for everyone who's died. And I tug at Gock's cloak, and I say, remember their goodness.
Remember who they are. And you know, it and I'm gonna tell you something. Never once have I done forty years worth of funerals did I only go, boy, I don't know if that person really made it to heaven. Only God decides. Because I know people showed up even if there's only one person.
That person was loved, and we get to pray for them. And then we have the doxology. What that is is when the priest holds the the cup, rather the cup, the chalice, and the host, And he says, through him, with him, and in him. The doxology is ended with a great amen. It says, all creation gives you glory.
So it's kinda like one of the high points. It's one of the high points of there that says, Lord, all creation comes to you. And remember, it's the great amen, not just amen. Everyone say amen. Amen.
That's right. It's the great amen. It means so be it.
Eric Tamayo: After the priest will then invite the congregation, the community to pray the our father. Right? The Lord's prayer. And, of course, community is central to our liturgy, and so we pray it together. And just think, this was the very prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples.
Right? It's a model exactly it's a model for all prayer, in fact. And so together, we pray the Lord's prayer. And after the Lord's prayer, we get to the, prayer section after called the embolism. And it's a word meaning just in between.
So it's the prayer in between. And it's simply during this time, we are asking for God's protection. Right? We ask the Lord to deliver us, Lord, we pray, from all evil. It's in this moment, we're asking for protection in this moment.
But as we go forward, as we bring Christ out into the world, that he will continue to guard us and keep us safe. And then we turn to one another as we make the sign of peace.
Fr. Eric: And so the sign of peace, it really comes from the gospel of Matthew chapter five when Jesus says, if you come with your gifts to the altar of God, but you realize that you have something very heavy against your brother or sister, leave your gift there. Go and be reconciled. That's what it means to worship and love God. And it's not always an easy thing to do. So we offer each other the sign of peace before communion.
A peace that doesn't mean peace and quiet. The kids are at the movies, and we get quiet time at home. Or they're in school during the day and it's my time to catch up on things. The peace is doesn't mean a lack of conflict. It means a peace that only God can give.
And we are called to be peacemakers. So we carry that out with our liturgy before well, when we receive the body of Christ, we're sent out to be peacemakers. And so we offer each other the sign of peace. And then the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I hope those of you who struggle with worthiness I don't know who you are, but I know a lot of people do.
And I think we all do at different times whether we're worthy. I want you to remember the words, lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That's what makes you worthy. You and I alone are not worthy to receive communion. God himself does that.
And we'd say three times, you take away the sins of the world. And so we are made worthy by God to participate, and then we come up for communion. Remember, we are eating heavenly bread, the same bread that your deceased and risen loved ones are receiving. That's why heaven and earth meets together. And I think if Catholics really understood that, think I we might have a different attitude towards mass.
The belief that our loved ones and heaven and earth, and we taste heavenly food. So when you come up, you bow right before the as the person in front of you is receiving, Just out of respect. Just a nod of the head is fine, and that is sufficient enough that that prepares yourself to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus. But also, you can either receive on the tongue or in the hand on the hand. Either way is acceptable and fine in the community.
Doing it any other way does not make you more holier. Okay? You are very reverent in coming up. Just remember how you receive communion, and you partake of that. And, again, we ask you to be sure that you pray about it.
To leave right as soon as the host there, it's not a thing to do because it's not honoring and thanking God. Take some time. Reflect what you're receiving that you are eating heavenly food.
Eric Tamayo: After you've received communion and had a moment of prayer, the priest will then invite the congregation to stand, and this is where we the priest will pray the prayer after communion as well as give the congregation a blessing and dismissal. Right? So the blessing and dismissal will vary from week to week and take a variety of forms, but the message is the same. The message is that we are called to go out and proclaim the good news, the gospel message. Right?
That the gospel that we have just heard here at mass isn't just meant for us, but rather if it is good news and we believe that it is good news, we are called to share that with one another. Right? And that's exactly what we're called to do. As we go out, we are called to bring Christ to others. Right?
Begins with a person right next to you, but remembering that we have just received Christ, that Christ dwells within us. And so as mass ends and we are dismissed, we are then called to bring that out into the world. Right? After mass, I encourage you to stop by our liturgy resource table by our touchdown Jesus. There's a number of resources where you can learn more about the liturgy of the word as well as liturgy of the Eucharist.
And I wanna remind you as well, you can find this talk as well as last week's talk online through our website as well as our YouTube page and our our email weekly email connection as well. You'll see receive some more information on about the liturgy of the word and liturgy of the Eucharist. Thank you.