Liturgy. You go to Mass week after week. It becomes a habit, part of the rhythm of life, maybe a personal or family tradition you feel you have to do. Somewhere along the line, you were faced with a choice: to keep at it, or let it go. Maybe you’re facing that question right now. If you’ve already made the decision to go again next week, how do you give the experience meaning, your own meaning?

The prayer of the faith-filled Christian—our prayer—is steeped in Tradition, with a capital “T”. But it’s very much about the here and now—about you…and us. It’s not governed by passing fads or political agendas. It doesn’t rest on stories of visions or miracles. It is a declaration of our common faith in our triune God and in each other as Church, despite our shortcomings. It is the unparalleled celebration of the Body of Christ, that binds us to each other all over the globe and through all time.

These five-minute forays into the liturgy are led by Msgr. Steven Lopes, a disciple of the Eucharist, who spends his life sharing his faith with the Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. May his insights awaken your own, and may they help keep you connected with this source of sacramental life. When we are faithful to the Eucharist, both in consolation and dryness, we discover how faithful the Eucharist is to us. We taste and see the goodness of the Lord, who nourishes us, teaches us, empowers us, and sends us in his name and by his grace into a world famished for the bread and wine—the strength and the joy—of our faithful witness. In celebrating and consuming the One who is the Way, Truth and Life of humanity, we become way, truth, and life for others.