Keeping Us Connected Newsletter

September 20, 2024



For my flesh is true food, and wonderful my blood is true drink.

– John 6:55

Dear Saint Mary Friends,

Having made our way through the six saints represented in our Adoration Chapel, let’s wrap it all up with the One who is at the Center: Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Here are excerpts from the writings of retired Bishop of Patterson, Arthur Serratelli:

Across the oceans and tides of time, at the heart of ancient Rome, there once stood a sports arena on the Vatican Hill. In the year 37 A.D., the Emperor Caligula took an obelisk from Alexandria and placed it on this spot. This stone rising 83 feet high and weighing 331 tons stood as a symbol of Roman power and the vast kingdom under Caesar. But, like other kingdoms, that empire died with the death of the last Caesar.

Only once did a kingdom begin at the death of its king. At the death of Jesus, God’s kingdom was ushered in the blood of the Lamb slain for our salvation. With the resurrection of the Crucified Jesus, God’s kingdom began its march across the nations, lifting the human family by the power of love. Now in every nation and race, there arises a kingdom—God’s kingdom vaster than any other—a kingdom whose power will not die.

At the center of that kingdom is the source of its power. Not an empty stone symbol, but the Eucharist—the sacrifice and sacrament of love, “the source and the summit of the Christian’s life”….Each time we gather to celebrate this great gift of the Eucharist, we repeat the words Jesus spoke at the Last Supper.

Like the diamond in a ring surrounded by emeralds, His words are at the center of the great prayer the priest prays at the heart of our celebration. “This is my Body which will be given up for you….This is the chalice of my Blood…which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

There is no doubt how the early Christians understood this. Paul says, “Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord’ (1 Cor 11:27-29) ….

Symbols fade. Reason fails. Only faith—the faith of the Church going back to the apostles in the Upper Room beneath the paschal moon—only this faith illumines the gift we are given. Simply stated, the Eucharist is the Lord Jesus. How profound the mystery: Jesus suffering, dying for us on the cross. Jesus whose body was broken; whose blood outpoured for us sinners.

Every Eucharist makes us present to Jesus on Calvary as He dies for us. Every Eucharist makes us present to Jesus who is Risen and is Lord. In fact, in every Eucharist, we are touched by the Lord in every mystery of His incarnate life, from Bethlehem to Golgotha, from the empty tomb to His final coming as Judge of the living and dead. Here eternity touches time and our poor humanity is flooded with the gift of divinity.

He comes to strengthen us in our walk with God. He comes to dwell in us and share his life with us. We are never alone. Here is the meaning of communion in its deepest sense. As Jesus says at the Last Supper, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you” (Jn 14:20).

In every communion, we are drawn up into life of God. Holy Communion takes us up into the holiest communion: the very life of the Trinity.

And since God is love, every communion impels us to love. Receiving within ourselves this great sacrament of divine love, we are moved to truly love one another….

In the Eucharist reserved in our churches, Jesus fulfills the final words He ever spoke: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the world” (Mt 28;20). He stays with us as the Bread of Life to nourish us during our earthly pilgrimage. And, as Saint Ignatius of Antioch has said, Jesus offers Himself to us in the Eucharist as the “medicine of immortality”, to preserve us from eternal death, and prepare us for the resurrection. 

His real presence in the Eucharist is His invitation to come to Him, to offer the adoration of our lives, to find strength and comfort, to live as He teaches, and to drink deeply of the “wellsprings of salvation.”

As St. Therese of Lisieux once said, “Jesus is there in the Tabernacle expressly for us…. He burns with the desire to come into our hearts…. He comes to find an empty tent within us – that is all he asks.”

Devout adoration of the Blessed Sacrament leads to a more perfect reception of Holy Communion. It deepens the mystery of our union with Christ. It so makes us one with Christ in loving all others that He can look to us and say, “This is my Body. This is my Blood.”

Blessings,

Msgr. Kevin T. Royal

Pastor

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LINKS & UPDATES

The Murphy Center for Ignatian Spirituality of Fairfield University 10th Anniversary Celebration

Life Chain October 6

Priesthood Sunday - Sept 29 Prayer for Priests

St. Luke's Guild for Healthcare Workers

Truth on Tap - St. Paul Guild for Evangelical Outreach

Are you Virtus Compliant?

St. Mary Parish

55 Catoonah Street

Ridgefield CT 06877

203-438-6538

www.smcr.org