Reflecting on last weekend’s celebration of Corpus Christi, the Feast of Our Lord’s Body and Blood, I kept thinking that the most important thing that we do as a parish family is to partake in the celebration of Holy Mass. It is in this most holy sacrament that Jesus comes to us in an extraordinary way. The Eucharistic Host that we receive is truly the Real Presence of Jesus; that is, it is the actual Body and Blood of Christ. For us, the altar is the central and focal point of the celebration of the Holy Mass. The Church teaches us through the Catechism:
“The altar, around which the Church is gathered in the celebration of the Eucharist, represents the two aspects of the same mystery: the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. This is all the more so since the Christian altar is the symbol of Christ himself, present in the midst of the assembly of his faithful, both as the victim offered for our reconciliation and as food from heaven who is giving himself to us. “For what is the altar of Christ if not the image of the Body of Christ?” asks St. Ambrose. He says elsewhere, “The altar represents the body of Christ and the Body of Christ is on the altar.” The liturgy expresses this unity of sacrifice and communion in many prayers.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1383)