Each month, I offer a thought on the Sunday experience in a series entitled Mass Communication.

Last month, we explored Christ’s three bodies. These three bodies are not separate entities but a unified whole. We speak of three bodies to understand the mystery celebrated. Christ has a historical body. He was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. Christ has the mystical body in his Church. Christ’s body is also present in the sacraments celebrated. Christ has one body, a unity that transcends these three manifestations!

Jesus is the protagonist who draws us into the mystery of the liturgy. The word “church” is understood as ekklesia, a Greek term that means “a calling out” or a “calling together.” Jesus gathers us from many walks of life and preoccupations and draws us to a particular place and time. In this place, he will speak to us and feed us.

The liturgy draws us into the life of the Trinity in whom we find “an energy that creates, a ray of light that illuminates, a fragrance of Torah that lures mankind, a symphony that gladdens man and glorifies God, a scroll whose sweetness is honey in the mouth, a thunder whose reverberation cracks stony hearts, a fire that alights upon unburned bushes and apostolic heads, a cloud that leads through the wilderness to the promised land” (Fagerberg 9). 

Ultimately, the liturgy does two things. It sanctifies us so that God may be glorified. This created form of worship is man’s activity but ultimately God’s work. The Church makes the Eucharist. The Eucharist makes the Church.