When we gather for Mass on Sunday we do not do so as an isolated group of people. We are in communion with the Universal Church. Around the globe thousands of congregations from the jungle to the desert to the Arctic to remote islands are offering up the sacrifice of the Mass. Not only that: "Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." (Heb 12: 1) Throughout the liturgical year we can see the feasts of the saints and martyrs who are emblematic of the entire Church which has handed on the Catholic faith we rejoice in today. Those witnesses cheer us on so that might, in our turn, hand on the faith intact and join them ultimately in glory. We are heartened in our daily struggles when we are mindful of the destination that God has in store for us and the whole human race: "Established in the present era of time, the Church was made manifest by the outpouring of the Spirit. At the end of time she will achieve her glorious fulfillment. Then, as may be read in the holy Fathers, all just men from the time of Adam, 'from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,' will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church." (Lumen gentium, 2) This destiny does not separate us from the world rather it involves us intimately with its own struggles: "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those of the poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the followers of Christ." (Gaudium et spes, 1)
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