To supplement the Gospel texts in these Sundays that focus on the Eucharist, below are a number of quotes from people that draw out the spiritual depths and riches of the Mass.
The late Cardinal Van Thuan
‘Each time I celebrated Mass, I had the opportunity to extend my hands and nail myself to the cross with Jesus, to drink with him the bitter chalice. Each day in reciting the words of consecration, I confirmed with all my heart and soul a new pact, an eternal pact between Jesus and me through his blood mixed with mine. Those were the most beautiful Masses of my life.’
Cardinal Francis X. Van Thuan, Vietnamese prelate imprisoned in solitary confinement for years. He used to celebrate Mass secretly every day.
‘To serve means to become Eucharist for others, to identify ourselves with them, to share their joys and sorrows, to learn to think with their heads, to feel with their hearts’. Cardinal Francis-Xavier Van Thuan.
‘To adore me is to demonstrate that all your hope is in me. To adore me is to show me that you count not on yourself nor on others but on me alone. To adore me is to give me the freedom to act within you and upon you in such as away as to unite you wholly to myself, as you have asked me to; my heart to your heart, my soul to your soul, my body to your body, my blood to your blood’. In Sine Jesu, 181.
‘Do not come to me with your solutions but with your problems and allow me to provide the solutions’. In Sine Jesu, 182.
