ABVM PARISH COMMUNITY

  FROM PETER TO MARY When I was a practicing Lutheran I used to tell my Catholic friends that if it wasn’t for the doctrine of the Church on Mary and the Pope, I would become Catholic, since it was clear that the Catholic Church was the original Church.   I admired her organization and the fact that she stood firm in defense of traditional moral values when many Protestant denominations, including my own, were giving in to the Z eitgeist on issues like abortion, marriage, and sexuality ( Zeitgeist = “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history” as per Bing).   The Church’s investment in social justice, education and works of charity were impressive.   But I couldn’t get past the teaching on Mary and the Pope because I thought they lacked Biblical foundations. I discovered my error when I formally studied Scripture and ecclesiastical history at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.   I already knew that a simple reading of the Gospels and the Acts of

  THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST AND THE PASCHAL MYSTERY             On December 4, 1963 Pope Saint Paul VI promulgated the first and most important document of the Second Vatican Council, known in Latin as Sacrosanctum Concilium and in English as “The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy”.  It launched the reform of the ancient Mass to the Mass which we experience in most of our churches today.  While we suffer from some effects of the poor manner in which the reforms it called for were implemented, which often deviated from the intention and teaching of the document, it remains a sure, certain, authoritative, and infallible source for learning what the Church believes about the Eucharist.  The Constitution highlights the intimate link between the Paschal Mystery and the Eucharist, as we see in the following quote: “At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood.  This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifi