"Only in Christ can men and women find answers to the ultimate questions that trouble them. Only in Christ can they fully understand their dignity as persons created and loved by God. Jesus Christ is "the only Son from the Father…full of grace and truth."

—John Paul II. World Youth Day, 1993. Denver, Colorado.

It is in and through the Mass and the sacrements that we encounter Christ Jesus in a unique way.

Each Sunday, all around the globe, Catholics gather together to pray in a particular and distinctive way: to celebrate the Mass.  Go anywhere you like in the world:  The language may change, the clothes and sermon style may differ, but the Mass and its structure are always the same.  Even Sunday to Sunday, the way Catholics pray together changes in part, but is largely the same actions. Why?  What is the Mass and why do we do it?

The Mass is nothing less than the greatest prayer we have as a Church.  Handed down to us largely unaltered from the time of Christ and the Apostles, the Mass is God's gift to us: a way to worship Him as He would prefer. This aspect of the Mass is key: Like all prayer, this most perfect prayer is not something which we do ourselves.  Rather, it's a gift from God and something that God does in and through us.  This little fact is more important than most realize.  We cannot worship God as we ought unless God gives us a way to do this.  Through His only begotten Son, Jesus, God has taught us actions and words to do in remembrance of Him, actions and words that really are pleasing to our Father in heaven.  In a way, the prayer we receive through Jesus in the Mass is like a dad teaching his son to write, slowly but surely showing him how to make each letter, just so the boy can write his own note back to his mom and dad:  "I love you."

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 sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet "in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us". (Sacrosanctum concilium, 47).

In the celebration sacraments of the Church, we are united fully with Jesus Christ. Through the Holy Spirit of Christ, we receive the very life of the Father in heaven, and are invited to give our very selves back to the Father in Jesus.