At the altar comes the focus we ought to have: Jesus Christ as the center. Holy Mass centers our attention on what it means to be in relationship with all that is by grace. I am convinced that the sacred Liturgy is the vehicle of faith, the lex orandi [the law of prayer], is theologia prima serves powerfully to teach, to form, and to unite us.
One should read Benedict XVI’s Sacramentum Caritatis which speaks to the centrality of the Eucharist as the identity of the Church. We know from experience that the Eucharist is irreducible to another religious practice. That is, the Eucharist is not one ritual among others. It is, however, the privileged way that the Church encounters the mystery of love in Jesus Christ.