August 22, 2021 - Pastor Message
04/18/2024THE MASS EXPLAINED PART 1: PREMASS PREPARATION
“Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).
Throughout the month of August, we have been reflecting on St. Joseph as a model for priests, particularly in his spiritual fatherhood, teaching Jesus the faith and leading the Holy Family in worship. In an effort to do both more effectively here at St. Boniface, as your spiritual father I will be working with Deacon Tim over the next several weeks to explain the Mass in my column and in our Sunday homilies. It is our hope that by doing so we will help deepen our celebration of the Mass and help us all realize how important the Mass is in our lives and that of our parish.
In a sense, Mass begins before we even leave our homes to come to church with our personal preparation. By observing the Communion fast of abstaining from all food and drink, except for water and medicine, for one hour before we receive Communion, we are raising our awareness of the awesome mystery we are about to celebrate. By removing worldly concerns from our lives, we make room for Christ to come and make his home with us, refocusing our lives on God’s kingdom, which we experience sacramentally at Mass, rather than the world. We can also go beyond the required Communion fast in our preparation for Mass, spending time in personal prayer, spiritual reading, or other spiritual activities that can enhance our participation and experience of Mass.
All of these contribute to what we call our disposition for celebrating Mass, especially for receiving Holy Communion. Disposition means our readiness and openness to receive the grace of the sacraments; the better our disposition, the more transformative will be our reception of God’s grace, which is the whole point of celebrating the sacraments, including the Eucharist. A major factor that can limit our disposition or even close us off completely from receiving God’s grace in the Eucharist is sin. If we are conscious of having committed grave sin since our last sacramental confession, we need to go to confession before receiving Holy Communion to be properly disposed to receive God’s grace. This is because sin is the opposite of grace, and so, to receive God’s grace at Mass, we need to be free of sin, which for grave sin ordinarily happens only through the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.
Like most things in life, the more we put into our celebration of the Mass, the more we’ll get out of it, and that includes putting the time and effort we need into our personal preparation for Mass. Next week we will continue our reflection on the Mass with the Introductory Rites. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to engage in your own reflection on the Mass. A good place to start is: https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass Check it out, and let us grow together in our love for the Mass here at St. Boniface.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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