inundado por um mistério de luz que é Deus e N´Ele vi e ouvi -A ponta da lança como chama que se desprende, toca o eixo da terra, – Ela estremece: montanhas, cidades, vilas e aldeias com os seus moradores são sepultados. - O mar, os rios e as nuvens saem dos seus limites, transbordam, inundam e arrastam consigo num redemoinho, moradias e gente em número que não se pode contar , é a purificação do mundo pelo pecado em que se mergulha. - O ódio, a ambição provocam a guerra destruidora! - Depois senti no palpitar acelerado do coração e no meu espírito o eco duma voz suave que dizia: – No tempo, uma só Fé, um só Batismo, uma só Igreja, Santa, Católica, Apostólica: - Na eternidade, o Céu! 
A PRIMER for CLUELESS CATHOLICS
Part I
We are Clueless
Admit it.
You haven't the foggiest idea what is going on during Mass.
You may not even know why you're there.
The reasons are many:
- It's what Catholics do and I am Catholic.
- I want my kids to grow up in this tradition that comes from my parents, grandparents, and forebears throughout the 2000 years preceding my coming into this world through them.
- It is something good to do and it is holy ... although why it is good and why it is holy remains a mystery to me.
- My friends go ... although they do not know why either.
- I need God's help, and if I go to Mass He will look favorably on me.
- God is there ... although just how He is there, I do not understand – after all, God is everywhere, right? – so why is this place so special?
You were never taught.
It is really that simple. No one took the time to sit down and talk with you about what is the most important event in your life – and it occurs every 7 days. In fact, whatever else you do during the other 167 hours of the week (job, school, charity – in fact, every other responsibility, necessity, or good work) however good, kind, lofty, noble, pales in significance to the Mass.
The Basics:
Before you go further in this brief study – and it is a study that we invite you to – of the single most important thing in your life, we must make a promise to you first: it will not be dry or boring, nor will it be fraught with meaningless pieties. You will understand what the Mass is, why it is holy, and why you must be there. This is our promise to you.It will not be "socially correct", sanitized to sensitivities, or keeping in step with the passing fads that blow through the pews and across the Altars as so many shifting winds following that elusive mantra of "what is in vogue". There is perpetuity in the Church, and unchangeable elements of the Mass. Hopefully, we will enable you to see beyond the Mass so often presented as entertainment, hosted by an entertainer, to the deep and very sacred reality within it.
"The Mass", as we most often call it, is really short for, "The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass".
Linger a moment on those 7 words, for they contain quite nearly everything that you will need to know in order to understand why you go to Church, or why you ought to.
The Mass, first and foremost, is a Sacrifice. Not a figurative sacrifice, not a mere remembrance of something done long ago, and not a metaphor. It is a real sacrifice. At Mass you are witnessing – even participating in – a sacrifice, very real and very present.
Does that surprise you?
We do not hear very much about this – but unless we understand this most fundamental, this absolutely central aspect of the Mass, nothing else makes sense. Our lack of understanding the Mass as a Sacrifice contributes to most of the confusion that surrounds our going there and being there.
But what is the nature of this Sacrifice, and how is it enacted? Who does the sacrificing and who or what is sacrificed? How do we ourselves participate in it?
Tomorrow we will begin to understand.
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What we have learned today: The Mass is a Sacrifice
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Part 2: The Sacred Darkness: Who is there? And where?
Part II
A Sacred Darkness
Unless we begin to grasp this, we can go no further. We are, as it were, standing at the door looking in, aware that we are in the vestibule of something deeply sacred. Beyond the doors we will encounter something that we have never experienced in our lives: the Sacrifice – not of bread and wine; not even a merely "commemorative", still less a "symbolic", Sacrifice. No. We will witness the Sacrifice of a Human Being.
We will witness death.
As in most things of great importance, our eyes will betray us. You know well of what I speak. The world of "appearances" that surrounds us so often as a lie. It is among the greatest of paradoxes that we are blinded by our sight, and given sight by our blindness. Things are so seldom what they appear to be: the fluted columns of "marble" within most Churches are really plaster, and the voice that greets you in kindness in the vestibule will calumniate you as soon as you leave. Our eyes tell us that this man is sinful and that woman pious, seeing nothing of the humility in the one and the pride in the other. How much love, and how much malice, is concealed from our eyes. Why, the very sky itself is not blue, but only appears so.
At the door of the Church, you enter, or ought to enter, a sacred darkness. The world lies without. God lies within. Appearances must fall away the moment you anoint yourself with the Holy Water and sign yourself with the Cross. The world has passed. You have entered another dimension in which time itself is anointed with eternity. Your eyes will avail you nothing here. Here they will distract you, vex you, call you to your neighbor and away from God. Your ears will not be deafened by a sacred silence, but will contend with a thousand words that have no place in Church and in the presence of the Living God.
The only one who will not compete for your attention is God. The humility of God is stunning.
To Whom have you come this day? To God. Where is He?
No, He is not upon the Altar. Not yet. Nor is He in the statues, if any remain. He is not even on the Crucifix ... at least not yet.
But He is here. No, no ... not in the mindless aphorism that "God is everywhere." He is truly here. He has deigned to come to a place, a specific place, and to dwell there in utter humility; a place before which you can actually kneel, lift up your face, close your eyes, and look upon Him. ... as He looks upon you. He confines Himself for you, because He knows your littleness.
"But where?", you ask with incredulity. "Where is the Living God, that I may be before Him?" How this can be you will soon understand, but right now it is only important that you realize that He is there – right before you. Not symbolically, not metaphorically – but Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, He is there! As really and truly as I would be, could I stand before you. You could ... in fact, you will ... even touch Him!
The difference between His being there before you, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – and His being absent from you – is the blink of an eye ... an eye that sees not upon opening, but closing. It is the difference that Mary, the Mother of God, experienced as she stood at the foot of the Cross and closed her eyes in her unfathomable grief ...
Was Jesus still on the Cross before her as she closed her eyes?
He is no less present to you when you kneel before Him ... and close your eyes ...
Where?
In the Tabernacle ... in that little gold House of the Living God within which He dwells really and truly ... in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar ... under what only appears to be a humble Host; what, to the eyes, is only bread. Bread? Yes, Bread! "The Bread of Angels that has come down from Heaven" and which to eat is life everlasting (St. John 6:48-52). He is there!
You will find the Tabernacle behind the Altar – or, sadly, often shunted off to the side, but if you look carefully, you will find it, and when you find it you will find Him! Most often it has a little door (for Him Who is "the Gate") upon which two engraved angels face each other in adoration of Him within. But they are made merely of gold. You are made in the very image of God!
Do no less than the angels ... and adore Him Who awaits you there.
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What we have learned today: JESUS CHRIST is really and truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – as really as you or me in the Tabernacle ... under the appearance of Bread ... HE IS THERE!
