Day 146: The Father’s Work in the Liturgy (1076-1083)

• It’s Day 146!!

• SECTION ONE: THE SACRAMENTAL ECONOMY

• Remember OIKONOMIA?

• It is the Greek term we get ECONOMY from 

• It is GOD’S PLAN OF SALVATION

• It is God’s INTERACTING WITH US

• So we have THE SACRAMENTAL ECONOMY the way that God chooses to interact with us through THE SACRAMENTS

• He brings us His Divine Live through THE SACRAMENTS

• He gives us HEALING through THE SACRAMENTS

• He FEEDS US through THE SACRAMENTS

• First we are going to look at how it all works and why it works like this

• Then we are going to look at the 7 Sacraments themselves

• CHAPTER ONE: THE PASCHAL MYSTERY IN THE AGE OF THE CHURCH

• What Jesus did for us 2,000 years ago actually comes to us

• Its effects are transforming our hearts NOW in this day and age

• What does LITURGY mean?

• Liturgy is the participation of the People of God in the Work of God

• So the Sacramental Economy is what God has done for us and how are we called to participate in God’s very work?

• This is not the work of man

• This is our participation in the work of God

• So let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we thank you. We give you praise and glory. We thank you and praise your name. We bless your name, Lord God. We bless your name and we surrender and adore you in thanksgiving. That is our blessing. Our blessing is  a prayer of adoration and a prayer of surrender to you in thanksgiving. So we thank you. We ask you to please hear our prayer. Receive the blessing that we offer you, little as we are, broken as we are, and good as you are, Lord God. Receive our blessing. Receive our adoration. Receive our surrender to you in thanksgiving. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Remember when we learned the work of the Son and the work of the Spirit are UNITED

• They are doing the Will of the Father

• Salvation in the world is brought to our lives 

• Paragraph 1076 says, “The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the ‘dispensation of the mystery’-the age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his Church, ‘until he comes.’ In this age of the Church Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and the West calls ‘the sacramental economy’”

• So what does THE EAST AND THE WEST mean?

• In 1054 AD the ONE CHURCH split in two

• The EAST and the WEST

• The Roman Catholic Church was the WEST

• The Orthodox Church was the EAST

• This was called THE GREAT SCHISM

• Jesus prayed at the Last Supper that we all would be ONE

• This is one example of the Church experiencing the brokenness of its members

• There were numerous opportunities where East and West came back together and there was reconciliation

• There were a couple different Church councils that happened

• So we now also have RITES in the Catholic Church that developed on their own that are not part of the Roman Rite

• We have a ton of people listening who are part of those rites

• There are 23 distinct rites in the Catholic Church

• In those 23 rites there are 6 major liturgical families

• The Latin Rite, the one most of us in the west are accustomed to

• The Alexandrian Rite

• The Antiochene Rite

• The Armenian Rite

• The Chaldean Rite

• The Constantinopolitan Rite or The Byzantine Rite

• THEY ARE ALL CATHOLIC!!

• They are all united to the bishops and the Pope

• There is a variety in these liturgical expressions

• There is also a variety in some governance situations

• BUT…

• WE ARE ALL UNITED AS BISHOPS AND WITH THE HOLY FATHER!!

• Both the East and the West calls it the Sacramental Economy 

• Here is what God wants to do and is doing in our lives

• Paragraph 1077 says, “‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us before him in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.’”

• Not only is this us blessing God and praising God and adoring God and thanking God and worshiping God 

• BUT…

• We are also presenting ourselves to the Father and begging God to send us the Holy Spirit upon the whole world so that our participation in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus and those blessings from God will come upon us

• We go out to the Lord and offer Him EVERY GOOD THING in praise, adoration, worship, and thanksgiving 

• We give God blessing

• Have you ever wondered what we mean when we say we BLESS GOD?

• Isn’t God the one who blesses US?

• Paragraph 1078 says, “Blessing is a divine and life-giving action, the source of which is the Father, his blessing is both word and gift (eu-logia, bene-dictio). When applied to man, the word ‘blessing’ means adoration and surrender to his Creator in thanksgiving.”

• When we say we BLESS GOD we actually BOW DOWN IN ADORATION AND SURRENDER TO GOD IN THANKSGIVING

• When God BLESSES US that is all that He does for us 

• Paragraph 1079 says, “From the beginning until the end of time the whole of God’s work is a blessing.”

• IT IS ALL A GIFT!!

• IT IS INCREDIBLE!!

• From the very beginning of Genesis every day God makes something new and it is VERY GOOD

• He blesses the day through His very word

• He blesses man and woman

• All these blessings completely renew and reveal the faithfulness of God

• Paragraph 1083 says, “The dual dimension of the Christian liturgy as a response of faith and love to the spiritual blessings the Father bestows on us is thus evident. On the one hand, the Church, united with her Lord and ‘in the Holy Spirit,’ blesses the Father ‘for his inexpressible gift’ in her adoration, praise, and thanksgiving.”

• When we offer the Mass we are offering up the great Sacrifice of the Son TO the Father IN THE POWER OF the Holy Spirit 

• The best gift God has given US is what we are giving to HIM

• We are also uniting OUR HEARTS with the HEART OF THE SON

• The self-offering of Jesus Christ is what we are offering to the Father in adoration, praise, and thanksgiving

• We are also presenting ourselves to the Father HIS OWN GIFTS

• When you give the Father YOUR HEART you are giving Him HIS OWN GIFT!!

• When we are offering THE EUCHARIST by lifting it up and saying, “Through Him, with Him, and in Him, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit. All glory and honor is yours, Almighty Father. Forever and ever. Amen” we are presenting God WITH HIS OWN GIFT

• HIS OWN SON THAT HE GAVE TO US!!

• When we do that, we are also adoring, praising, and blessing God

• We are also asking and begging God to send the Holy Spirit upon all of us and upon the whole world so that as we participate and have Communion with the death and Resurrection of Jesus those blessings will go out to the ENTIRE WORLD 

• And God is EVEN MORE praised and glorified

• Does that make sense?

• INCREDIBLE!!

• BONKERS!!

• Tomorrow we have CHRIST’S WORK IN THE LITURGY

• It is going to sound familiar

• What a gift to be alive in the Age of the Church

• Where Jesus continues to come to us, sanctify us, redeem us, heal us, forgive us, and feed us through His Sacraments

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!