Jason's Mysterious Talk!

So today we were in for a special talk from our fellow exec Jason! We came into UCC 61 without a clue of what the talk was going to be about, and seeing our speaker all cleaned up, we were anxious to find out. A lot of us grabbed dinner while we waited for the talk to begin.

Mass was the topic, but not the regular talks about the procedures of mass, but instead a question was thrown at us: What are we exactly doing in mass? What was the purpose of all the steps we followed every hour of Sunday, what is its meaning?

It's true, we go to Sunday mass many times without really understanding the significance of a response, action or even our body postures during that hour.  Jason started the talk with the beginning—where did this mass come from? In the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 1345, it explains a celebration that very much resembles our 21st century mass from 2000 years ago. The structure of our mass is derived from this Eucharistic celebration, and the Book of Revelations in the New Testament shapes how mass is celebrated today.

For example, when we respond “ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ” during the homily, we are actually speaking to the Word of God. Jesus transcends in the words that the priest says, how crazy is that? The Mass is also represented as resembling the vision that St. John had of the heavenly liturgy, of the mass in Heaven.  There is definitely so much more we can learn about mass, the Church and ultimately Jesus. After the talk, we all stayed for the music practice of the upcoming JU retreat. The songs were beautiful and everyone sang (except for Chris *ahem*). It was a great meeting!

This talk has triggered a question in myself: What role do I want to play as a Catholic? What role do I want to play in Mass?  With a room full of never ending treasure, why should we ever stop seeking?

If you want to have a listen to Jason's talk, here it is: https://soundcloud.com/jason-lo-11/mass-96-kbps with the accompanying notes: http://goo.gl/buXwNa.

See you guys soon! :)

Annette