Stations of the Eucharist: Why do you attend Mass?

Editor’s Note: The following is part one of a two-part presentation taken from Eucharistic Revival preacher Father Jonathan Meyer at a Catholic men’s conference. This is one of many Eucharistic reflections that will be published by Catholic San Francisco magazine as part of the U.S. Catholic Church’s Eucharistic Revival (eucharisticrevival.org) that began on June 19, 2022, on the feast of Corpus Christi, and continues through Pentecost 2025.

Why do people not go to church when we’re in the midst of a national Eucharistic Revival?

A study came out that said 70% of Catholics do not believe that Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. I don’t think that’s the problem. There’s a deeper problem I want to reveal. I want you to turn to the person to your left or to your right, and I want you to tell him why you go to Mass. What is the reason you go to Mass? I want to prove the fact that most of you get that answer completely wrong.

I’ve been giving talks across this country during the national Eucharistic Revival, and I can tell you that these are the top reasons why people say that they go to Mass. They go to Mass for community and fraternity. They go to Mass to hear God’s word proclaimed through the sacred Scriptures. They go to Mass to hear the homily. They go to Mass for the music. For those who are really pious, they’ll say they go to Mass to receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ in the most Holy Eucharist.

All of those answers – community, Scripture, homilies and sermons, music and reception of Holy Communion – are not sufficient. If you said those answers, you don’t know why we go to Mass. Those answers represent the fruits of the main reason we should be going to the holy sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass re-presents the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary. That’s what the Mass is, and out of that everything flows. Let me prove my point.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to Mass where you didn’t receive Holy Communion. Every hand should be up because at the age of 8, you couldn’t receive Holy Communion. If you’re in the state of mortal sin, you should never receive Holy Communion. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to Mass where there’s no music? Praise the Lord for that sometimes, right? Raise your hand if you’ve been to Mass where there’s no homily? That’s double praise the Lord! The reality is that you’ve been to Mass at times where you haven’t listened to the Scriptures or the Scriptures were proclaimed in another language, and it still counted for your Sunday obligation. There are times when you go to Mass and you’re on vacation and you want to slide in and slide out and not talk to anyone. In fact, all these examples are actually things that can take place better outside of Mass.

You want a great community? Join a small group. You want great Scripture? Join a Bible study. You want great preaching? Go to a Protestant church! You want great music? Go to Spotify. You want to receive Holy Communion? I bring the Blessed Sacrament to people in their homes all the time, and I will tell you, those are profound, deep encounters with the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

So the reality is, if those things are not the Mass, then what is the Mass? If some 70% of self-proclaimed Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament, I will tell you that 90%-plus do not have any idea what the Mass is. Again, the Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary. The Mass is the eternal sacrifice of the Lamb of God for your sins, for my sins, that saves the entire world. That’s what the Mass is.

If you’ve ever prayed the Stations of the Cross, you can appreciate a similar meditation that we will do together today called the Stations of the Eucharist. There are 14 meditations along the way, and it begins in the Book of Genesis.

The First Station: The sacrifices of Cain and Abel

God blesses Adam and Eve with two children, Cain and Abel. We know that Cain kills Abel out of envy. What caused the envy? The brothers offered sacrifice to God. Cain offered vegetables, and Abel offered a lamb. God doesn’t accept the vegetables. He only accepts the sacrifice of a lamb. Why? Because the lamb is a foreshadowing of the only sacrifice that God will receive for the salvation of mankind. We are saved by the blood of the Lamb. The death of the first human being was brought about by a misunderstanding of what constitutes an appropriate sacrifice. How many people spiritually die because they don’t know what the sacrifice of the Mass is? Countless.

The Second Station: Melchizedek, a great priest who shows up out of nowhere

He was a king and a priest, and he offered a sacrifice of bread and wine. A king and a priest who offers a sacrifice of bread and wine? This is important because Jesus is a king and a priest who offers a sacrifice of bread and wine, but that’s not just why it’s important. It’s important because Melchizedek was not from the tribe of Levi, which hadn’t even come about yet. But once the 12 sons of Jacob are established, only one group is allowed to offer sacrifice. Only one group of men are allowed to be priests, and those are the Levites. And what tribe was Jesus from? He was from the tribe of Judah, which means, according to the Mosaic Law, He can’t actually offer worthy sacrifice. But it’s clearly proclaimed in Scripture that Jesus Christ is a priest from the order and the line of who? Melchizedek, which means that Jesus starts a new priesthood, an eternal priesthood, which allows Him to offer a sacrifice of bread and wine, which I and my brother priests stand in the line of.

The Third Station: The Sacrifice of Abraham

Now once again, there are 30 connections between the sacrifice of Abraham and his son Isaac and the sacrifice of God the Father and His Son Jesus. Thirty direct connections, and I’m going to tell you we can get lost in that and forget why this biblical passage is so powerful. God asked Abraham to do one thing. What did God ask Abraham to do? Kill his son. And then an angel comes and stops Abraham. But just because the angel stops Abraham doesn’t mean that a sacrifice is not demanded. Abraham knows that a sacrifice is demanded. So what does Abraham do? He sees a lamb caught in a thicket. What’s a thicket? A crown of thorns. He sees a lamb caught in thorns. What lamb do you know of that was caught in thorns? That’s called a replacement sacrifice. The lamb that replaced Isaac caught in a crown of thorns was a replacement sacrifice. It replaced his son. Why is this so important? Because Jesus is your replacement sacrifice who should have died for every single time that you’ve lied, that you’ve stolen, that you’ve looked at pornography, that you’ve committed adultery, that you’ve cheated. Who should have died? You and me. There is one replacement sacrifice, and it is the sacrifice of Jesus who dies in our place as the lamb died in the place of Isaac crowned with thorns.

The Fourth Station: The Jewish Passover

You’re a slave in Egypt. Moses and God have sent 10 plagues and none of them have convinced Pharaoh. But the 10th one does what? The 10th plague that is sent is the angel of death who comes to kill anyone who does not sacrifice a lamb. And do what? Two things. Number one, you need to eat the flesh of the lamb, and number two, its blood must be on your doorpost. St. John Chrysostom clearly interprets this: We as the people of God in slavery, must eat the flesh of the Son of God and His blood must be on our doorposts. Where are our doorposts? Our lips. On the day of your baptism, you became a temple of the Holy Spirit and there must be blood on your lips. If not, the angel of death will not pass over you. What does Jesus say in John chapter 6? “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life within you. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I’ll raise him up on the last day.” The fulfillment of the Passover is the re-presentation of Calvary, which we then enter into in Holy Communion.

The Fifth Station: The Manna that Came Down from Heaven

If you went to a Catholic school, that means that you went to either daily Mass or at least Mass two or three times a week. Do you go to daily Mass? Because if you don’t, there’s a problem. Many of our Catholic schools have a major problem. Many of our children go to school without making the connection that daily Mass is one of the greatest gifts that the Church has. Once the Israelites were set free, they were in the desert starving to death. They were in a world where there was nothing, and they were starving. What does God send them? Manna coming down from heaven. How often did that manna come? Daily, except for the Sabbath. But they gathered manna twice on Friday. God sent daily bread. I want to challenge you right now. Our churches should be packed not just on Sunday but every day. If you have never made the commitment to get to daily Mass, I want to change your life. I want you to know freedom of peace and joy. Daily Mass will change your life. It fed the Israelites. It’ll feed you.

The Sixth Station: The Ark of the Covenant

God the Father created us, He made us, He knows us. And what did He do? He created a place for us to go. He knew that we as human beings have a desire to physically go to a place to worship Him. In the Old Testament, they went to one place. In the New Testament, the new covenant, every Catholic church has an ark of the covenant, a place where we physically can go and be with the Lord. In my four parish assignments right now, I have seven churches, and we opened a perpetual adoration chapel, and we are opening our second one. Why? Because we are literally dying as human beings. We need a place to know with certitude that we are encountering the presence of God. Every tabernacle in the world should be surrounded by faithful, devout people who love the Lord. Think of how much time you waste watching sports or being on your phone. How much would your life, your marriage, change if you spent that time with the Lord? We have a place to go.

The Seventh Station: Bethlehem

The word actually translates into “House of Bread.” Jesus was born in a town called the House of Bread because He would say I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. He’s found lying in a feeding trough for beasts, for animals to eat. Who are those beasts, those animals? You and me. And yet when we eat this food of immortality, it changes us. It restores us to who we are called to be.

Part two of Father Meyer’s presentation will be featured in the June issue of Catholic San Francisco magazine.

Visit sfarch.org/what-is-the-mass for a video message from Father Jonathan Meyer. For a copy of the 14 stations of the Eucharist, email [email protected].