Aha! Does this sound accurate?

[Layman_F]

It occurred to me that a huge difference between “church” and “Church” (non-Catholic and Catholic) services is this: At church people go to hear about how to apply God to their lives, and at Church people go to hear what God said, and take the rest of the week learning how to apply God to their lives. In one, the Preacher spoon feeds the congregation, in the other, the Father lays out the food, and the “burden” is on the faithful to eat and digest it. Did I make sense? I guess in another way, the Catholic ideology is that you come to Mass for worship, and have the rest of the week to learn and grow, and that’s up to you.

 

[joanofarc2008]

Yes and no. The Homily should be making a link between the readings and people’s lives.

 

[po18guy]

However, at mass, a true miracle occurs in our presence. A cosmic spectacle arrives in our midst. Jesus Christ is made manifest in the Holy Eucharist. Heaven opens up to earth and the angels are present with us. We join them in the eternal praise of God’s Holy Name. We enter into our Lord via communion with Him and pray that He enters into and remains within us. We partake of the Divine Presence, and become living, breathing Tabernacles of Jesus Christ. Time stops and we are joined to the one, eternal sacrifice that our Lord offers to His Father for the salvation of mankind. All of this made possible through the action of the most Holy Spirit.

Other than that, it’s pretty much the same.

 

[CDB1718]

In one, the Preacher spoon feeds the congregation, in the other, the Father lays out the food, and the “burden” is on the faithful to eat and digest it.

This made me laugh because in my Catholic Church, the priest spoon feeds us the Eucharist!


The Catholic liturgy is first and foremost worship. It is an anamnesis. It is a point when all of creation, past, present, and future are joined together in worshiping God. Through this worship God gave us and the cultural traditions we use to express it, we receive sacramental grace. This is all true of the Orthodox Churches, too.

Protestants and other non-Catholics and non-Christians receive grace. Everything we have and do is through God’s grace. The perfect grace freely offered to us every day in the Catholic sacraments is a blessing these other communities do without. When they sin, they do not have Confession or the Eucharist to help strengthen them on their journeys. When they are sick, they don’t have anointing to help heal them body and soul. Each of the sacraments is firmly rooted in our Jewish past and available for the everyday struggles and the milestones we face in this world. Everything work together with the liturgical cycle, the life cycle, the sacraments, the theology. We have it all.

The other communities do the best they can with what they have available to them. It isn’t easy or something to be mocked that they delve into praise or scripture. They are working so much harder and without the access to the sacraments we have. We should thank God for the blessing He gave us by allowing us to be Catholic and should not take the graces He’s given us for granted.