Day 159: When the Liturgy Is Celebrated (1163-1167)

• It’s Day 159!!

• WHEN IS THE LITURGY CELEBRATED?

• LITURGICAL SEASONS

• THE LORD’S DAY

• Liturgical seasons go all the way back to Mosaic Law

• Liturgical seasons go all the way back to the beginnings of the Bible

• Liturgical seasons go all the way back to the Lord’s Day

• SABBATH is Saturday

• AND YET…

• We celebrate the Lord’s Day on Sunday

• How did that transformation happen and why do we do that?

• BECAUSE OF THE RESURRECTION!!

• The Lord’s Day, the Day of the Christians, IS OUR DAY

• The big word of today is actually TODAY

• When do we celebrate the Eucharist?

• TODAY!!

• When do we come before the Lord?

• TODAY!!

• When do we have the chance to say YES to Jesus?

• TODAY!!

• Let’s say a prayer!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, you have given us this day. You have given us this day to say YES to you. You have given us this day to say YES to your mercy. You have given us this day to say YES to your courage. You have given us this day to say YES to hope. We ask you to please, in this moment wherever we are at right now, we ask you to please open up our hearts. Open up our minds so that we don’t delay anymore. So we don’t say later. So we don’t say tomorrow. But we simply say YES today. Now, Lord, now is the time. This day is the day. Help us to give you our whole YES, our whole HEART, our whole SELVES right now in this moment TODAY. We make this prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• LITURGICAL SEASONS

• THE LORD’S DAY

• Think about seasons in general

• How they are the same but they are always different

• Fr. Mike lives way up in Northern Minnesota and they have 4 seasons even if winter lasts forever 😉

• There is a difference between the four seasons

• They are the same…

• (SQUIRREL!! 😉)

• You know this when it comes to the academic year in school

• It is always the same yet it is always different

• It is a way to mark the passage of time

• It is cyclical

• Here comes the new school year again, the same as it was last time

• BUT…

• It is always something different

• That is true when it comes to LITURGICAL SEASONS as well

• The Church has baked into the year not only every week and every Sunday we celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection in the Lord’s Day

• Every year, once, we celebrate Easter Sunday

• We have seasons like Lent that lead into Easter and the Easter Season

• Then we have Ordinary Time

• We have the Season of Advent that leads into the Christmas Season

• All of these things are cyclical

• What do they do?

• They open up the riches of the Lord’s powers and merits

• We are re-presented with what God has done every time we encounter the Liturgy and Sacraments

• BUT…

• In addition to that, we get to COMMEMORATE the astonishing acts of our Saving God

• We get to PAUSE AND GIVE THANKS

• How often do we forget to give thanks?

• The sun came up today and that’s just what happens in a new day

• As opposed to being reminded to stop and thank God for TODAY

• Have we thanked God today for what He has done?

• Not just in giving us Creation?

• But in giving us Salvation?

• The Church pauses in LITURGICAL SEASONS and it is a moment to give thanks

• Another thing is to PERPETUATE THEIR REMEMBRANCE

• Let’s go back to this and re-present what God has done to a NEW GENERATION

• That’s a whole other (NOT WHOLE NOTHER!! 🤪) thing 

• To teach NEW GENERATIONS to conform their conduct to the Lord and what He has done

• THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR ALL OF US!!

• Why?

• BECAUSE WE NEED TO BE REMINDED!!

• We talked about this in Bible in a Year

• We are people who FORGET

• Our brains are incredible but they have holes in them

• We can hear things a dozen times but we still need to be reminded of it

• God can do so many INCREDIBLE THINGS in our lives and a week later we forget and wonder what God has done for us TODAY

• Paragraph 1165 says, “When the Church celebrates the mystery of Christ, there is a word that marks her prayer: ‘Today!’-a word echoing the prayer her Lord taught her and the call of the Holy Spirit. This ‘today’ of the living God which man is called to enter is ‘the hour’ of Jesus’ Passover, which reaches across and underlies all history…”

• THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR US!!

• How many times do we live in the past or in the future?

• We either LONG for the past

• We live in SORROW over the past

• We either look back fondly and long for the GLORY DAYS (Like Bruce Springsteen!!! Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days (Official Video) 😁)

• Or we look back with a sad heart

• BUT…

• We are still TRAPPED in the past wanting to re-live it or with regret

• OR…

• We are looking to the future with anticipation or with dread

• We could be looking forward to the thing coming up in the future or we could dread it

• AND YET…

• What has God given us?

• TODAY!!

• We can’t go back and change the past

• IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!!

• Bill and Ted were working on it…(So were Doc Brown and Marty McFly!!! 😁😁)

• We can’t go into the future

• All we are given to work with is NOW

• All we are given is TODAY

• The Liturgical Seasons remind us of that

• There may be a feast day coming up but what do we do with TODAY?

• There is something on its way, something challenging, or something to look forward today

• BUT WHAT DO WE DO WITH TODAY?

• Even when it comes to our SINS

• THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR ALL OF US!!

• We can look back and long for the glory days etc.

• BUT…

• We can also look back and wish that things were different

• We can also look back and wish we hadn’t done something or something had happened to us

• We can look back and be trapped

• This is all real

• BUT…

• If you SURRENDER YOUR PAST TO THE LORD…

• We can’t do anything about the past

• It is impossible to go back and change anything

• We can say, “Ok, God. I give you access to my past. You get to be the Lord even of my history. You get to have dominion over what I can’t even control. I can’t even do anything other than remember. You have dominion over my past.”

• BUT…

• We can only give God dominion over our past or future TODAY

• THAT IS WHY TODAY IS SO CRITICAL!!

• THE LORD’S DAY

• Why do we as Catholic Christians celebrate the Lord’s Day on Sunday instead of Saturday?

• There are people who are critical of Christianity who will say that our Sunday comes from a pagan tradition

• The day of the sun 

• Like a Roman tradition or something

• St. Jerome even said that it was neat that the pagans called it the day of the sun

• St. Jerome says in Paragraph 1166, “If the pagans call it the ‘day of the sun,’ we willingly agree, for today the light of the world is raised, today is revealed the sun of justice with healing in his rays.”

• It’s not as if the early Christians did not realize that there were some pagan holidays or pagan names for days that kind of coincided with what Christians started calling them or doing on those days

• OF COURSE THEY ALL KNEW THIS!!

• IT IS FITTING!!

• Why do we celebrate the Lord’s day on Sunday?

• BECAUSE THAT IS THE DAY THE LORD ROSE FROM THE DEAD!!

• He had His SABBATH REST, that sleep of death, on that Saturday 🤯 🤯 🤯

• HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD ON THAT SUNDAY!!

• That is the day that ALL CHRISTIANS look to and celebrate

• Not only has the Lord God conquered death

• HE HAS ALSO GIVEN US LIFE!!

• We have the ability to live without fear

• When?

• NOT in the past

• NOT in the future

• TODAY!!

• THE ABILITY TO LIVE WITHOUT FEAR TODAY BECAUSE OF WHAT JESUS CHRIST HAS DONE ON SUNDAY!!

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

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

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!