Latest / Omnia Christus / 10/3/26 Openly Mysterious

Transcript

10/3/26 Openly Mysterious · Omnia Christus

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading a book by Father Dwight Longnecker called The Little Rule and
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: the Little Way,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: comparing St.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Therese's Little Way in her story of his soul to St. Benedict's Little Rule.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there was something that he said,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: which I thought was interesting and really stuck with me,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: which is that drawing close to God,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: we don't become less ourselves, we become more ourselves.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: That God actually unleashes us to be our full and true selves.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: As we continue our reflection on the Mass and we reflect on the Eucharistic prayer,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: which is that prayer that the priest prays the center of the Mass that includes
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: the words of consecration, in many ways, the most important part of the Mass.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at the history of that Eucharistic prayer, we see a contradiction.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Between two elements, the one is mystery and the other one is openness, right?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mystery, sort of hiddenness, and then openness.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always this tension historically between those two things.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the early church,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: the Eucharistic prayer was sung in a very open and participatory way,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: but the whole Eucharistic part of the Mass itself was sort of secret.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: The only people that could come in were those who were kind of humans
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: and everyone else was kept out.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even those who were coming into the church didn't even know what was going
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: to happen until they had been baptized.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was this place for the baptized that was reserved for them.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So sort of this secret holy place in which this beautiful prayer was prayed.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on in the church,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: as the liturgy was opened up and as everyone began to attend
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then there was this tradition of praying that prayer in silent because
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: the priest himself was sort of entering into this secret, holy place.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was an attempt to maintain and to guard that holiness and to protect it
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: from profanation.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now, as you can see, because we do it every day, we listen to the Eucharistic prayer.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The priest prays that again in a loud voice so we can all listen to it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully participate in it, but then maybe it also leads us to take it for granted, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then maybe we lose some sense of the mystery.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's always that dichotomy in our lives between the human and the divine,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: which is the way that Christ was.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is human and divine and brings those things together.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in our own spiritual lives,
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: we tend to fall off on one side or the other,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: just like the Eucharistic prayer is either You know,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: maybe too open or maybe not open enough.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you balance that in literature?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: How do you hold those things together, the mystery and the openness?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in our own lives,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: we can be tempted to just be completely worldly,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: to be completely caught up in the world or to become So spiritual
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: that we completely reject our humanity and sort of like those movements in
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: the church that saw our humanity as evil or as problematic to be rejected.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I need to try to become some kind of a pure spirit and reject all of my body
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: and bodily functions as evil.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not true.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is holding those things together.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what sanctity looks like, right?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Father Dwight Longnecker was pointing out,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: that sanctity for us looks like holding those things together.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Being completely spiritual,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: completely dedicated to God,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: but yet bringing the fullness of my humanity,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: all of my everyday actions,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: all of my feelings,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: all of the beautiful things that the Lord has given me,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: bringing those in and allowing those to be sanctified by the divine.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way that we become fully human,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: fully ourselves,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: not rejecting any part,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: either the spiritual part or the physical part, but bringing them together into one.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully as we celebrate this liturgy,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: as we receive Christ,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: we can receive his way of being and participate in his full humanity
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: and hopefully eventually as well his full divinity.