Introduction to the Liturgy of the Day

Introduction to the Liturgy of the Word

Introduction to the Eucharistic Prayer

Reflection

• When we pray, we often choose to go to a certain place. If we are praying alone, we may choose the foot of our bed or another quiet place inside or outside our home. If we are joining others in prayer, it is often our parish church. After Jesus ascended to heaven, his disciples returned to Jerusalem and immediately chose to go to the upper room of the house where they were staying. Christian tradition holds that they celebrated the Last Supper and received the Holy Spirit in this same room. Whether they’d decided to pray together and chose to come to this room, or whether they desired to go together to a familiar place and then chose to devote themselves to prayer, the place and the activity were well-linked.

• This room was where they could go to know God and know Christ more deeply. This is what Jesus tells his disciples is the way to eternal life. Here in this very room on the night before he died he told them, “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3). Scholars tell us that it is unlikely that these are his actual words, for nowhere else does Jesus refer to himself as Jesus Christ, but the idea that knowing the Father and the Son deeply and truly is the way to eternal life is what John chose to include in this pivotal scene in his Gospel. Jesus wants us to know him and the Father in the intimate way that we know close family and friends.

• In his Gospel, Luke writes that at one point when Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are trying to make it through the crowd, he says, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it” (Luke 8:21). Now in Acts, Luke writes that Jesus’ mother and brothers accompanied the disciples to the upper room and together with his disciples, male and female, devoted themselves to prayer. In doing so, they are acting on what they have heard, becoming ever closer to the Father and the Son.

Question of the Week