How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist - 5B

    

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

About Michael Dubruiel

Chapter 1 - Serve, Part 2

“You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

M ATTHEW 4:10

THE WAY

“The Way” is one of the oldest names for the first followers of Christ. Jesus often told his disciples that he came to show them “the Way” to the Father, that God’s ways were not our ways, and that He was the Way. The routine that we can fall into at the Eucharist happens precisely when we stop seeing what is taking place as “different” from everything else that we experience in life. Not only is it different, but if we truly enter into the Eucharist with a spirit of sacrifice, it will change the way that we view everything in our lives. The tension between Christian beliefs and the beliefs of “the world” is understood only when we come to embrace “the way” of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Most converts to Christianity have a clear sense of the saving power of Jesus as “the Way.” Faithful, lifelong Catholics may not have as keen an understanding until they experience the difference their faith has made to them in contrast to the rejection of that faith in one of their children.Yet understanding that “the way” of Christ is not business as usual can keep us from thinking that we have nothing to prepare for when we celebrate the Eucharist. Once we realize that God’s ways are not our ways, we will always see the need to “prepare ourselves for these Sacred Mysteries” we are about to celebrate.

LIVING THE E UCHARIST

Throughout the day,when the events of the day do not go your “way,” before frustration has a chance to set in, stop and ask yourself what God’s way might be for what the day has given you. Try to think of a similar incident in the life of Christ to the one in which you find yourself — how did Our Lord handle the situation?

How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist - 5A

   

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

About Michael Dubruiel

Chapter 1 - Serve, Part 1

“You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

M ATTHEW 4:10

In my home parish, St. John the Baptist in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the words Parate Viam Domini are inscribed over the front doors. The two years of Latin that I had in college and my knowledge of Scripture are enough for me to figure out that the message greeting me each Sunday are the words of St. John the Baptist in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” It is an excellent message to set the tone for the mystery that is about to be celebrated.

PREPARATION

I remember how differently I approached the Mass when as a young man I began to serve at the Eucharist as an altar boy. Before I could serve for the first time, I had to attend training sessions so that I knew what gestures and movements I was to make, and had to study the Latin responses so that I could answer the prayers of the priest at the appropriate time.Sometimes school was sacrificed so that I could serve a funeral mass,or a Saturday afternoon so that the priest could be attended to as he witnessed the marriage vows of a couple celebrating the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The thought and preparation that went into serving at the Eucharist required a sacrifice on my part but kept me focused on why I was there. Adults who serve as lectors, ushers, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist,and choir members often mention feeling similar sentiments when they first take on these acts of service. Yet with time we are all apt to find ourselves going through the motions without much preparation and indeed without much thought about the fact that we are serving God in our respective roles at the Eucharist, and this inattentiveness is to our detriment. Making preparations is the work of a servant, and in the celebration of the Eucharist it is the work of every disciple of Christ.

How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 4b

    

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

Jesus told a parable about what happens when a storm comes that lashes out against our very lives (see Matthew 7:24–27). He said that the wise person builds his house (his life) on solid ground,on rock (the image that he used to speak about his church and Peter). The foolish person builds on sand and is destroyed by the storms of life.

The work of building the foundation on which our lives depend takes place every time we participate in the Eucharist. While I was putting the finishing touches on this book I traveled to Florida, right after Hurricane Frances had made a direct hit near Stuart, Florida. I had been scheduled to give a talk in nearby Palm Beach Gardens two days after the storm had hit.The talk was canceled because the church, St. Patrick’s, was without power, but I had the opportunity to meet with the pastor of the parish, Father Brian Flanagan, and some of the parish staff. In the midst of much devastation what remains vivid in my mind is how peaceful everyone there was. I know Father Brian to be a man whose deep faith is rooted in the Eucharist, and what I experienced in those days immediately following Hurricane Frances was a literal exposition of Jesus’s parable — the storm had come,but because the lives of the people I met were built on solid rock, they were not destroyed.

Isn’t this what we all want, a joy that the world cannot take away, no matter what might happen? Our Lord offers it to us at every Eucharist. It is my hope that this small book will help you to better experience this joy, and to discover the richness the Lord’s Eucharistic presence can add to your life.

About Michael Dubruiel

How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 4a

   

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

I was giving a talk at a Catholic parish in rural Ohio a few years ago about the topic of this book.When I had concluded my presentation someone asked,“Why do people care so little about their faith today?”

I told them of a man, a non-Catholic, I had known who cared little about his faith but attended Mass every week with his Catholic wife because he wanted to make her happy. He did this for years, to the point that several priests tried to convince him that he should convert to the Catholic faith since he had been attending the Eucharist for so many years. He refused.

Then he was diagnosed with bone cancer. His condition deteriorated rapidly. In a few months he went from being robust and strong to bedridden and totally dependent upon others.He called for a priest, who heard his first confession and then offered the Eucharist at his bedside, where he received his First Holy Communion. In the last months of his life, his Catholic faith was all that mattered to him.

This led a woman in the group to recall an incident when a tornado had wiped out her family’s farm and the family had sat huddled together in the storm cellar, praying the Rosary. At that moment their faith had mattered more than anything else in the world to them.

Someone else mentioned that in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on this country he had noticed more people in the Church and more fervency in the way people seemed to pray.

Our faith is a matter of life and death and our faith is totally centered on Jesus Christ.The Scriptures reveal that Jesus did not leave us as orphans but founded a Church. He made the very human apostle Peter the first leader of this Church. He left a memorial of his saving death in the Eucharist and commanded his disciples to perform it.

Getting the most out of the Eucharist is an urgent task, then, because our very life depends upon Christ, and Jesus comes to us in the celebration of his passion, death, and resurrection at every Eucharist. Jesus said that he is the vine and that we are the branches. In the Eucharist we receive the very life that connects us to Christ the Vine.

About Michael Dubruiel

How to Get the Most out of the Eucharist, part 3

   

From How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist by Michael Dubruiel

A Note of Caution

Now, I want to be clear that what I am proposing in this book is not the “victim-ism” that was sometimes prevalent in the older spirituality of “offering it up.” In every situation we are free to choose how we will respond to an event: we can blame someone else for what is happening, or we can feel powerless and do 

nothing. It is my contention that neither of these responses is Christlike. The experience of “offering up” our lives to God needs to be a positive and co-redemptive act. Thankfully, with God’s help we are all capable of freely choosing to respond in this fashion.

Those who promoted the spirituality of “offering it up” in a previous age often quoted St.Paul’s words to the Colossians:“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). In offering our sacrifice at the Eucharist, in the same way that we offer up any suffering we endure in life, we take whatever is negative and turn it into a positive, life-giving force both in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. We make up for what is “lacking” for the sake of  “his body,”the Church — that is,ourselves in communion with all Christians with all of our imperfections and all of our failings. “The miracle of the church assembly lies in that it is not the ‘sum’ of the sinful and unworthy people who comprise it, but the body of Christ,” Father Alexander Schmemann remarked.³ This is the power of the cross of Jesus Christ,taking what appears to be weakness and allowing God to transform it into strength!

About Michael Dubruiel

The Marriage of Jesus

  Copyright © 2006 Michael Dubruiel 

  "Every heresy is a forgotten truth seeking revenge." 

  Chapter One 

The Wedding

It was 1982 and I was a student at a small Catholic College in the Midwest--the site of the first meeting of the famous Jesus Seminar. On this night everyone was gathered in the cavernous chapel, that had been gutted after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. There was expectancy in the air that hung like the clouds of incense and fog produced by dry ice as the great drama in front of us unfolded.

 Over the course of the next two hours I would witness monks donning white leotards prancing in the air, angels of gloom and doom announcing plagues and terror from balconies above and then finally the appearance of the bride--the bride of Christ!

 Now the great mystery leading up to this dramatic presentation of the Book of the Apocalypse or Revelation was who was going to play the bride? 

After all we were an all male school run by monks. 

There were women who worked in the cafeteria, administrative office and janitorial staff--but these were all rather serious women who didn't usually participate in school plays. Perhaps it would be someone from outside. The actress Florence Henderson had made her acting debut at this school years before when she was recruited by one of the monks who said Mass on Sundays in her parish in a nearby town. Perhaps another future Mrs. Brady would play the part! 

 The music and singing of the schola reached a fever pitch as more incense and dry ice fog filled the raised sanctuary, obscuring the moving figures taking their places: "Veni, et ostendam tibi sponsam, uxorem Agni." Latin for "Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb" a passage from the Book of Revelations found in chapter 21, verse 9. 

 Suddenly she emerged, at first only her leg covered in a white bridal gown breaking through the incense and fog--in unison with one of the white leotard clad monks on whom her arm rested in a courtly manor.

 I looked around at my fellow students and some of the guests present for the drama. All faces were rapt toward the unfolding revelation as to who was the bride. Then she was revealed. It was Sister Mary John the Baptist who looked everyday of her sixty-seven years, although her religious life made her truly a bride of Christ, she didn't quite fit the part.

 In a bridal gown as glorious as the one worn by Princess Diana wore on her wedding day she descended the steps carefully. She was a faculty member, one who liked to lead her classes in guided meditations. Up until this point the dramatic presentation had been like one of these, albeit more engaging, but now it had taken an even harsher turn in the road. 

 I am sure that the image of a sixty seven year old woman in that beautiful white wedding gown would haunt the dreams of many of my classmates for years to come. It reminded me of one of Sister Mary John the Baptist's first classes where after forty minutes of imagining that we were on a mountaintop, by a brook, at a beach and finally Jesus was there and we were to imagine "What do you say to him?"

 Amador, a young student from Texas blurted out "Take me with you!" This was quickly followed by an anonymous passing of gas by another student that was loud (when everyone is silent--everything is loud)--which caused uncontrollable laughter that quickly broke the spell we had been under. Not daring to fully open my eyes, wet with tears from the laughter, I spied a peak at Sister who was not amused. Now this...

 I heard chuckles behind me. But who could play this role?

 No one person, I realized, for the Bride of Christ was not one person -  but the Church. 

Baptism of the Lord - January 9

 v

The Gospel for today:

 

The people were filled with expectation,

and all were asking in their hearts

whether John might be the Christ.

John answered them all, saying, 

“I am baptizing you with water,

but one mightier than I is coming.

I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

After all the people had been baptized 

and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, 

heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him

in bodily form like a dove. 

And a voice came from heaven, 

“You are my beloved Son;

with you I am well pleased.”

Michael Dubruiel's books.