Last night we had the second of our Lent talks. Fr Marcus Holden, co-author with Fr Andrew Pinsent of Evangelium, a multi-media course on our faith, gave a very interesting presentation on The Holy Mass. I should also mention that Fr Holden and Fr Pinsent have also produced a very good course, Credo, which provides an excellent introduction to the Catholic Faith.Fr Marcus began by showing us a clip from an advert for the Catholic Church shown on TV in America. Click here to see the clip.
Using material from the successful Evangelium course, Fr Marcus continued talking to us about the Mass; about the Eucharist as Presence, Sacrifice and Food.
We re-present Calvary each time Mass is celebrated but this time in an unbloody manner. Christ is present to us, body, blood, soul and divinity in the consecrated host. Christ's sacrifice takes place on the altar every time Mass is celebrated. When we receive Holy Communion we receive spiritual nourishment which is necessary for our spiritual wellbeing throughout our lives and at the end of life this is given as Viaticum.
Once again, it was disappointing to see so few people attending this very interesting talk. I was delighted, however, to see some of the young people from our Confirmation programme. We plan to be able to have more talks in Advent this year and I do hope that more people will be encouraged to come along and deepen their understanding of our faith.
After the talk we moved into church for the beautiful devotion of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament conferred by Fr Marcus. A fitting end to a very enjoyable evening.
