Ad Jesum per Mariam

Eucharistic Revival Conference #4: Hearing the Word: Why the Gospel Matters in the Liturgy

Eucharistic Revival Conference #4: Hearing the Word: Why the Gospel Matters in the Liturgy In our last three conferences, we began by exploring the principles of the liturgy. In our first week, we explored the church’s teachings on these principles, focusing on the idea of liturgical participation. This participation, we emphasized, must be active and conscious. We also discussed the “rule of prayer” and the presence of Christ within the Eucharist. We affirmed that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist—specifically in the Blessed Sacrament, in the bread and wine following the prayer of thanksgiving. Additionally, we recognize His presence in His Word, in the priest, and in the gathered community of the church; as scripture reminds us, “where two or three are gathered in His name,” Christ is among them. In our second week, we looked back to the origins of the church’s prayer life, particularly the Liturgy of the Mass, tracing its development from the earliest days of Christianity. Why Do We Proclaim the Gospel? In this conference, we continue our discussion on the Eucharist and the Mass. We’ll continue to explore the structure of the Mass, including the readings and the Gospel. Why do we proclaim the Gospel during Mass? Because it is the Word made flesh—Jesus Himself speaking to us. While reading along may be popular, listening to the Gospel is crucial. Join us as we uncover the significance of truly hearing the Word of God in the Gospel. Listen to Eucharistic Revival: Conference #4: Hearing the Word: Why the Gospel Matters in the Liturgy ----------------------------------------- Image: The Last Supper – The First Eucharist: Spanish Painter: Vicente Juan Masip: 1562 The first image is a cropped image focusing on The Bread of Life.

Duration:: 1h 17m
Broadcast on:: 04 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

So, for the past three weeks, we started with laying out the principles of liturgy. The first week we talked about what the church puts as principles of liturgy. We talked about liturgical participation. It must be active conscious participation demanded by the liturgy. We talked about, in that day, we also talked about the rule of prayer and the rule of faith. With the rule of prayer establishing the rule of faith. We also talked about the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic Assembly. And he is present, we said, he is present in the Eucharist, the blessed sacrament, the species of bread and wine after the prayer of thanksgiving is said on bread and wine. He is present in his word. He is present in the priest who acts in persona, Christ. And we also said he is present when two or three are gathered in his name, the gathering of the church, then Christ is present in their midst. And the second week we began to see how the church has prayed, especially the liturgy of the Mass from the very beginning of times. First of all, from the community of the first apostles, that was just a meal. But then we began to look at the times of the church. First century was just in matter. We have looked at the prayer in the teaching of the twelve apostles, known as the Diddake, and the last week we looked at the development in the fourth century where we reached the climax of that period as the formulation of the Roman canon, the Eucharistic prayer. That was used by the church for 1500 without any other form of prayer at the Eucharistic. The one with those who were at Mass, the one we used at Mass this morning. So today we have looked at what has been done. You remember we said we are going to look at it through Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again to mean that what has been done, Christ died, what is being done today. So now we are beginning with it, what is being done or mass today, the way we celebrate it today. As you may have seen here, we have what we call in the beginning of the mass as we celebrate it today, we have what we call the entrance right. As you may have seen in the first century there was no entrance right. You would just come and then start reading the memoirs of the apostles. But here the mass begins to grow, is growing, that they have added in before you read the word of God, there are a number of things that have been added. And that is the first thing added is the entrance right. By entrance right it encompasses several things we do at Mass. And that was introduced into the literature during the medieval period, where you see there we begin to have processions, the priests and the ministers coming, processing through the Ios to go to the otter. This is new, it wasn't there before and then the priests do the greetings in the name of the Father and then the three biberico greetings and what are those three biberico greetings we did them together here is the Lord be with you, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you or peace be with you and not a good morning church. That's not a liturgical greeting. Then they are entered from there what we call penitential right, we will go through those one by one, we will unpack those, what they stand for and why they are there. But now I am just enumerating what happens in the entrance right. So there is the penitential right, penitential right can be given in different ways. The first thing we will see that you have what we call the configure, I confess to Almighty God and that to eat is added the Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. So when you are using the configure or you are using the I confess, the penitential right completes with you the Lord have mercy. Then there is what we do is it begins with have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned against you, grant us your salvation and then there is to that added in again the Lord have mercy, the third is when a priest uses several invocation, for example, you were sent to heal the contrite of God, Lord have mercy. At the end of that, the priest will not say again or the congregation will not say again Lord have mercy, because Lord have mercy is already included after every invocation. And after that, there is another way which is called the sprinkling of holy water. The priest instead of doing the Lord have mercy and the configure, a priest would come in, bless the holy water and then sprinkle the congregation with holy water, while a hymn of purification is being sang. And he ends that with the same prayer, may Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins and bring us to everlasting life. After that we have Gloria in HLCs. The Gloria is also a song that has been introduced as we saw, we will see it is introduced in the sixth century and then it developed to be used by many people in the eighth century. The last in that is the collect, the collect is the opening prayer. The opening prayer that the priest after we have sung the Gloria, the priest comes and says let us pray. Now how do they do, how did this addition came? It came with the first of all, you have an action taking place. And that action is covered by a chant and then concluded by a prayer. So what is the action, is the action of the action movement of the priest and the ministers going into the church. That is action and it is covered by a chant, that chant is what we call entrance song. We will see that as we try to unpack those on their own. And then there is a prayer, the collect. So it is action, chant and then prayer. You will see all the additions to the Matthew, we will follow action, chant and prayer. So let us unpack one by one of those that we have enumerated there. So we start with the procession and entrance hymn. When does the procession begin? The procession of the mass, we have started the procession. I mean they have added procession into the mass. But when does the procession begin? Where does the procession begin from? At the back of the church, another idea, when the pledge come in, when does the procession begin? Soon as everyone is gathered together, the procession begins at home. The procession begins at home. When you come, you start, everyone say, "Get ready, we are going to be led. We are going to be led and put on the card so that we will start." And then the procession begins from the house to the parking lot and then to the church. This is when the, it will be interesting if you go, Father Benadine, I have worked in the rural areas of some parts of Africa. You would see people coming for mass on a Sunday. They have no cars. They are walking 10, 15 kilometers in groups and groups coming to the church. And then when you enter, they come there and then the priests and those the ministers are just picking on the procession that has already begun because we are first and foremost pilgrim people. We are on the move. So what is the purpose of the procession or the purpose of the entrance right is to make a big, a good beginning to create an atmosphere of celebration or to help those present to become aware of themselves as a parish community. So the first thing that happens there is that we have come from different homes. We have been convoked by Christ from our homes. So the beginning of the celebration highlights that. So when the priest comes in with the ministers, how is the arrangement, how do they arrange themselves? At the procession, at the head of the procession, if it is a solemn mass, there is the one carrying the Thurabot who is called a Thurifa, the one who we say, a lot on that for us. And then one next to him is the one carrying the boat. The boat is the small container where we carry incense. So there will be the followed by who comes second after that. The cross, after the cross, then you have them, they, they, many those carrying candles, the otter boys and the white carrying candles. And then after that, there is one who is carrying the book of the gospel. After the one carrying the book of the gospel, if there are decons and other priests come in and then the presider comes at the end of the procession. So what so reminizes the entrance right is the entrance song. Why is the song important? First of all, song as art has a very important and powerful element of building bodies. It is a song that builds us into a body. Take for example, different voices, different voices, others have good voices, others, you don't want to allow them to sing, and when all that is put together the merit that comes out of that, you become one body through song. So song has the character of building us into a community. This is why at this point in time the song has the duty to synchronize us into a unified hall, the body of Christ, and we become a celebrating community. So the church gives us a number of four options of the entrance chant. The first option is in the mythology, there is a song that is written there as an anti-phone, which could be sung and usually those in if you are in Vatican, in other places where they do typical Gregorian chant. They have a book that is known as the Graduare Romano. It contains all the sounds and what that is used at the entrance. And the chanting is the Gregorian chanting that is recommended, it has its music, it has its layout and it is recommended that it is followed in that way. So this one is one of the things in the USA, they have said this is one of the elements, one of the ways of the options of the entrance chant. Graduare is also an anti-phone or a song that is found in what is called the Graduare simplex. What it means is the simplification of Graduare Romano that was also published, it is simpler to sing than following all the Gregorian chant. And then the third, there is other collection of sums that are found especially here in the USA, they have approved a number of collection of sums and anti-phones. If you look at the misoret in our chapel, there is a section where they have all the small sums and anti-phones that could be used. Fourthly, is another liturgical chant suited to the sacred action, which means you are not using the Graduare Romano. We are not using the Graduare simplex, you are not using the anti-phone at the beginning of the mass, but you are using a song that fits the celebration that you are doing that day. So and this must be chosen very well, chosen very well because you may be celebrating the crucifixion of Jesus and then you put the song of wedding at Kana, it beats the imagination of what you are doing. So all those cannot be used, two of them at a go, once you settle on one, you are settling on one, not all of them at the same time. So this is the importance of the entrancy chant. After the entrancy chant, I go back to what I had said, that we could come back to the penitential right. As I mentioned already, we have several forms of praying that. As I mentioned already, I want one to repeat that. But I want to turn your attention to the last part of that, the Lord have mercy. Where does it come from? The Lord have mercy, the exact origins are not known, but it is a song founded or started by in the Greek origin and it is fixed in the liturgy around the 8th century. So what happens is this song, this invocation is addressed to Christ and Christ is addressed as Lord to Christ and then Lord. This is not a lamentation of sin committed by people because it beats the imagination of what you are doing. So what is the purpose of the Lord have mercy, what is the purpose of it all? Because you are starting, you are quoting it as a repression and at the very beginning you see there is that that he invites us to look at our sins. What is happening there? What is happening here is not that we accuse ourselves of the sins, but what we are asked to do is to acknowledge the mercy of God at all times. So what removes the sin at this point in time is the whole celebration of the Eucharist and not the Lord have mercy. Usually there is a temptation, people would say, "Oh, I will not go to the sacrament of reconciliation. We already did Lord have mercy at the mass." This is not a confession of sin, it is an acknowledgement that is those sinners we come before you giving thanks for what we are and what you have, we can be given us. So that is what the Lord of mercy invites us to, to acknowledge that God is massive. One would say, "Okay, but why do the priests say, "Forgive us our sins and bring us everlasting life?" Is that not the absolution of sin? Yes, it is an absolution of sin that we have acknowledged our sins and we are prepared to go into the thanksgiving right, but that is not a sacramental absolution. If you want a sacramental absolution, then you go to the confessional, to the confessional box, this is more an acknowledgement than a confession of sin. I can't emphasize it more in this, that the penitential variety is not just an examination of sin, but the unvocation of the hearing presence of God's love and the praise of God's constant intervention in our lives. Having said that, what does it do to us? What does that do to us? It puts us really in a situation where we acknowledge God as the source of mercy. And the whole forgiveness of the whole salvation takes place within the whole right of the Eucharistic celebration, because that's where God has shown His infinity mercy in giving up His Son to us. After we finish that, we have what we call the "Gloria in Exheosis," the "Gloria." This started in the Eastern church, the Byzantine in the right, the "Gloria." Started in the Byzantine right, and it was used at the morning prayer. And what was that was the repetition of what the angels did on the Christmas Eve, on the Christmas night. So it was used literally first of all in the morning prayer when they wake up in the morning to make the prayer. Then in the sixth century, it started to be incorporated especially in the baptism of young children, during the baptism of young children by the bishops. And in some of their litages by the bishops. And slowly by slowly they began, other priests, apart from bishops, they began to incorporate that into the wedding, into the prayer by eighth century in their masses. And what is important in that is this. But it begins with it, the words we praise you, we bless you, we worship you, we give you thanks, which literally means we make Eucharist. Already in the "Gloria," you find the threats of what the action of the Eucharist. So we praise you, we bless you, we worship you, we give you thanks. As I say, the Byzantine is literally the Greeky, the Greeky language that is being used. So they say we make Eucharist too many, we make Eucharist, we give thanks. That part of the Mass is concluded by the collect. And the collect, as I said, is the opening prayer at the Mass. The work of the collective is to collect different prayers. Because each one of us, when you are coming to the church, you must have intentions why you are coming to the church. It's not just because all the whole family is going. One, each one must carry their own intentions, the intentions that the prayers that you have brought to the Eucharistic celebration. Remember, active conscious participation requires that when we come to Mass, we are coming with what we want to pray for. Therefore, when the priest says, let us pray, is the time to pray all of us, is not the time to wait for the priest to read the festive prayer. And once we have prayed ourselves, he has given us time to pray, and then he collects all of our prayers into what is known as the collect, the opening prayer. So, in this section of the Mass, two things are important. That must not be obscure. First of all, is the entrance chant and the collect. That's what I say, the action covered by chant and then concluded by prayer. So, the entrance song is very important. But you know, in our times today, we go first of many times to the theater, to places where musicians are performing, and what has happened to us in that, we listen to the musician, and when the musician has finished, we all clap hands as our participation. But here it requires that all of us are singers. And that's why it's an important way, because that builds us into a boat. That's a good question. I say that it's not a sacrament of reconciliation, would the work of that part where we have the Lord or have mercy, could we take care of the venous sins? What it takes care of the venous sin is the Eucharistic celebration itself. It's not this particular part of the Lord have mercy, that it takes care of the venous sin. But the Eucharistic celebration has a hope, that's what takes place. So, and the Eucharistic celebration has a hope that falls as part of all the whole process of the very whole Eucharist. Thank you for that question. Reconciliation here is not that we are, and reconciliation understood as a sacrament of where the priestly absorbs or you of your sins. No, this is not what is happening here. It's different. What is happening here is that, first of all, our life is this. We enter into the action that is holy, the action where God comes in contact with us. We recognize the moment you come to the Holy of Horism, you recognize that you are unworthy. And that recognition helps you as you enter close in this right that you are giving thanks to the Father, you acknowledge that in as much as you have entered there, you are not as pure as that whole right requires you to be. So, it's an acknowledgement that even if I'm entering into this in this way, God is above all message. So, the whole right of the Eucharist, the whole celebration of the Eucharist, yes, takes away some venue of sins. But what it takes away the sins, and this is why this does not replace the sacrament of reconciliation, because that takes away the sins. Thank you for the question. Another question, or we proceed? Okay. What follows after the penitential writing, we go to the liturgy of the word. I think when we looked at the first centuries of the mass, of the celebration, we say that there are many things that changed over time, but there were two things that never changed. That were those things, one, the liturgy of the word and two, the liturgy of the Eucharist. So, this would have been, in the time of just in the matter, this would have been where the Eucharistic celebration started with the reading of the mass, of the word of God. So, the Sunday liturgy of the word in the electionary consists of the first reading from the odd testament, excepting during Istatai, where we read from the acts of the apostles. And then, the responsibility of some, then second reading from the new testament, either the letters of Saint Paul, or the Hebrew, the letters of Saint Gem, and gems and all those. And then, we have the gospel. The gospel, after the gospel, we have the homiri. First of the homiri, we have the creed, and the section concludes with the prayers of the faithful. So, I will go through that, because this is a very important aspect of the Eucharistic celebration. Without, you cannot celebrate the Eucharistic without the word of God, because it is the word of God that becomes flesh. So, I will start with the purpose of programming the word of God. I think before I go to that, I remember there is a story of Tony D'Mero, Tony D'Mero was just with his spiritual writer, he talks of the story of a guru and a cut. So, the guru had his followers in the, had many of his followers, and then he had a cut. At prayer, when the time of prayer comes, the cut would come and start disturbing everyone. So, what the guru decided to do was the moment they go to, that the moment of prayer comes, the first thing before they did anything is to tie a cut. So, they tie the cut, and then after the prayer is concluded, they go to untie the cut. And many of the monks came in, joined the word, the monastery, and they saw that before every prayer there must be the tying of the cut. So, one day the cut died, and then the guru died. First of all the guru died, and then the cut remained, later on the cut died. So, the monks, the young monks said, "Now, what are we going to do? The guru is dead. The cut is dead. What are we going to do? They went out there and bought another cut." So, when they bought the other cut, whenever they are going to, by this cut, didn't even go to the chapel, didn't follow anyone to the chapel. But that was another cut, which was being tied, every day, looked for that cut, that never came to the chapel, before they begin the prayer they tied up. So, they began to ask, "But why do we tie the cut?" Because, what was the reason of tying the cut at that time? And one of them said, "Oh, because it was disturbing in the prayer." It's not because what we have known, that we can't pray without a cut tied. If you look at that, why at prayer, for example, nowadays, near everyone have their cell phones, they have all the scriptures on the phone for themselves. And literally, you go to a chapel of the university, where everyone is a professor and the students are so smart, but someone must stand and go in front to read for the rest. Why? Because the cut must be tied, you know, like in our chapel here, every chair has a misread. Why don't we reach at that point and say, "H1, take your misread and read?" And then, when we finish, we will, the priest will stand up and eat. Perfect. So, the word is not supposed to be read, the word is supposed to be had. It is Jesus, himself, speaking. And unfortunately, what happens in these days is that you go to a church when there is no misread, people start comparing it, but there is no misread here. Why they are complaining is because they want to be reading along when the reader is reading. Those misreads are there. That you come a few minutes before mass and read through the Word, the readings and meditate on the readings before the reader comes to speak it to us. So, it's not that we read along with the reader, it's that we must listen. Why is listening very important? Listening is because in the ancient world or in any other world, when the king wants to speak to you, he didn't send me just a man or a messenger, go and tell them that I am sending you this by word of mouth. Even if he could clam that, he needed a document to come with it and say, "The king has said this and this and that." You have to listen to the word. You have to listen to the word, and it is in this relationship of listening and someone reading it to us that Christ becomes alive, first of all, through the faith of the one who reads. So, that's why the first day I asked, what is the qualification of someone to read in the Church, the qualification is not that you are under some koopa, the qualification is that you have faith and it is through your faith that you proclaim the word to the assembly and in that proclamation, Jesus becomes alive in the hearts of all the listeners. So this is why we have not changed, even in the university chapel, to say, let everyone read on their own because the word must be hid. The word must be hid. Yes, so first must be, comes through hearing and this is why in this, there must be in the proclamation, there must be time of silence. You read the word of God, and then let there be quiet that the word of God sits in you. Before you take the Psalm, there is Ponsorio's Psalm. Once it has been proclaimed, once the word, therefore, first of all, the faith of the reader, secondary, the added equality of good proclamation of the word is important. But after that, you need a silence to let the word sink, to let the word take its effect and then there must be a response from the listener. Before you go to the response or your Psalm, before you go to the second reading, before you go to the gospel, at each moment, there must be silence and the acceptance of the response to the word that has been programmed. Now, this is why in the Catholic Church on Sundays, we read from the lecture. Why do we read from the sectionary is because we do not do what happens. The biggest criticism from other denominations to the Catholic, you don't know the gospel, you don't know the Bible. For us, we carry the Bible every time to the church. Okay, that's very important, but more important than us, we go to church, to listen to the word and to respond to the word and not to memorize the word. Okay, memorizing in terms of it becomes part of view and then because it must have an effect on you. So the Catholic, I mean our, the lecture is divided, we said we read from the lecture and the lecture is divided into three seconds, Sunday lecture. So we have the gospel in three years ago, A, B and C, and in there we don't have what, we don't have, we see there is the gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Where is John? Where is John and why is not there? In the 50, 50, 33 or 34 Sundays of ordinary times, we don't see John there. We have, there are 33, 34, depending on the Sunday in a liturgical year. And we have in that, on top of the 33 Sundays, we have one Sunday for Trinity, Sunday. We have one Sunday of Corpus Christ, we have three Christmas Sundays, and we have four Advent Sundays, and six Lent and eight Easter. Together are 54 weeks in a year. So John is used in some important events. For example, we will read John on the Feast of Christmas. We will read John in the Easter period, the Easter period. We will read John in the year B, year B, year A is dedicated to Matthew. So the whole year of year A, we are reading each Sunday the gospel of Matthew. In year B, we are reading the whole year, the gospel of Mark. But Mark is shorter than Matthew and Luke. Therefore, if we read Mark from, to make Mark fit the whole year, which means we will be cutting some vessels over the parable of someone so that we can, we can, so in the those we take five consecutive weeks that we set in the gospel of John. So in Mark, in the year B, five weeks of year B, we read from the gospel of John the bread discuss, chapter six of John. I am the bread of life. And then after we have finished the five weeks, we go back into the gospel of Mark again to finish up the year. And then the, the, the yes see is the gospel of Luke. So that's how those are. In the direction we have also, we contain other readings proper of the sense. For example, the different fists of the Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Vlad, you find those that are found in the election. You will also find the common of the dedication of the church, the blessing, the common of the blessed Virgin Mary. In the election area, you are also going to find the ritual masses. For example, the mass of initiation, of the sacrament, the mass of funeral, the mass of the religious profession, and many, many, many other ritual masses that we have in the direction. And finally, we have a circle of two years, weekday reading. Every week, we have a circle of year one and year two. Which means what happens is that in year one, we may be reading from the odd testament up to a certain point, and then we pick up the new testament. And the other year, we'll have other readings that are found. But what is common is that in the weekdays, whether you are in year A or year B or year C, at every mass in the morning, the gospel will be the same, either in year one or year two. But what differs is the first reading. The first reading differs. So, how do we select the church arranged the readings, the principles that the church uses in arranging the readings? They are too many principles, too basic principles. The first principle, it is the semi-continuous reading. In Latin, it's lexio-continuous. What does it mean? For example, in semi-continuous, it means that for example, we are taking the gospel of John. We are not going to read as the gospel of John, that this week we have read chapter 1, verse 1 to 15. Then next week we are going to read John chapter 1, verse 15 onwards. No. We can read John chapter 1 this week, and then the next week we read John chapter 2. We have left some other places, but you are continuing within the same gospel. So, most probably this was the practice in the early church. Of trying to read the whole, in order to read the whole scripture, they went continuously with the scriptures until they had finished the whole Bible. Then the second thing is the principle, is the harmony. In harmony is that the first reading of the word of the Sunday. The first reading is in harmony with the gospel. For example, we will see when I will demonstrate that. So, let's take ordinary time. In ordinary time, the first reading is chosen to harmonize with the gospel. So, the second reading is the ratio, continue. What does that mean? It only confused us, but it is very simple. What it means is that the gospel and the first reading have the same theme. If the first reading takes the theme of love, the gospel will take the theme of love. They harmonize with one another. Why the second reading has nothing to do with the first reading and the second reading is only a continuous reading of, for example, we have taken the Hebrews. Today we read chapter 1 of Hebrew, next week we read chapter 2 of Hebrew. Then just to continue with that. But what harmonizes is the Old Testament and the New Testament. So, the second is in major systems. The gospel of John is the reserve, as I said already, in length, Easter and the Ab. But why, for us, what is the biggest principle of all? Is that all the readings have Christ at the center. They are trying to communicate Christ. So, how we choose the readings is that we are putting Christ. So, both the Old Testament and the New Testament are programming the mystery of Christ. This is why, what I've already said down there, that this is why we use the dictionary, because sometimes it can be complicated like that. That everyone must listen to this. There are themes that we really is coming into that. I will give you an example. For example, when we read the Deuteronom 6, where a lawyer comes to Jesus and asks him, "Lord, which one is the greatest commandment of the law?" And then he says, "Love your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself." This is the Old Testament, Deuteronom 6. And then, you read the gospel. The gospel will be taken from Mark chapter 6, where the lawyer comes to Jesus and says, "Lord, which one is the greatest commandment?" One is the greatest commandment. And Jesus asks him, "What do you read in the law?" "I read that he must love my Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, and the neighbor as myself." And Jesus says, "You are not far from the kingdom." So is the harmonizing of the old and the new. And that is all programs Christ. So, this is why it is very important that we listen to the word of God. We listen to the word of God because there is an important connection with the sacrament. There is an important connection here because you will notice that you can't have Christ present without his absence. That sounds the word. We would want Christ present, isn't it? This is why when we are reading the word, the word is the sacrament of Christ. The word itself, proclaims Christ himself. So, I will give you an example to clarify that. On the disciples of Emmaus, they had just gone through the events that had taken place in Jerusalem, the killing of Jesus Christ and the burial of Jesus Christ. So, they decided now everything we had hoped that this is the man that was going to be the king, the savior of Israel. And these three days they have killed him. Let us go back home. So, they went. They started off. And on the way, a man joins them. And asked, "What are you discussing as you walk by?" And they say, "Ah, we are talking about the events of Jesus. What happened in Jerusalem?" They say, "What events?" Then they say, they say, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know what has happened in this?" And they are about Jesus of Nazareth, whom we thought was going to be powerful, would be the savior, who saved Israel from its enemies. And he was killed. He was condemned by our elders. Three days he is dead. But our women, this morning, astounded us because they said they went to the grave and they didn't find him. And they have come to say that they saw something on the road that he was like Jesus. And then he says, "You fools, slow to believe." And then beginning from the Moses, he explained to them the scriptures. And when they reached Adi, Emmaus, he seemed as if he is passing by. They asked him, "It's already time. It's already overcome and stay with us for God." And then when he was at the table, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. And they recognized him. And immediately he vanished from their eyes. So, and they began to say, "Oh, did not our hearts burn when he spoke to us on the road?" And we recognized him in the breaking of the bread. There are two things happening, very important things happening here. The first is that in their hearts were inflamed, their hearts were there on fire when they heard him speak. That's the word of God, reading of the word of God. When he read the word, when he repeated the word of God, when he spoke to them, their hearts were on fire. This is what the reading, the progression of the word in the assembly has to do to put our hearts on fire. And then this cannot end there. They will only recognize him when he sits at table at the breaking of the bread. At the breaking of the bread. And they recognized him, and then he vanished. So, this is why I'm saying here, notice that we can't have Christ present without his absence. So, only to want Christ to presence is a director. Christ presents as in the Eucharist, isn't it? When we, the people we get sometimes obsessed with the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but we have forgotten the word that makes him become the word, become the flesh. So, what happens here is that if you go to the grave to look for Jesus Christ, like the women, who will they be looking for? They will be looking for a dead man. Or they are killing him again, because he has risen. Now, if you want to look for Jesus, you will not find him in the grave. You will not look for him in the grave. You will look for him in the progression of the word. You will find him in the progression of the word. Did not our hearts bend within us when he spoke to us? There you will recognize him. If you cannot, if you want to go to the grave to look for him, you are killing him again, or you are looking for a dead Jesus. The living Jesus is in his way. And in the sacrament, when they sat at the table, when they sat at the table, when he broke the bread, blessed it, and gave it to them, their eyes were open. So, if you want to recognize Jesus, you will recognize him in the breaking of the bread, in the Eucharist. But that is not enough. After that, what did the disciple do? Yes, yes. They went back to the what? They went back to the community where they had run away, saying it's useless to stay here. They went back and became ready. Preachers, we have seen him. We recognize him in the breaking of the bread. If you want to find Jesus, you will find him in the gathered assembly. Those presence of Christ we talked about, you are going to discover him in the assembly. So, this is why you cannot underestimate the reading of the word in the strategic assembly, because it is in that. That leads us to the sacrament. So, in this way, I would say, the reach of the Eucharist, the reach of the celebration of the Eucharist is not complete without the word. Neither the reading of the word is complete without the reach of the Eucharist. So, the reach of the word is not complete in itself without the reach of the Eucharist. And the reach of the Eucharist is magic without the reach of the word. This is why the protestants in the 16th century, they say, all the Catholics, they just go there and celebrate the sacrament. They don't know the word, they don't read the word, it's like it's total magic. And then the Catholic, he says, you don't have sacraments there, you just read the word and you interpret it the way you want. And because of that criticism, they built each other. You find now more than ever before, even in protestant churches, they take the sacrament seriously now. Because the two cannot be separated. So, what we are saying here is this, that the word and the reach of the Eucharist are put side by side. They are juxtaposed. Because if you take one another, one against the other, or without the other, is the idolate. The way of God deals with Israel or the church, new Israel, cannot be contained simply by ritual. You need the word. So, the word always acts as a caution to what I have just said that they said, oh, they are ritualists, they have become like ritual mongas without the word. So, I want to show an example that I had already mentioned here, how it works out, how it works out. For example, we take the first, when is the first Sunday, next week or this week? This week was 30th, isn't it? Yes. This is 30th week in EAB. Next week will be the first Sunday. So, the first Sunday, the first reading, which is non-continuous. It doesn't continue. Why non-continuous? It means you can read from Genesis in this week. And next week you read from Isaiah. The other week you will read from Amos. So, it doesn't continue as the others, like when we read from the gospel. So, for example, what I was saying is, when you read the Autonomous Six, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. And the responsibility of some, look at the responsibility of some. It is the responsibility of some, says, "I love you, O Lord, my strength." The second reading is semi-continuous. We are taken from the Rheta of the Hebrews, Chapter 7, 23 to 28. So, the reading of the preceding Sunday, because this is semi-continuous, it is continuing reading from the Hebrew body in different chapters. Instead of starting from Hebrew 29, you move from that to Hebrew 9. So, it's continuing with Hebrew, but not every other chapter of the Hebrews. Then we have the third reading, which is semi-continuous. The gospel of Mark, the commandment of love, you shall love the Lord your God. And then, you see, here we have read Chapter 12. Next week, on Sunday, it will be Chapter 12 of Mark, 28 to 34. But the previous Sunday, this Sunday was Mark 10, 46 to 52. The following week, it will be Mark 12, 38 to 44. So, it's continuing with Marki, but not direct. It's semi-continuous. So, there is the harmony between the first reading and the third reading. So, once I reach here, after the reading, you have the homie. This is one of the things that, what is the purpose of the homie? It's literally to begin to make people accept the word that they have just had. To make the people literally digest the word that they have read. Unfortunately, sometimes we preach instead of preaching on the word that we have just programmed. Yeah, preaching is always very difficult, but the goal is to make the word to be accepted by the reasoners that are the first acceptance of the reading. And why this is important, the place of interpreting the scripture is the assembly when the people gathered. The place of interpreting the scripture is not on a desk by scholars. It's when the assembly gathers together and together they begin to accept faith from what is reading. What has been proclaimed in the assembly? So, the homie is the first and foremost to allow initial acceptance of the faith. The best examples of the homie in the scriptures, I take two examples of the homie in the scriptures. The first is the of Jesus. Jesus, probably I begin with the Old Testament, Ezra, Ezra the prophet, the priest. When Israel had come out of Babylon, exile, and then they came to Jerusalem. As they were in Jerusalem, one of the people discovered the book of the law. And then the prophet now taught him, go and read it out to the people so that they must hear what is in this book. So, Ezra came and built a stand. He read from the scriptures, from the law, from morning up to noon. And then gathered people to, and then he interpreted what he read. And what happened was the people said what the Lord has said we will do. So, this is the goal of the homie, to say that it initiates actions in someone. That is, they have their questions answered. Some people come with a lot of questions to the church. Even by the fact that you have read from the scripture, it raises questions. And that is what the homie has to do. The second homie is the one of Jesus in Nazareth. When they handed him the scroll of the book, when he read from it, everyone will say, "But where did he get this knowledge?" This is the son of Mary and Joseph, his brothers, he and we know him. And when he opened his mouth, he says, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in you, in your hearing." So, the scripture must be fulfilled in the hearing, in the interpretation of the homie. So, this is the way I want to stop for today. I think we have had a lot of it. So, we stop here today, and the next week, I think next week, what we will do is to literally go back to what we started the course, the session of why don't we have many people in church. And then what can we do forward from here? It will be a practical, and that is, for me, very important of all, because from what we have looked at here, what next, what did we do next after this? Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, it is now and we shall be wowed without it, and Mary's seat of wisdom, pray for the name of the Father, the Son, for the Spirit, and then. Once again, thank you for coming. (audience clapping)