Easter Sunday

Do you have a favorite song that whenever you hear it you are taken to a different place and item?

Well Sacraments actually do take us there.

A Sacrament makes present to us here and now,

What took place historically 2,000 years ago.

So that we too can actually be present at and experience

The same Saving Acts of Jesus as did,

The disciples, Mary and Mary Magdalene.

What happened in the Upper room and Calvary and the Tomb happens here!

only made present to us in a different form.

Not historically but Sacramentally.

We do here Sacramentally what took place historically.

They are one and the same.

Through the Sacraments,

We are gathered around the table at the Last Supper

We are standing at the foot of the cross.

We are in the tomb.

That is why at the beginning of Mass and at the end

a priest reverences the altar with a kiss.

Because on Holy Thursday,

Jesus laid His Body and Blood on the Table;

And offered them to His disciples to eat and to drink.

The same Body that would hang on the cross the next day

And the same Blood that would flow from it.

Because on Good Friday,

Jesus was laid upon the cross when He Sacrificed His Body and Blood for us.

The Same Body that He gave His Disciples on the night he was betrayed

And poured our the same Blood that they drank on Thursday.

Because on Holy Saturday,

Jesus was laid on upon the stone in the tomb after He was taken down off the cross.

The altar is the Table of the Last Supper.

The altar the cross on which Christ is sacrificed.

And the altar is the tomb on which He is laid after He died.

This is not a piece of furniture in a church

This is the table on which the Lord had His Last Supper

And you are now His disciples who have come to be fed.

This is the cross on which the Body of the Lord is given up and his Blood is poured out

And you are Mary standing at the foot of it.

This is the tomb on which the Body of the Lord is laid

And you are are Mary Magdalene who has come in search of Him.

So when the priest reverences the altar with a kiss,

He is reverencing the table on which the Lord places His Body and Blood for us to eat.

He is reverencing the cross on which the Lord sacrificed Himself for us;

He is reverencing the tomb on which the Lord was laid.

And you are the disciples who have gathered around the table to be fed;

You are Mary and John standing beside the cross as Jesus is sacrificed;

And you are Mary Magdalene coming in search of the Risen Lord at the Tomb.