Eucharistic Spirituality. The idea of living the Mass. The whole point of tonight’s talk is to live out what is said when the Mass is ended. I have heard different priests use different final blessings. Fr. Jim usually says, “let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” Fr. Linus DeSantis, the Franciscan who officiated my wedding, says “let us go to live what we have celebrated.” Another priest whose name escapes me now says “the Mass is not ended, it is to be lived daily.”

I appreciated that Fr. Luke discussed tonight a key difference between Catholics and Protestants, that Protestants, especially fundamentalists, focus on the “personal Lord and Savior” concept, and they focus on finding a specific individual time when they “ask Jesus into their heart.” He argued that this way of thinking makes the whole concept of salvation too much “all about me.” He mentioned that a great response is that Jesus is not just my personal Lord and Savior, he’s everyone’s personal Lord and Savior, and that I invite him into my heart each time I receive Him in Holy Communion – that He is in me and I in Him by His grace. Connected to that his apologetics instruction came out long enough to also remind us of the Catholic answer to the perennial favorite question, “Are you ’saved?’” The answer of course is threefold – Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient for my savlation, I am being saved each day as I choose to follow Him, and I believe that I will be eternally saved when I die if I continue to follow Him.

A couple of nice take-aways from tonight’s talk for me were prayers that Fr. Luke shared with us. For example, the 3-minute Trinitarian prayer: spend one minute thanking God the Father for your biggest blessing today, spend one minute asking God the Son for forgiveness for your biggest failing today, and spend one minute asking the Holy Spirit for guidance through your biggest challenge today.

Tomorrow at the parish, we are having Eucharistic Adoration from 8AM to 8AM Saturday; parish supper is at 6pm, with Stations of the Cross and Benediction at 7pm.