June 21, 2004
The Mass: The Heart of Liturgy
When considering the Mass, one can reach hasty conclusions as to the meaning and purpose of it in the life of the individual believer and the Church. In fact, many reveal their conclusions by making such premature statements as; I get nothing out of the Mass, or I don’t like going to Mass because I don’t like our priest, or again, The Mass is boring. All of these statements display a lack of understanding and, more importantly, faith. For to participate in the Mass, we, as Catholics, enter into the “heavenly liturgy” and are revealed the “Sacred Mystery” of God’s love for us and of how He wants us to love one another. It is the source of unity and community. It is the God-given sacrament of worship and thanksgiving. Through the Mass, we enter into the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of God and find Him there giving Himself to the Father and in return the Father gives Him back to us. The Mass is a foretaste of heaven in that it is the participation, of the believer, in eternal life since through the Mass we enter into and become one with the Holy Trinity.
Before we enter into this meditation allow me to apologize for the inadequacy of it. There have been far better books written that go far beyond what I have written here. My desire is this – to create in all who read this a greater interest in the meaning of the Mass, a curiosity to draw them to the Mass, and yet, most importantly, to create a renewed love in their hearts for the Mass, our Divine Liturgy.
To understand the Holy Mass we must first understand the meaning of liturgy. Liturgy, as defined by the Catholic Church, is as follows:
1069 The word “liturgy” originally meant a “public work” or a “service in the name of/on behalf of the people.” In Christian tradition it means the participation of the People of God in “the work of God.” Through the liturgy Christ, our redeemer and high priest, continues the work of our redemption in, with, and through his Church.
1070 In the New Testament the word “liturgy” refers not only to the celebration of divine worship but also to the proclamation of the Gospel and to active charity. In all of these situations it is a question of the service of God and neighbor. In a liturgical celebration the Church is servant in the image of her Lord, the one “leitourgos”; she shares in Christ’s priesthood (worship), which is both prophetic (proclamation) and kingly (service of charity):
“The liturgy then is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. It involves the presentation of man’s sanctification under the guise of signs perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of these signs. In it full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members. From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.” - Catechism of the Catholic Church, pg. 277
So the very act of liturgy must, by its very nature, be an action of God. Yet through the liturgy, we, as members of His Body, enter into the very “action of God.” Considering it as such, we are now obliged to seek to understand what this action is.
The Catechism goes on to say that the “…whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments” (CCC, pg. 289). We find our union with God must perfectly through the sacraments. The Mass, or Eucharistic sacrifice, is also a celebration for as “the book of Revelation of St. John, read in the Church’s liturgy, first reveals to us, ‘A throne in heaven, with one seated on the throne”: “the Lord God’ (Rev. 4:2, 8; Isa 6:1; cf. Ezek 1:26-28). It then shows the Lamb, ‘standing, as though it had been slain’: Christ crucified and risen, the one high priest of the true sanctuary, the same one ‘who offers and is offered, who gives and is given’ (Rev. 5:6, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Anaphora; cf. Jn 1:29; Heb 4:14-15; 10:19-20). Finally it presents ‘the river of the water of life…flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,’ one of the most beautiful symbols of the Holy Spirit (Rev. 22:1; cf. 21:6; Jn 4:10-14).” It is the continual entering into this Paschal Mystery that best describes the celebration of the Mass, the very action of God.
In her book, The Holy Mass, Adrienne Von Speyr stated the following:
The Holy Mass is both the means and sign through which the Lord bequeaths his love. His whole life was a Eucharist to the Father, and it is in this, his Eucharist, that he wants to include all his people. Christian thanksgiving is fulfilled in and cannot be separated from the wholeness of the Holy Mass, itself a commemoration of the wholeness of the love of the Lord. Each celebration of Holy Mass is a unique introduction to the love of the Lord. No single Holy Mass is to be considered in itself, but rather it stands in relation to all other Holy Masses, which together form the indivisible sign of the whole and indivisible love of the Lord for his Church. – pg. 11
In this mystically rich statement we find the “action of God” that we seek, for we come to understand that it is love, and not just any love but the love that the Son has for the Father. We enter into that unifying love that Jesus has for His Father. It is in partaking in the liturgy of the Holy Mass that we are unified with each other and with God Himself, in His Love, just as He willed it (John 17:20-26). It is through the “faith-full” participation in the Holy Mass that we receive Jesus Himself into our very beings, allowing Him to work through us. St. Leo I wrote in the 4th century:
Participation in the Body and Blood of Christ effects nothing else but that we become that which we consume, and we carry Him everywhere both in spirit and in body, in and with whom we have died, have been buried, and have risen. - Sermons, 461 A.D.
St. Cyril of Alexandria was even clearer on this reality in his Commentary on John written in 429 A.D.:
The Savior Himself declares, “Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in him.” By this statement it is to be seen that Christ does not say He will be in us only after the fashion of some relation that is solely intellectual, but also through participation truly according to nature. Just as if someone were to entwine two pieces of wax together and melt them with a fire, so that both are made one, so too through participation in the Body of Christ and in His Precious Blood, He is united in us and we too in Him. In no other way can that corruptible nature be vivified except by being united bodily to the Body of Him who is, by His very nature, life: that is, the Only-begotten.
Yet this understanding was not limited to the 4th century. St. Irenaeus, in approximately 180 A.D., wanting to clarify that the proof for bodily resurrection and eternal salvation can be found in our participation in the Eucharist wrote:
They are vain in every respect, who despise the entire dispensation of God, and deny the salvation of the body and spurn its regeneration, saying that it is not capable of immortality. It the body be not saved, then, in fact, neither did the Lord redeem us with His Blood; and neither is the cup of the Eucharist the partaking of His Blood nor is the Bread which we break the partaking of His Body. …He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be His own Blood, from which He causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, He has established as His own Body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.
When, therefore, the mixed cup and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life – flesh which is nourished by the Body and Blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of Him? - Against Heresies
This union that we experience is the “action of God,” the complete gift of Jesus to the Father, which in turn is given to us to unite us to the Father through the Son’s very Body and Blood, offered up as “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).
The Catechism names the Sacrament of the Eucharist “the Holy and Divine Liturgy, because the Church’s whole liturgy finds its center and most intense expression in the celebration of this sacrament…” (para. 1330). So now let us enter into this Divine Liturgy, this Sacred Mystery, so as to understand genuine worship and Christian unity.
Within the Holy Mass there are actually two liturgies; (1) the Liturgy of the Word, and (2) the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
1346 The liturgy of the Eucharist unfolds according to a fundamental structure which has been preserved throughout the centuries down to our own day. It displays two great parts that form a fundamental unity:
- the gathering, the liturgy of the Word, with readings, homily, and general intercessions;
- the liturgy of the Eucharist, with the presentation of the bread and wine, the consecratory thanksgiving, and communion.
“The liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist together form “one single act of worship”, the Eucharistic table set for us is the table both of the Word of God and of the Body of the Lord” (Dei Verbum, 21)
1347 Is this not the same movement as the Paschal meal of the risen Jesus with his disciples? Walking with them he explained the Scriptures to them; sitting with them at table “he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” (cf. Lk 24:13-35)
- pg. 340
Theologically, the Holy Mass is the spiritual reality of Christ Himself in that the Word and the Flesh meet and together form that perfect form of thanksgiving and worship, making present the ever-present sacrifice of the “Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Rev 5:6). It is a common misunderstanding that the Mass is the re-sacrificing of Jesus on the Cross, yet this is not so. There is but one Sacrifice, for Jesus offered Himself up on Calvary once, yet the reality and the partaking of the Sacrificial Lamb is perpetuated eternally. Similarly, the Word of God is perpetuated in the Holy Mass, for before we are united to Christ, and each other, in the Eucharist, we first hear His Word proclaimed. Hearing the Word of God we believe and understand, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ we become and live out the “action of God,” the offering of ourselves, in love and thanksgiving to God the Father and to one another, through Christ Himself, our Mediator. So with the Catechism we can proclaim:
1324 The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” “The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.” – pg. 334
In the near future, I will be posting another article that will follow the Mass from beginning to end and explain each part.
In Christ,
Joe
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