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FROM FR. OAKLAND

Last weekend Fr. Justin Ryan covered for me while I was away for the annual Oakland family vacation. There were about thirty of us for the week, with a few comings and goings due to work. My dad and his two brothers were not raised with faith, though all three married Catholics, and two became Catholic themselves. So I celebrated Sunday Mass last weekend with the eleven practicing Catholic members of the family, plus a few of my cousin’s younger kids who like going to church, though normally of the protestant variety. As we heard last week in the Gospel, there is one treasure we should hold above all else – and it is the Lord. While our lives are usually filled with many good things, many treasures and blessings, God must come before all else. So the most important thing we do every week is to celebrate Mass, even when we are on vacation. We should never take a break from the Lord. Below is a picture of our family Sunday Mass from a few years ago. 

At Mass, the transition to the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins with the Offertory Rite, where the people offer to the priest, and to God, the gifts of bread and wine – fruits of the earth and works of human hands, for consecration – to make holy (the gifts, and the people who will receive them back once they have been made new). On solemnities we also take up a collection, an offering to the Lord of our earthly treasure to continue the work of Christ and his Church. After the priest blesses the bread and the wine, we say: “Pray brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours, may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.”