Heavenly Father, your Son Jesus Christ, the High Priest of the new and eternal covenant, with a brother’s kindness, chooses men to become sharers in His sacred ministry… The Church’s priests are to renew in His name the sacrifice of human redemption and set before Your children the paschal banquet.
These words come from the prayers for Holy Thursday. We keep the feast of Corpus Christi every year to reflect more deeply on the gift that the Lord Jesus gave us at the Last Supper. In every generation, the Lord chooses priests to renew the sacrifice of human redemption on our altars, and to set before the people the paschal banquet. That’s the Mass. [Spanish]
I think we all know that the Mass involves realities that move us to awe and wonder; realities that stir our admiration; realities that move us to reverence. The Mass brings human salvation close. The Mass involves divine communion—communion with our Almighty Creator, and with each other. Communion in true love, the love of the Heart of Christ. In short, the Holy Mass binds us to God in the new and eternal covenant.
It doesn’t get old or out-dated. Even though it comes from an ancient city on the other side of the globe and has remained essentially unchanged for two thousand years. It is a simple ceremony. It requires a few things:
1. A man physically connected with Jesus Christ, through the laying-on of hands, over the course of seventy generations. 2. Bread and wine in suitable sacred vessels, an altar, and the prayer book—the Missal, which contains the holy, ancient words which the Church has lovingly preserved. And: 3. The Mass requires Christian faith.
With this ceremony we bear public witness to what we believe. God became man, in order to offer Himself as a sacrifice of love, for our salvation. He died on a Roman cross, just outside Jerusalem, and He rose again. He gives us His living flesh, until the day when He will come again as the world’s Almighty Judge. With the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, He nourishes us with spiritual bread, as we make our pilgrim way towards heaven.
For us Catholics, the Holy Mass is of a piece. It is a single, integrated, coherent thing. We believe that the holy priesthood, the sacrament of Orders, began at the Last Supper. We believe that Jesus’ words–This is My Body and This is My Blood–are simply true, true without any qualification. We believe that participating in the holy sacrifice both requires honest faith and nourishes honest faith.
The Mass brings us together–unites us as a people, by uniting us to God. A Catholic parish is not a social club for backslapping and swapping stories—though we’re free to slap each other’s backs and swap stories after Mass. But the Holy Mass unites us much more profoundly, in a quiet harmony of prayer, praise, and humble silence.
We have fun at church; we feel alive—because we profoundly revere the mystery of the Holy Mass. The living God, made man, is present–the Corpus et Sanguis Christi. We have built altars and churches not for us, but for Him. He does not need us; we need Him. We frequent our churches in order to adore Him, praise Him, thank Him, and beg Him to help us in every way.
And He is wonderful! He is kind. He is strong to save. He is gentle, merciful, and true. We worship the Lord Jesus, with us in His Body, Blood, soul, and divinity. He made me His priest, and He gathers His people at the altar, because He loves us. At Mass, we worship the King of Love. He does all His works for one reason: to give us heaven.
Father Mark White Blog 