Called to be a Eucharistic Community
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This document discusses the differences between prayer and worship, and emphasizes that Sunday Mass is an opportunity for communal worship where we offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, as Jesus did. It explores what it means to live a Eucharistic life and be part of a Eucharistic community, noting that true community requires love, care, and sharing without selfishness. Several passages from Scripture are presented that highlight the importance of love - for God, for neighbor, and even for enemies. Building community and developing human relationships requires understanding each person as a unique gift and removing superficial "wrappers" to see the gift within.
![You cannot know God and
not love. [1 John 4:8]
If you say you love God and
yet you do not know how to
love, you are a liar. [1 John
4:19-21]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/calledtobeaeucharisticcommunity-121013054358-phpapp01/85/Called-to-be-a-Eucharistic-Community-19-320.jpg)
Called to be a Eucharistic Community
- 1. Called to be a Eucharistic Community
- 2. What is the difference between prayer & worship? Prayer Worship – Anyplace, anywhere – In a consecrated – Alone or with others place – For personal – Community activity intentions – To glorify God – We offer a living sacrifice
- 3. It is very important that we know the difference between prayer and worship. Sunday Mass is not just to pray alone, anywhere, but to worship God with the People of God. Sunday Mass is to offer a living sacrifice: Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Jesus is the presider and also the Living Sacrifice being offered. In Sunday Mass, we also offer ourselves to God in exchange for Jesus who offered himself to save us from our sins.
- 4. What does it mean to be a community? What is the difference between a community and a crowd?
- 5. What does it mean to live a Eucharistic Life? To live like the Bread of the Eucharist is to become bread, willing to be broken and be shared.
- 6. We become what we eat. As Christians, are we living like bread for others? Like the bread, do we live a life willing to be broken and be shared for others.
- 7. A Eucharistic Community is a loving, caring, sharing community. There is no room for selfishness in a Eucharistic Community.
- 8. This is our problem in the Philippines. We are a Christian country but we are not living a Eucharistic community. There is so much corruption in the government and private sector. Corruption is greed and selfishness.
- 9. Religiosity is different from spirituality. A person can be very religious but not necessarily spiritual. Spirituality is living in the life of the Holy Spirit.
- 10. Called to Holiness: Lay Spirituality Universal Call to Holiness Only God is Holy Without God, no one can be holy. We can only be holy if we have God in our life. And to accept God is to turn away from sin. We cannot serve God and stay in sin.
- 11. What is Lay Spirituality? To live in the Spirit as lay persons. To sanctify the family, the neighborhood and the workplace. As lay, your church is your family, your neighborhood and your workplace, where you are being formed and transformed.
- 12. Lay spirituality is not only a life of doing but a life of being. Living in the Spirit is to live a life of love because God is love.
- 13. John 21:15-19 Three time, Jesus asked, “Peter, do you love me?” Three time, Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, I love you.” To love as Jesus loves is the love of a person willing to offer his life for his friends. What kind of love do we give to Jesus?
- 14. What kind of love do we have for Jesus? In Greek, they have 3 kinds of love: Filial – love for family & friends Eros – passionate love for a spouse Agape – unconditional love; loving estrangers and even our enemies.
- 15. John 13:31-35 “I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.”
- 16. Love is the summary of the commandments of God. The Greatest Commandment: “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all you soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
- 17. Love is the core message of the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scripture is the story of God’s love for his people. It is the story of how God went out of his way to show his love for his people.
- 18. God is love. The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Love. To love God is to know God.
- 19. You cannot know God and not love. [1 John 4:8] If you say you love God and yet you do not know how to love, you are a liar. [1 John 4:19-21]
- 20. The love of God is… Not just a love based on feelings, but a committed love. Feelings are passing and momentary. Feelings will pass away. Feelings do not last. A committed love is a love that endures.
- 21. God’s universal call to humanity is the call to love. We have one common vocation: to love. God loved us first. To love in return is the only way to respond to the love of God.
- 22. Love is our way to holiness. It is love that will make us whole and perfect in the eyes of God. Perfect love is loving not only the people who are good to us, but loving even our enemies and persecutors.
- 23. Love is not the same as like. You do not have to like a person to love him. You can love a person even if you do not like him. To love is a decision. This is mature love.
- 24. “Love one another as I have loved you.” To love with the love of Jesus: a love willing to give up even one’s life for a friend. A love that dies to oneself: “selfless love.”
- 25. The love of Jesus is “unconditional” & “unmerited.” Jesus Christ loved even the public sinners and social outcasts. Example: The Story of the Good Samaritan
- 26. Luke 6:32-33 “If you love only the people who love you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good only to those who are good to you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners do that.”
- 27. Luke 6:27-36 Love for Enemies: – Do good to those who hate you. – Bless those who curse you. – Pray for those who mistreat you. Do good without expecting a return. Do not close your heart to your enemies.
- 28. Matthew 5:23-24 Reconciliation before Communion “If you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God.”
- 29. Matthew 18:15-17 Fraternal Correction: If your brother sins against you… 1st step: Go to him and show him his fault, but do it in private. 2nd step: If he will not listen to you, take one or two other persons with you so that every accusation may be upheld by the testimony of two or more witnesses.
- 30. Fraternal Correction 3rd step: If he will not listen to them, tell the whole thing to the Church. 4th step: If he will not listen to the Church, treat him as a pagan or tax collector.
- 31. Acts 2:42-47 Eucharistic Community They spend their time together… – Learning from the Apostles. – Taking part in fellowships. – Sharing in meal. – Praying together.
- 32. A community is about relationships. Although we try to love all members equally, we can never be equally intimate to all. There will always be different levels of intimacy in a community. Among his Twelve Apostles, Jesus is closer to Peter, James and John. Among the three, Jesus is closest to John.
- 33. Dynamics of Human Relationship Birds of the same feather flock together. – Same gender or sexual orientation. – Same age group. – Same economic status. – Same region, or race, or color, or language spoken. – Same interests.
- 34. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit gives them. There are different ways of serving but the same Lord is served. There are different abilities to perform service but the same God gives ability to all for their particular service. The Spirit’s presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all.”
- 35. Every person is a unique gift of God. Like gifts, we come with wrappers. Wrappers are not the gifts. The gift is inside the wrapper. We need to remove the wrapper to see the gift. Do not reject the gift because you do not life the wrapper.
- 36. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching, I may have all the knowledge and understand all the secrets, I may have all the faith needed to move mountains – but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give up everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned, but if I have no love, this does me no good.”
- 37. In serving the Church… We can learn the work easily. The more challenging part is how we will relate with others – how we love one another. Human relationship is the harder part. But it is how we relate with each other that will make us holy and will please God.
- 38. Called To Be A Community of Disciples Like the day of the Pentecost, with the coming of the Spirit, the walls of division and differences were broken and the disciples became one heart and one soul. They became a Community of Disciples, a loving, caring and sharing community.
- 39. How do we make this “community of disciples” a reality in our parish?