We are an Easter people. As we spend another forty days (but rejoicing, unlike the penitential sense of Lent) waiting for the Ascension of our Lord, we are also waiting for another burst of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The Church uses this time to tell us about the early Church, beginning with the day of Resurrection itself. Most of the readings for both daily and Sunday Mass include an excerpt from the Acts of the Apostles.
While the title of Acts concerns the apostles, two figure prominently, Peter and Paul, who are the driving forces of the early Church. Another figure is prominent in Acts, the Holy Spirit. But even before we get to the Ascension of Our Lord and the Pentecost, we see the beginnings of the Church and its most basic activity, the Mass.
There are some who say that the Mass is an invention of the Catholic Church, and some even go so far as to say that it did not occur until several centuries after the Resurrection. However, in the gospel of Luke we read about the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, who encounter Jesus, although they did not recognize Him at first. The time is Easter afternoon, the day of Our Lord’s glorious Resurrection. And what Luke describes is the first Mass after the Resurrection, instituted by Jesus Himself. It contains the two main aspects of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word (“Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures”) and ends with the Liturgy of the Eucharist (“And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight”).
Go to Mass. Don’t pass up the opportunity for your own encounter with Jesus.
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