Fruits of Joy

For many Catholics, one of the most recognizable liturgical orations is the Collect for Corpus Christi, also used at the conclusion of Benediction: "O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption, Who live and reign ... " This prayer asks the Lord Jesus to allow us, members of the Church, to revere the Eucharist so that we may "always experience in ourselves the fruits of [his] redemption."

As Sacrosanctum Concilium states, "In the liturgy, the sanctification of man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses ... "(SC 7). While worship is aimed toward the glorification of God and our sanctification, our liturgical actions, especially the sacraments, can have fruits or effects that we can experience even in this world. These effects are intimately connected to our redemption, since both our salvation and the efficacy of the Church's liturgies flow from the Paschal Mystery of Christ, One of the fruits we can obtain from the liturgy is joy.

In Latin, the terms gaudium and laetitia, both words we can translate as "joy", have proved important as evidenced by the designations "Gaudete Sunday" for the Third Sunday of Advent and "Laetare Sunday" for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. These labels, based on the incipits of the celebrations' respective introits, underscore how even in restrained and penitential seasons, the Church cannot suppress the joy of anticipating the most central mysteries of our faith-the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery, which gives to us the Eucharist.

As we advance on this earthly pilgrimage, God continues to feed and accompany us through the liturgy and the sacraments. This journey is a "paschal" one, as the Lord guides his people to "pass over" from death to life, from sin to forgiveness, from darkness to light. Jesus' own Paschal Mystery involved his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, leading to his glorious Ascension (SC, 5).

God, therefore, gladdens us as he feeds us with the Paschal Lamb and thus enables us to "pass over" from the sufferings of this world toward the glory of his Son's Resurrection, This foretaste of heavenly joy does not come from the world but is a fruit of our actual participation in the liturgy, worthy reception of Communion, and mindful observance of our Eucharistic mission.