The Eucharist to which Catholic Christians have been called
each Sunday, as a matter of obligation as well as privilege, has
been the weekly reminder and summary of the full liturgical
cycle. There the redemption lavishly displayed over fifty weeks
graciously condenses itself into a Sunday hour. The various
parts of the Sunday Eucharist both cooperate to create that
condensation and send out lines of connection to all the
ramifications and roots of redemption that any serious
Christian would want to investigate. So the spiritual readings
featured in the first part of the Eucharistic ceremony (Mass)
call to mind saints from the Old Testament and New
Testament periods who witness to what faith entails. They, the
various opening prayers, and the sermon ideally bring people
to focus on their need for forgiveness and their privilege of
praising God for his great acts of salvation and mercy.
Indeed, the magnalia Dei (great deeds of God) dominate the liturgical use of scripture. For the entire people assembled in church on Sunday, scripture should be what monks and other people of serious prayer have made of it each day: lectio divina. The "divine reading" of scripture proceeds slowly, addressing the heart even more than in mind. When done well in the Sunday church, it gives the entire assembly an object lesson in how to take God's word to heart and let it nourish one's soul, one's imagination, one's wellsprings. The result of a lifetime of faithful attendance at the liturgy is a treasury of images and stories reminding people of how Jesus spoke, worked miracles, asked for faith, rewarded faith, suffered from those opposed to the reign of God, and consistently enfleshed God's love.
Even the illiterate have taken home catchy phrases and stirring, riveting images. Even they have ruminated on the folly of the prodigal son, who spurned his father's household and rushed off to spend his inheritance in the fleshpots. But then "he came to himself." Finally he woke up, as all the slothful and sinful have to do, if they are not to miss God's meaning for them. When the father rushed out of the house and met the boy on the road, when he threw his arms around him and ordered up the party, with rings for the boy's fingers and a fatted calf, one saw vividly how our Father always is, how clearly the initiative always comes from him, how nothing can separate us from his love. Even the grumpy elder brother, resentful that the father's love broke the banks of what he considered justice and flowed out to save a sinner gratis, has taught us a useful lesson. Human beings tend to live comparatively and competitively, ignoring the freedom and cooperation God wishes. We tend to sour at the good fortune of others and so not imitate God, who makes the sun shine and the rain fall on just and unjust alike.
Such lessons come to laser intensity when the Eucharistic celebration moves into the canon of the Mass, where the sacrifice of Christ that showed God's nonpareil love once and for all gathers people into an anamnesis, a recollection that makes the death of Christ contemporary, makes it bore into existence here and now. The Eucharistic prayers rehearse both the need of the human race for this sacrifice of love and the mood of obedience in which Jesus offered it. At the moment of the consecration, when the Holy Spirit both effects and specifies the presence of Jesus in the elements of bread and wine, the second aspect of the sacramental ritual moves to center stage. Christ comes as bread and wine, manifestly wants to give himself as the nourishment of his followers' deepest selves. He wants to accomplish the abiding that the gospel of John enjoins, to work in the disciples' souls a sharing of divine life. The Father to whom the Eucharistic prayer ascends and the Spirit who moves over the gifts of bread and wine (emblematic of all of human life) are present, as Christ (both priest and victim) makes the Eucharistic prayer and accomplishes the communion with those he has not called servants but friends.
It is all there, the entire drama of salvation, the whole content of the Gloria and Creed. There is the motif of creation, as the water and wine, the bread and the candles and incense communicate God's grace, toward God's plan.