{"id":21029,"date":"2025-08-01T18:46:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/?p=21029"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:14:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:14:29","slug":"18th-sunday-ot-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/2025\/08\/01\/18th-sunday-ot-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing Our Hearts for the Greatest Gift of All – A Summer Catechesis – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DecorativeThis Sunday, the Psalm asks that if today we hear God\u2019s voice, we not harden our hearts and that we might keep them open to listen to His voice (Psalm 90). In the Gospel, Jesus speaks about the importance of realizing what our true treasures are and letting them be built up in Heaven. When you and I come to Mass, we have an encounter with God\u2019s Word and receive the gift of Christ\u2019s Body and Blood\u2014the food intended to strengthen us on our journey to Heaven. Often, as we come to Mass, we may miss the deeper significance of what we are hearing and who we are encountering\u00a0 at the celebration. For this reason, over the next few weeks, I would like to repeat a series of sermons on the Mass that I gave here one summer a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Over the next three weeks, I would like to spend some time going over the Mass and explaining a little bit about why we do what we do at Mass and how the celebration of the Eucharist might bear more fruit in our faith lives. As I deliver these homilies over these three Sundays, I thought I would divide them up into three different topics. Today, I would like to talk about what the Mass is and why we celebrate it each Sunday. Next week, I would like to talk about the first two parts of the Mass, those being the Entrance Rites and the Liturgy of the Word. On the weekend of August 16 and 17, I will speak about the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Dismissal Rites.<\/p>\n

The most important thing about the Eucharist, and the only reason why we celebrate it, is that Jesus told us to do so in memory of Him. The Eucharist has a central place in all of the Gospels and New Testament writings. It is what makes the Christian community. As the end of His time on earth approached, Jesus gathered His disciples to celebrate with them the Last Supper. The Last Supper is presented in some of the Gospels as a Passover Meal celebrated by Jesus with His Jewish Apostles. The Jews celebrated Passover in obedience to God\u2019s command to Moses to recount the way in which God had saved the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and delivered them to freedom in the Promised Land. Exodus 12 recounts how God had commanded them to do this in order to recall how God had made them His people and saved them. As they celebrated the meal, the Scriptures were read to them and they heard the story of how God had saved them. The unleavened bread reminded them of the fact that they had to flee for their lives and did not have time to prepare the bread properly. This is why we use unleavened bread at Mass. As they recounted how God saved them, the Jews remembered how God had intervened in history to form them into His chosen people. The Passover Meal was a remembrance of the Covenant that God had formed with His people. It was celebrated to remind them of what God had done for them when he delivered them from Egypt to the Promised Land.<\/p>\n

At the end of His ministry, Jesus arranged to celebrate this Passover Meal with His disciples and did something radically different. Once they have gathered at the table, He announced that He wished to give them a New Covenant; one that will be formed in His Body and Blood. Knowing that He was about to be betrayed by Judas, and handed over for crucifixion, Jesus told His disciples that He was giving them His Body and Blood to eat and drink so that they might live a New Covenant that will be formed by the spilling of His blood. By identifying this meal with the sacrifice that He is about to make for the \u201cforgiveness of sins,\u201d Jesus identifies the bread and wine as His Body and Blood and gives it a new significance and identity. As He did this, He told His disciples, who did not yet understand what was happening, that they were to celebrate this in memory of Him. At the Last Supper, Jesus identified the bread and wine as His Body and Blood that would be given to save the sins of all. Whereas the Passover meal celebrated that God delivered the People of Israel to the Promised Land, where they would live free from slavery in His presence, Jesus established the Last Supper as that meal that commemorated His sacrifice and gave us His Body and Blood to free us from death and so that He might dwell in us, wherever we might be, until the end of time.<\/p>\n

I mentioned that some of the Gospels present the Last Supper as a Passover Meal. The one that does not is the Gospel of John. In John\u2019s Gospel, the Last Supper is presented as a meal which takes place on the night before the Passover. Some scholars say that it might have been common at that time for friends to celebrate the Passover together earlier, while the main celebration would have taken place with the family on the night of the 14th<\/sup>\u00a0of Nissan. However, there is a more important reason why John has the Last Supper on the night before the Passover. On the night before the Passover, the Jews would have sacrificed the paschal lambs in the temple. These would then be taken home to be eaten by the families the next night. The lambs were sacrificed to remember the blood of the lambs that were placed on the doorposts of the Israelites to save their first born when the angel of death passed over Egypt. John presents Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and saves all people from their sins. By the sacrifice of His blood, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Every time that we celebrate Mass, we acknowledge this before we come to receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, we receive Christ and remember what He did to give us eternal life. This life is to begin \u201cnow\u201d as He comes to dwell within us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and invites us to live in communion with Him now, in order that we might live in Communion with Him for all eternity.<\/p>\n

As we read the accounts of the Last Supper in the Gospels, it is clear that the disciples did not understand at the time what Jesus was doing. In fact, it was impossible that they could understand until He had risen from the dead.\u00a0 Following the meal, when Jesus was arrested, the disciples all ran away in fear. The only one to remain at His side was John and the Blessed Mother, who watched at the cross. It was only after His resurrection that the disciples began to understand what he had done at the Last Supper. On the day that Jesus rose form the dead, being a Sunday, the first day of the week, Jesus began to appear to His disciples and explain the Scriptures to them, while breaking the bread with them (Luke 24:13-35). It was at these Sunday gatherings, when the Risen Christ Himself appeared to the disciples and broke the bread with them, that they began to understand that He had risen and that the Eucharist was the meal at which He would continue His presence with them. During the first forty days after His resurrection, Jesus Himself appeared in their midst to show Himself present with them. However, as He did on the Road to Emmaus, once they had recognized Him in the breaking of the bread, He did not need to remain present to them in any other form than his Body and Blood. Following His resurrection appearances, the Church would celebrate His resurrection every Sunday at the celebration of the Eucharist.<\/p>\n

Following the example of Jesus\u2019 resurrection appearances, the Church learned to do what Jesus had commanded them to do \u201cin memory of Him\u201d every Sunday. As the day on which Jesus rose from the dead, Sunday is the day on which the Church celebrates all of creation being renewed and saved. In the Old Covenant, the Jews rested on the day that God rested after creating the world. Christians observed the day of rest on the day that Christ had renewed all of creation by His resurrection. In fact, from the Christian perspective, there would have been no point in God creating humanity if we were doomed simply to die. Christ redeemed and recreated the world by His resurrection. His death and resurrection restored all that had been lost by original sin. Had he not redeemed us, all of God\u2019s work of creation would have been lost and in vain.<\/p>\n

This salvation is what we are called to celebrate every Sunday. It is why Sunday is different from any other day. While a person can go to Mass every day of the week, Catholics are obliged to go to Mass on Sundays to remember what Christ has done for us in His resurrection and to do what He has commanded us to do \u201cin memory of Him.\u201d As we receive Christ\u2019s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, Christ Himself is again present to us as He was to the early disciples and we are called to be His presence in the world today. At each Mass, we listen to His Word and encounter His true presence in the Eucharist. After we have heard His Word proclaimed for us today and eaten His Body and Blood, we are sent into the world to continue His work. As this Sunday\u2019s readings speak to us of the call to hear God\u2019s Word and build up real treasure in Heaven, we are reminded that we must each prepare our hearts to encounter Christ in the Mass, and that this preparation and the understanding that we bring to the Eucharist, are an essential part of the preparation that we give our hearts to receive Him in Word and Sacrament.<\/p>\n

Next week, we will look at the first two parts of the Mass- the Entrance Rites and the Liturgy of the Word. The following week, we will look at the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Dismissal Rites. This will assist us to prepare our hearts to receive the gift that is given to us each time we celebrate the Eucharist.<\/p>\n

May we always be aware of the precious gift we receive in the Eucharist.<\/p>\n

Fr. Michael
\nPastor\u2014St. Peter\u2019s Parish\u2014Toronto, Ontario<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Sunday, the Psalm asks that if today we hear God\u2019s voice, we not harden our hearts and that we might keep them open to listen to His voice (Psalm 90). 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In the Gospel, Jesus speaks about the importance of realizing what our true treasures are and letting them be built up in Heaven. When you and I come to Mass, we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A Message from the Pastor"","block_context":{"text":"A Message from the Pastor","link":"https:\/\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/category\/sunday_homilies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Decorative Image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Preparing-hearts-gift-mass.png?fit=825%2C638&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Preparing-hearts-gift-mass.png?fit=825%2C638&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Preparing-hearts-gift-mass.png?fit=825%2C638&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Preparing-hearts-gift-mass.png?fit=825%2C638&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":21031,"url":"https:\/\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/2025\/08\/08\/19th-sunday-ot-2025\/","url_meta":{"origin":21029,"position":3},"title":"Preparing Our Hearts for the Greatest Gift of All\u2014A Summer Catechesis\u2014Part 2","author":"stpeters","date":"August 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Sunday, the Gospel presented us with a parable about a rich man who wanted to build new barns to store all his many possessions. 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The results of that survey indicated four major themes: 1) Continuing faith formation; 2) more socials\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A Message from the Pastor"","block_context":{"text":"A Message from the Pastor","link":"https:\/\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/category\/sunday_homilies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Decorative Image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/last-supper.jpg?fit=900%2C447&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/last-supper.jpg?fit=900%2C447&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/last-supper.jpg?fit=900%2C447&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/last-supper.jpg?fit=900%2C447&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8092,"url":"https:\/\/stpeterstoronto.ca\/main\/2023\/07\/28\/preparing-our-hearts-for-the-greatest-gift-of-all-part-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":21029,"position":5},"title":"Preparing Our Hearts for the Greatest Gift of All\u2014Part 3","author":"stpeters","date":"July 28, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time\u2014Year A The Gospel of Matthew today continues the series of parables that we have been listening to these past few weeks with parables about the treasures that one finds buried in a field and is willing to trade everything to obtain. 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