Do you remember your first Communion Have you had experiences of grace associated with the Eucharist Do you have ways of explaining the Eucharist to others that have worked well for you The Eucharist is ID: 776342
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Slide1
Slide2Opening Table Questions
What questions do you or your children or your friends have about the Eucharist?
Do you remember your first Communion?
Have you had experiences of grace associated with the Eucharist?
Do you have ways of explaining the Eucharist to others that have worked well for you?
Slide3The Eucharist is
Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity
Slide4The Eucharist is
God coming to us in the shape/form of bread and wine.
Slide5The Eucharist is
Real Presence of Jesus coming to us
Slide6Transubstantiation—Consecration of the Eucharist
TransubstantiationTrans—CHANGETransubstantiation SubstanceThe changing of the substance of the bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. So there is no more bread and wine. There is only Jesus Christ
Slide7Each sacrament gets its power from Christ and Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven
Sacraments are how God chose to APPLY what Christ did to
us
.
Sacraments give us a share in God’s own life—the love that the Persons of the Trinity have for Each other –this is called
sanctifying grace
.
We need sanctifying grace to become holy and live in Heaven.
(Remember God can work outside the sacraments as He wills.)
Slide8Holy Orders allows priests and bishops to “stand in the person of Christ” during the sacraments(Kind of like a substitute.)
Slide9Why do you think God gave us sacraments?
How do you learn best?
Seeing
Hearing
Doing
Sacraments gives us all of that
Most importantly, God wants us to experience His love with all of us—our souls and our bodies.
Slide10The Eucharist is
Source of the Church and Christian Life
Sign and creator of unity
Slide11The Eucharist is
Sacrifice
Christ as Lamb of God
Connection to Jewish sacrifices
Slide12Thought experiment
What happens when a person takes a break or a “fast” from their cellphone, or social media, or something like that?
Slide13Purpose of Mass
Worship: We need to do this.
Re-orients us. Separates us from worldly attachments and our own way. Broadens us.
Unites us to Christ/Makes us Holy
Unites us to the Church
Allows us to make sacrifice and prayer for the Church
Receive the Eucharist/grace of communal prayer
Slide14God is not outdone in generosity
Giving up the time of going to Mass as act of trust in God
Acknowledgement of ourselves as creatures
Slide15Most of us feel closer to God in places besides Mass
Mass has distractions, other people, might not happen when we are most ready to pray, can have boring or annoying parts…
But if we all go to Mass anyway and bring with us the graces of the week, we worship God as a people and help each other.
Slide16You cannot pray at home as at church,
where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests.
Saint John Chrysostom (about 360 AD)
Slide17Analogy I once heard:
Eucharist like antibiotics. Has a cumulative effect over time. Once or twice, you might not notice a difference, but if you take the whole course you are healed
Slide18Making the argument for Mass
Other ways to explain why we go to Mass?
Slide19If you have to choose between Mass and CCD/Sunday School
Pick Mass
--says the Church and every priest at St Mary’s
Children get transforming grace from Mass. They learn from Mass. They get the Eucharist at Mass.
Slide20Make Sunday special in other, kid-friendly, ways, too.
Sunday treats
Like Christmas presents and Easter baskets, treats help children get into patterns of Christian joy.
Slide21Dispositions to receive:
Know and love Who you are receiving
Be united with Catholic or Orthodox Church
State of Grace: No un-repented, unconfessed mortal sin that the person is aware of and remembers
Slide22Dispositions to receive:
Have fasted for an hour before receiving
Exceptions: Medicine or if the person is sick, diabetic, pregnant, nursing,
etc
Slide23Dispositions to receive:
How can people become more open to the grace of the Eucharist?
Thoughts?
Slide24Each sacrament has
A Minister—the person who can give the sacrament.
No one can give himself or herself a sacrament.
God has made it so that we need each other.
Physical signs—things and words.
Effects—this is always sanctifying grace and some other specific graces.
Recipients—people who can receive that sacrament.
Slide25There are two kinds of priesthoods in the Catholic Church: Common and Ministerial
Common—Everyone who is baptized
Ministerial: Men with Holy Orders: Deacons, Priests, and Bishops. They minister to the people in a unique way