Archbishop Thompson to speak on April 4 in YouTube Live series on the Mass

(Watch the live stream here at 8 p.m. on April 4)
 

Criterion staff report

The National Eucharistic Revival (NER) team will launch a live, seven-part YouTube series on the Mass at 8 p.m. on Thursdays starting on April 4.

Each episode of the series, which is called “Mystagogy Live!,” will feature a bishop explaining a different portion of the Mass. Archbishop Charles C. Thompson will speak during the first episode on April 4.

“We’ve heard the Gospel and professed our faith,” a summary of the episode notes. “Now the Offertory begins. As the priest prays over the bread and wine, we, too, can spiritually unite our own offerings to the total self-gift that Jesus offers to the Father.”

While addressing profound topics, each episode will allow time for questions. The series is “meant to feel welcoming and inviting, like our guests at home are sitting with us in a living room sharing an important, engaging conversation.”

The word “mystagogy” comes from an early tradition of the Church, Franciscans of the Eucharist Sister Alicia Torres explains in a promotional video about the series.

“From the most ancient times of the Church, when people were being initiated into Christianity, preparing for the Easter sacraments—baptism, Eucharist, confirmation—it was also a time of persecution,” she says. “Those people who were being formed needed to go deeper into the mysteries after they were initiated, because they needed to be tested—we needed to make sure they weren’t coming in to infiltrate and add to the persecution.

“So [began] this beautiful tradition of, after those Easter sacraments, having a period of what they called mystagogy, where they would go deeper into the mysteries, particularly of the liturgy. It was a time of catechesis.”

A seven-week period of mystagogy following Easter was re-established after the Second Vatican Council as part of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.

The NER team chose to use this year’s period of mystagogy to explain the Liturgy of the Eucharist as part of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival launched in 2022 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Other bishops in the series include Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston, Minn., who is serving as chairman of the revival’s Bishop’s Advisory Group; Bishop Joseph L. Coffey of the Archdiocese for the Military Services; Bishop Robert J. Brennan of the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and more.

The series, which will be recorded, can be viewed live for seven Thursdays at 8 p.m. beginning on April 4 at tinyurl.com/NERStreams under the “Live” tab. †