Day 180: The Source and Summit (2025)

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seven. As always I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes a foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version. with the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting Ascension Press.com slash CIY. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day one hundred and eighty.

Just a quick thank you to all those who have supported the production of this podcast. Thank you for the prayers. And I ask people to pray every day for me, but also for everybody who's part of this. Thank you so much. And also for your financial gifts. We couldn't do this without you. Super grateful. Today we're also grateful because we're taking the next step. We talked about baptism, we've talked about confirmation. Today we're talking about the Holy Eucharist, which is the source.

and the summit of all grace. And what an incredible way to take this next step on day one eighty, than to launch into this incredible mystery of the Holy Eucharist. And so as we do that, let's just say a prayer.

Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. Thank you so much for bringing us to this day. Thank you so much for the gift of your son in time, the gift of your son, your only begotten son, who gave himself for the sake of the world who gave himself for us, we ask you to please once again renew in our hearts a love for you, a love for the gift of your son, a love for the Eucharist.

Lord God, let that love for you in the Eucharist dominate our lives, let it become the center of all of our lives because all grace is not. They lead us to the Eucharist and all grace, all your gifts flow from the Eucharist. We thank you so much for this incredible gift. Thank you for this incredible day.

Receive our thanks, receive our praise. You are good, you are God, and we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day one hundred and eighty. We are reading paragraphs thirteen twenty-two to thirteen twenty-seven.

Article three. The Sacrament of the Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by confirmation, participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his body and blood.

This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages, until he should come again and so to entrust to his beloved spouse, the church, a memorial of his death and resurrection, a sacrament of love, a sign of unity. A bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. The Eucharist, source and summit of ecclesial life.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the Blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the church, namely Christ Himself, our Pasca. The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the people of God by which the church is kept in being.

It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ, and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration, we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all. In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith. Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.

Okay, there we are. Just the first six paragraphs launching into this incredible topic. This incr I don't even see no we can say that the Eucharist is a topic or a subject. The Eucharist is a who, right? This is Jesus, but also is an action. It's the great sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so today, as we just take these first steps talking about the Eucharist. Let's let's get the nuts and bolts first. Okay. Number number one nut and bolt is

Paragraph thirteen twenty two, we've been looking at the sacraments of Christian initiation and so Holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation, right? You if you have all three of these baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist, You're fully initiated. And so it goes on to say, those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by confirmation.

participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist. And not just by I mean, yes, obviously by receiving the Eucharist, but we participate with the whole community in the Lord's sacrifice. Why? Because it's all of Jesus being offered, right? Not only Christ the head being offered, Christ's body being offered. And there is Christ's body truly, truly in the Eucharist.

But also Christ's body in the church. And you're a member of that Christ body. And so what happens? When we are fully initiated into the church, even if we're just simply baptized, we are able to join in offering up that great sacrifice of the Eucharist, of the Son, right, to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. It just remarkable. And I love how this kind of well not kind of, very poetic words that Sacrosantum Conchilium describes the Eucharist. It is a sacrament of love.

It's a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. And this is just incredible because we realize it is a sacrament of love. Why? Because here is Jesus on the night before he died. What did he do? Knowing that all was fulfilled and all was taken place. Jesus, who said, I've longed to eat this Passover with you.

Took bread and said, Take and eat, this is my body, given for you. Taking the chalice filled with the fruit of the vine, he says, Take and drink, all of you. This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out. for many, for the forgiveness of sins. This is the great sacrifice of God's love

Not only God's love for us, but also God's love for the Father. His this is his sacrifice of himself to the Father for the sake of the world. It is a sacrament of love. Love being poured out. It's also a sign of unity. In fact, we are we only can be admitted to the Eucharist if we're in communion with the church. If we step out of communion with the church, then

Then we're not able to have this sacrament or sign of unity because it's a precondition, right? Precondition for being able to receive the Eucharist is. being in union with your bishop who is in union with the Holy Father. It's it's kind of the the whole deal, right? It's a bond of charity. So if it's a sacrament of love, it's also a bond of love.

The more and more a family eats together, this is just kind of in colloquial terms, right? The more and more a family eats together, the more and more they have the opportunity to be bound to each other. The more and more they have the opportunity to recognize that, oh no, I'm called to actually love the people in my family. And that's what we're doing here in the in the Eucharist as well. It's a Paschal banquet. Remember the Paschal mystery is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace and pledge of future glory is given to us.

Ah, so good. You know, ever since I was in college, I think it was, and I was taking theology classes. the uh professors would say again and again that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. And I remember thinking like, okay, that's That's good. That's profound. I love the Eucharist. I mean, it changed my life. If I have to say anything, I could say something. We're going to talk about confession in a few days, weeks. That changed my life. But also

The learning about Jesus in the Eucharist changed my life, changed my life. And so when they first started saying, Yeah, the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life, which comes from the Second Vatican Council, I'm like, oh, that makes sense.

that that basically the source of all grace, right, comes from the great sacrifice of the Son to the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the Eucharist and the summit of the Christian life or the goal, the place where we're oriented towards. is gonna be the Eucharist. Because why? Because the Eucharist is Jesus Christ himself.

And so, so incredibly important. The other sacraments, indeed, all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented towards it. Why? Because in the Eucharist is Jesus himself. So The other sacraments are incredible, right? They are the actions of Christ. They're the works of Christ. So you have the rebirth in Christ. You have confirmation in Christ. You have uh healing in Christ.

You have vocations, right? Sacraments of vocation, marriage and holy matrimony, or holy matrimony and holy orders in Christ. But the Eucharist is not only I don't say only because gosh, the work of Christ is incredible, but the Eucharist is not only a work of Christ. The Eucharist is Christ. It is the action of the Son offering himself to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, yes, but it also is the Son. Who offers himself to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit?

And this is just so important for every single one of us to recognize at all times. All the other sacraments, as powerful as they are, as necessary as they are, are actions of God. The Eucharist is truly, truly him. Because he said that. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. And at the last supper, what did he say? This is my body, this is my blood. And so, finally, paragraph thirteen twenty six.

The Eucharistic celebration, we unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life when God will be all in all. Remember we said this uh it was at the very beginning of this pillar. Who celebrates the liturgy? And the first is the whole Christ, right? Head and body. Head, meaning Jesus himself is the is celebrates the liturgy, but also all the saints and angels in heaven. So in the Eucharistic celebration, we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy.

In anticipation of eternal life, when God will be all in all. And so we keep on praying, keep on walking and celebrating and worshiping the Lord God. in the Eucharist. And so as we keep learning about the Eucharist, we're gonna be here for a few days and I'm so excited because I am he definitely here for it today. Man, what an incredible gift.

Tomorrow we'll be continuing to talk about what is the Eucharist, what is this sacrament called, and its place in the economy of salvation in the next couple of days. Just what is it? How deep does it go? How deep does the Eucharist go? In all the way back to the very beginning of God's creation and his salvation of the world until it reaches us today. Well, I'll tell ya, today I am praying for you. Please. Pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.