►AS PROPHESIED BY MALACHI — Just before the Consecration, the priest intones the Eucharistic Prayer, based on Malachi’s prophecy in the last book of the Old Testament: “For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 1:11) The Old Testament prophet Malachi lived some 400 years before Christ.

The Eucharistic Prayer echoes Malachi: “You are indeed Holy, O Lord, and all You have created rightly gives You praise… You give life to all things and make them holy, and You never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to Your name.”

►Malachi’s prophecy 400 years B.C. has come to pass: Fr. George W. Kosicki, CSB, estimates that about “four-to-five Masses begin each second,” and that “there are approximately 8-to-9,000 Masses going on at any moment.” (George Kosicki, “Intercession: Moving Mountains by Living Eucharistically,” Faith Publishing Company): p. 22.

Even if Father Kosicki’s calculations are on the high side, “it is truly inspiring and breathtaking to consider that at any given moment thousands of Masses are being said throughout the world and the infinitely perfect sacrifice of Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is being lovingly offered to the Eternal Father.”

What an amazing fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy!

►Whether on a jeepney-hood, in a barrio chapel, in a parish church, in a grand cathedral or basilica – whether celebrated by a newly-ordained priest or the Pope himself – whether celebrated by one priest, or concelebrated by the Pope and 100 Cardinals — the Eucharistic Mass remains the same ritual sacrifice instituted by Christ: “At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood.”

When we participate in the Holy Mass, we recall and make the passion, death and resurrection of Christ happen again here and now. It is a holy remembrance of what Jesus Christ went through to win our salvation. Holy Mass becomes the highest form of prayer then in such a way that we directly encounter Jesus Christ in His real presence in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the “source and summit of our Christian life” (CCC 1324).#

Comp. by Dr. Ernesto A. de Pedro
Managing Trustee