The Eucharist is the central teaching of the Catholic Church.  The Mass said every day is a celebration of communion.  The bread for a Catholic becomes the body of Christ and the wine becomes his blood.  The first half of a Mass is a celebration of the word of God.  There is a reading from the Old Testament, then a Psalm, then a reading from the letters of the New Testament, and then the priest reads from the gospel and presents a homily most often from the gospel.  The second half is communion after intercessory prayer.  That is in short the one hour Mass.

            I could never understand with so much of the word of God in which during a four year cycle nearly all the bible is read and such a devotion to the cross of Christ in communion why so few Catholics are born again.  Tonight having taken communion in my home for the third straight day after years of not doing so, I came to understand why so few Catholics are born again.  Then it hit me.  The celebration of the Mass shows the Lord’s death not his R            ESURRECTION.  Because of that they remain spiritually dead.  They may have heard the word of God for sixty years or more and never have heard the word in their heart.  They can go to Mass every Sunday all their Catholic lives and never have a fundamental change of life associated with new birth.  They can hear wonderful teachings from the word of God but it never results in Spiritual life. 

            Because the Mass does not show the resurrected life of Christ only his death, most Catholics remain dead.  As a born again, spirit filled Christian, the Mass is no longer my central focus.  Christ lives in my heart by faith and I can take communion to show his death, but I live now to show that he is alive because he lives in me.  Jesus is a resurrected being no longer on the cross but sits with the Father in heavenly places.

            Because most Catholics remain dead, they don’t read the bible, they don’t pray for healing, they think they are unworthy, they never come out from being under the Law so they really do not know the grace of God.  They believe in a two tiered priesthood where the priest has special rights, privileges, and powers that the laity do not have.  Consequently, they remain in their sin.

            In short, St. Paul tells us in Galatians not to turn back to the weak and beggarly elements that put you in bondage.  You observe days and months and times and years, I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed on you labor in vain.  In his discussion of circumcision he says if you are circumcised Christ will profit you nothing.  Rules, rituals, and traditions do not save.  The Eucharist does not save.  The resurrected Christ does.

 

Amen