Christian Living: Union with Jesus Christ Through Sacraments
Living United to Jesus Christ
Early Christians lived in the presence of Jesus Christ. Initially, they were baffled, but felt Pentecost. Everyone felt that Jesus wished them to live together in union with Him. This union is expressed not only in personal prayer but also in moments of assembly with other Christians.
A Natural Process
The process of prayer and celebration is natural. Jesus himself was baptized and sent his disciples to baptize all who wanted to convert.
The Liturgy
- The Weekly Rhythm: Focus on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, which recalls the resurrection of Jesus.
- The Annual Rhythm: The liturgical year includes the most important events: the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
- The Rhythm of Life Events: During life, the sacraments and celebrations are with us from birth through illness and are present in our daily lives, as in the Eucharist, and in the most important moments: marriage and priestly ordination.
Celebrating People
Any festive celebration has three characteristics:
- A different time than the rest of life’s moments.
- Own rites that include certain signs and symbols, which convey an emotional meaning beyond what is seen in such symbols.
- A set of people who gather in a common environment for fun, and music is often a must.
Christian Sacraments
Within the liturgy, the most important celebrations are the seven sacraments, which use signs and symbols, rituals, certain gestures related to events, and the words of Jesus. Jesus performs through those gestures and words in community. They are presided over by a minister (bishops, priests). All the sacraments have a strong relationship with some point in the life of the person or Christian community. Therefore, we affirm that the sacraments are institutional signs to communicate the grace of Christ.
The Eucharist
Jesus met with his disciples at the Passover in an intimate dinner where he performed a series of gestures of great symbolic importance and strongly advised them to comply with the commandment to love one another as He loved them, to ever be united as He is to the Father. In a gesture of humility, he washed their feet and asked them to do the same.
At dinner, he took bread and blessed it, broke it, and gave it saying, “Take and eat, this is my body.” Later, he said the same thing with the wine and asked them to repeat these gestures and words in his memory. The Eucharist is food and a banquet given by Jesus that all share as food, thus creating an intimate union. The Eucharist is the sacrifice and surrender of Jesus. Jesus linked his words of the bread and wine for delivery to the cross, and that is present in each Eucharist.
- The Eucharist is a permanent invitation to dedication and sacrifice to the people, the world, and its needs.
- The Eucharist is a sign of love and unity: those who share the same food form one body and are brothers and sisters.
- The Eucharist is Thanksgiving: Eucharist means thanksgiving for the grace and love of Jesus in action.