WHY IS MASS UNINTERESTING?
Many, especially young people, are asking that question today.
And there definitely is an answer.
There are three reasons for that: lack of spiritual
sensitivity, lack of understanding of God, lack of understanding
the theology of the Mass.
So we need to look at each.
<The first, lack of spiritual sensitivity> is something very
common today. It is not hard to diagnose the cause: so many have
grown up with a false theology which is sometimes called the New
Spirituality, though most often it goes without a name, but yet is
almost breathed in in the early levels of school. The central idea
is this: <to give up any creature or pleasure, voluntarily, for a
religious reason, does one no good spiritually>. We added the tag
"voluntarily". For those who follow this error commonly agree that
we ought to make good use of things that God sends us, even trials.
But to give up anything otherwise - that is not only no good, it is
often harmful, they claim.
It is hard to imagine that even Screwtape himself could think
up something more devilish. For, believe it or not, this attitude
not only wrecks vocations to religious life, but also wrecks many
marriages as well. What a track record!
The reason for saying it is harmful to give things up is this: the
new spirituality people say that obedience is harmful. But
obedience is, of course, one of the major ways of giving things up.
They say that especially in the early years of life, a person needs
to make decisions in order to mature psychologically. That is very
true. But the objection would hold only if there were only a very
few decisions to be made. Actually, there are so many. So one can
cultivate two goals, namely, maturity by decision-making; yet at
the same time, get the spiritual benefits of obedience in other
matters.
It wrecks vocations in this way: Imagine a teenager deciding
whether or not to enter some form of religious life. To do so, if
done in the right way, involves giving up many things. But if
he/she thinks that does no good -- why do it? And worse, obedience
should be part of religious life and that, as we saw, the new
spirituality people claim is positively harmful. That is not hard
to answer: we have just done that.
Some time back, there was massive exodus of nuns from
convents. Why? They came to believe the new spirituality. So they
would be fools to stay, if they believe that. Or if they would
stay, then they would try to remake their institute to match the
new spirituality. Some have done just that, and have even gained
power positions, and harass those who do not follow their way.
Liberals are very illiberal with those who disagree with them.
Not strangely, these remade orders are losing vocations - for
they are not really following the essential principles of the
religious life, and so cannot attract those who would really want
such things.
But the new spirituality is wrecking countless marriages as
well. How does that happen? Marriage by its very nature must be a
<permanent commitment>. If even one of the two parties is unable to
make a permanent commitment, then there is no marriage, however
many flowers and bridesmaids there may be.
The reason is this: So many grow up today breathing in the new
spirituality. The result is that they do only what feels good, and
only as long as it feels good. As soon as it no longer feels good,
they stop. Of course, if someone has lived that way every day up to
the time he/she walks up the aisle -- then that person is really
incapable of a permanent commitment. And in due time that will
show, and the marriage can be annulled. Rather, it never was
marriage at all from the start, since at least one of the two was
incapable of a permanent commitment.
The parties discover their error when the high tide of emotion
simmers down to a normal level after marriage. Then they find out
that male and female psychologies are enormously different. Even
with an ideal couple, each one soon faint he/she has to give in
most of the time to make it work. The psychologically immature
children who grew up in new spirituality cannot make it work. (Paul
VI said "marriage is a long path towards sanctification. That is
true, for those who are really mature and who succeed in making the
indispensable adjustments).
How does this new spirituality affect understanding the Mass?
Very simple. To grow up living a life that is in a spirit opposite
to that of Christ, who said: "If anyone will come after me, let him
take up his cross and follow me" -- to live that way is the
opposite of the spirit of Christ. No wonder such a person is not in
good condition to understand the Mass, the supreme offering of the
obedient sufferings of Christ.
Vatican II gave us a real help towards seeing the folly of the
new spirituality. In speaking of the three evangelical counsels,
poverty, chastity and obedience, which are the core of religious
life, it said that they "constantly stir up the fervor of love. "
(LG #46). For those not in religious life what is needed: to begin
to live the ideal of Christ, to make it a practice to get in at
least a little self-imposed mortification frequently, perhaps one
small thing daily, of the type St. Therese of Lisieux taught us to
cultivate. For example if a letter from home arrived in the
morning, she would not open it until evening. Or others who drive
cars, can keep their eye on the road -- good for safety -- and not
let themselves satisfy their curiosity by looking at things that
turn up which one does not need to see. And there are countless of
other little ways of following the cross. Those who do this will
find their aptitude for all spiritual things growing. This does not
mean that they will have ecstacies or be swimming in emotion. No,
they may have hardly any emotion. But they will still understand
the message of the Cross, and gladly live it, nd find a deeper kind
of satisfaction.
Generously fulfilling the duties of one's state in life,
whatever it may be, is another way of cultivating mortification.
St. Francis de Sales makes a surprising suggestion in a letter to a
married woman. He says that her husband will be delighted if he
sees that as her devotion grow, she is becoming more warm to him.
She has really pledged that in the marriage vows. She must not
think that spirituality calls for coldness in the matter.
This need for mortification reminds us of the words of St.
Paul in Romans 8:17 where he said: "We are heirs of God, fellow
heirs with Christ, <provided that> we suffer with Him, so we may
also be glorified with Him." So many today are miles from that
position. They want and try to get even constant entertainment now.
As soon as they return to their quarters they turn on the TV or a
stereo. While riding in the car, they also must have entertainment
on the radio. And in everything, pleasure seeking is the rule.
Really such attempts are self-defeating. For our bodies cannot
respond at high pitch ford long periods:fatigue comes in, a natural
defense, and our reactions are blunted. The result is that people
who seek constant entertainment develop almost something like a
callous, and do not really enjoy it; instead, it is apt to cause
stress, No wonder they find little happiness. That comes only
insofar as we are like Christ. We do not mean that we will be
exempt from sufferings if we follow Him - rather the opposite. But
there is a deeper satisfaction even here and now, which leads to
happiness later beyond that which eye has seen or ear heard, and
which has not even entered into the heart of man.
<A second reason for lack of appreciation of the Mass is lack
of appreciation of God Himself>. There are as it were two poles in
our relationship to God ("poles" mean centers around which things
are grouped). One pole is that of love, closeness, warmth; the
other, a sense of infinite majesty, greatness. If someone told me:
"Joe Doaks who lives two blocks from here, loves you", my reaction
would probably be: "Ho hum. Who is that? Why should I be
interested". Similarly if we have little or no perception of the
greatness of God, to hear that He loves us makes little impact.
St Teresa of Avila understood well these two poles. Even
though she was privileged to often have marvelous mystical
closeness to God, yet in her writings she regularly refers to Him
as "His Majesty. " And an opening to many ancient Jewish prayers
said; "Avinu, malkenu - Our Father, our King. "
The liturgy of the Mass in the Eastern rites of the Catholic
Church is well designed to promote that sense of majesty; our
western liturgy seems to have done everything possible to diminish
respect: turn the altar around, no Communion rail, let even
children with dirty hands touch the most sacred things. Primitive
people, as anthropology shows, observe a sharp division between the
ordinary, everyday things, and the sacred. We have lost it. In the
Eastern rites, instead of a turned about altar, they have an
iconostasis, an icon-screen between the people and the altar, which
can be seen at all only if one is in line with the holy door and
the altar. Most persons in the church hardly see the altar at all.
We greatly need to try to recover that sense of the sacred.
One thing that would help is much meditation on some lines from the
Fathers of the Church. For example, St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his
<Life of Moses> said: "The true vision of the One we seek, the true
seeing, consists in this: in not seeing. For the One Sought is
beyond all knowledge." St. Augustine in his treatise <On Christian
Doctrine> wrote: "He must not even be called inexpressible, for
when we say that word, we say something."
There is of course a bit or exaggeration in these statements,
but very little. To clarify, let us think of the time the young man
came to Jesus and said: "Good master, what must I do to get eternal
life?" Jesus at once said: "Why do you call me good? One is good,
God." He did not mean to deny He was good, but He meant to say that
if we use the word good twice, to apply to God and to apply to
anyone else, the sense in the two cases is partly the same, but
mostly different. In this way the great ancient philosopher
Plotinus said: "God is beyond being."
Astronomy could help us too, to recapture some of the majesty
of God, if we gather together some of the staggering figures about
the universe, e. g. , that the nearest spiral galaxy is Andromeda,
at a distance of 2. 2 million light years, and then realize that a
light year is the distance light travels in one year at a speed of
over 186, 000 miles per second - then we say to ourselves: "And yet
He who made that, not with great planning, but by merely wiling it:
Let it be - He loves me and permits me to call Him Father." The
line in the Mass is very helpful here: "Jesus taught us to call God
our Father, and so we have <the courage> to say. "
In a way it was easier for people in a primitive culture to
feel their need of God than it is for us, who by our technology can
accomplish things that would have dazzled the primitives. And yet,
if we use our increased knowledge well, we are better off than the
primitives. We know that in any speck of dirt, there are atoms,
each with a nucleus, plus electrons in several energy levels, which
used to be compared to planets in orbit around a sun. That power in
a bit of dust is so great that if it were unleashed it would blow
us all to pieces. Yet He who made that by merely willing it, tells
us to have the courage to call Him Father.
Another way to help develop a sense of reverence is to act as
if we had it. To make no preparation for Holy Communion, and then
to leave at once after Mass - if not even earlier - expresses
positive disrespect. Interior respect could hardly flourish in such
an atmosphere. Pope John Paul II in his very first Encyclical,
<Redemptor hominis>, pointed out that if a person does not really
make a considerable effort, he will <take a loss> from receiving,
not a gain. When St. Pius X urged frequent Communion, he had in
mind the way people used to act in his day. They would commonly go
to Confession the day before, then put on their very best clothes
to receive. Now they seldom go to confession - such frequency as
used to be the practice is not required, but at least more than
many make now is good. And to come to Church dressed in a slovenly
way, or wearing short shorts - this is to show we think little of
the Divine Presence. And to at once sit, and then cross legs in a
slouched position, again expresses no respect. Our interior
attitudes tend to follow our exterior actions. So if we bring our
exterior into line, we will find the interior improving.
Further, if we really believe in the Real Presence - and so
many Catholics today do not believe it - we would be glad to come
at times other than Mass for adoration. Wonderful spiritual fruits
follow upon this practice.
It is to pay both our obligations and our love to so majestic
a Father that we have the Mass.
Today with our wonderful technology it is easy to overlook our
total dependence on God. If I made a model plane, and not only put
together parts from a store, but even gathered and mined the raw
materials, then I would say it is mine in a sense much greater than
if I had bought it ready made. But God has made us out of nothing.
On that count alone, we owe Him everything, we owe Him our
obedience, which is also correctly called our love - we do not want
to as it were hug Him, we obey, because He is so good, because that
is good in itself, because that makes us open to receive what He so
generously wants to give. He has pleasure in that. But yet, that
obedience does Him no good. Even when we say, rightly, that God
created for His own glory, we do not mean He is out to gain
something - impossible. He, the Infinite, cannot gain anything, nor
does He aim for it. It means instead that His glory is the natural
result of His generosity to us.
Still further, if someone makes a robot, and puts a battery in
it, it can run as long as the battery lasts, even if the maker goes
away, even if the maker dies. But we are not like that. Our life is
a <moment to moment gift>. If He were to withdraw the hand of His
support, we would fall back into the nothing out of which we came.
Every beat of the heart, every movement of our lungs, every
thought, depends on His power at the beginning of the line of power
transmission.
And we add of course, the fact that He redeemed us from the
captivity of the evil one, at such enormous cost, means that on
still another count we owe Him everything.
The Mass is the great means of paying our debts. First, we
should, by meditation, come to realize we do have such debts.
Probably the oldest epic in the world is the Epic of
Gilgamesh, from ancient Mesopotamia, going back to at least the
second millennium before Christ, has a remarkable passage that
describes a great deluge, and shows remarkable similarity to the
account in Genesis. When the flood is over, the hero, Utnapistim,
goes out from his ark and offers a sacrifice. Then, according to
the epic, the gods, who had been cowering in fear on the
battlements of heaven - even though they had caused the flood (for
no rational cause) came down and "swarmed like flies"around the
sacrifice. They had not had anything to eat for some time!. For
sacrifices were considered food for the gods. Ancient Greece seems
to have had a similar notion: the comedy, The Birds, by
Aristophanes shows the birds threatening the gods that if they
would not come around, the birds would cut off the flow of
sacrifices and practically starve the gods into submission.
Very different is our concept of sacrifice. We get much light
on it from the classic Hebrew prophets, who picture God as
complaining and as not wanting the sacrifices, even though He had
ordered them. The reason emerges from Isaiah 29:13 in which God
says: "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are
far from me.
We fear God is saying the same thing today about so many who go to
Mass: they honor him with their lips, that is, with the externals,
with answering prayers, singing etc. But their hearts, that is,
their interior dispositions, are lacking almost completely.
So we gather that there are two elements in a sacrifice: the
outward sign, and the interior dispositions. The outward sign is
there to express, and perhaps even promote, the interior. But the
whole value of the sacrifice comes from the interior dispositions.
In the original sacrifice of the Cross, and the previous Holy
Thursday evening, the interior disposition was that of the
obedience of Jesus to the will of the Father. In taking bread here
and wine there, and saying: "This is my body. This is my blood," He
was saying in a dramatized way: "Father, I know the commandment you
have given me. I am to die tomorrow. Very good, I turn myself over
to death - expressed by the seeming separation of body and blood in
the two species - I accept, I obey. He made that pledge the first
Thursday evening. He carried it out the next day.
On Holy Thursday, the outward sign was as we said, the seeming
separation of body and blood, standing for death. On Friday, the
interior remained the same, or rather, continued, but the outward
sign changed to the physical separation of body and blood. In each
Mass, obviously, the outward sign is the same as on the first Holy
Thursday evening.
The interior, His obedience to the Father, was really
continuous since, "on entering into the world, He said: 'Behold, I
come to do your will, O God" (Heb 10. 7). That will had been
continuous from His conception until His death, and after that it
still continues, for death makes permanent the attitude of will
with which one leaves this world.
That knowledge and that will cost Him tremendous suffering.
For the Church teaches us (Pius XII, <Mystical Body Encyclical>)
that from the first instant of conception His human mind or soul
saw the vision of God, in which all knowledge is present. So He
began to see then, in all its horrid detail, everything He was to
suffer. When we look ahead to something dreadful that may come, we
can say: "Perhaps it won't come. Perhaps it will not be so bad".
But He could not take such a refuge. The vision was, we might say,
merciless, because it was infallible. Twice during His public life
He allowed us to see within Him. In Luke 12:50: "I have a baptism
to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be
accomplished." In John 12:27: "Now my heart is troubled. What shalI
I say? Father save me from this hour." Then in Gethsemani, the
interior pressure was so extreme as to rupture the capillaries
adjacent to the sweat glands, so that the red tide flowed out.
Now on the altar He still has the same willingness to accept
the will of the Father. Of course, the Father no longer wills that
He suffer or die. Yet that will is there, and is of infinite worth.
His death earned infinitely, by the infinite price of
redemption, all forgiveness and grace. Yet it pleased and pleases
the Father that His offering should be continued (as far as His
will is concerned) and repeated, as far as the external sign is
concerned.
So He said: "Do this in memory of me." That was for two
reasons. First, He wanted us to join in His interior dispositions.
For even though His death earned everything for us, it would be
useless for Him to give if we were not open to receive. Hence
Romans 8:17 said: "We are heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ,
<provided that> we suffer with Him, so we may also be glorified
with Him." This is the great <syn Christo> theme of St. Paul: We
are saved and are made holy insofar as we are not only members of
Christ, but like Him. We are to imitate His hard life and
suffering, be buried with Him in Baptism, rise with Him, and
finally to ascend with Him (cf. Rom 6:3, 6, 8; Rom 8:9; Col 3:1, 4;
Eph 2:5-6).
But secondly, the Father loves everything that is objectively
good. Hence as St. Thomas put it (I. 19. 5. c): He is pleased to
have one thing in place to serve as the reason for granting the
second thing, even though that first thing does not move Him.
In other words, there is to be a reason, a title for granting
forgiveness and grace. That title is provided by the repeated
offering of the obedience of the Divine Victim. But it is required
that we, to share in it, be like Him, so that the offering may be
that of the whole Christ, Head and Members.
In this, one member can benefit another. St. Paul told the
Corinthians (1 Cor 12:26): "If one member [of Christ] suffers all
members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all the members
rejoice with it."
But there is still another marvelous aspect to the redemption.
It is, as we saw, a sacrifice. It is also a payment of the debt of
sin, or, a rebalancing of the objective order. A remarkable Jewish
Rabbi, Simeon ben Eleazar, writing around 170 A. D. , claiming to
quote Rabbi Meir from earlier in the same century, told us
(<Tosefta, Kiddushin> 1. 14): "He [anyone] has committed a
transgression. Woe to him! He has tipped the scale to the side of
debt for himself and for the world." Pope Paul VI, in the doctrinal
introduction to his Constitution on Indulgences of Jan 1, 1967
confirmed this, and wrote that for a full make-up after sin, it is
not enough to restore friendship with God, though of course that is
needed but it is also necessary: "that all the goods, both
individual and social, and those that belong to the universal
order, lessened or destroyed by sin, be fully restored, either
through voluntary reparation. . or through the suffering of
penalties."
A sinner takes from one pan of the scales what he has no right
to take. The scales is out of order, out of balance. It is the
<Holiness of God>, who loves everything that is good, that wants
this to be rebalanced. If the sinner stole property, he begins to
rebalance by giving it back; if he stole a pleasure, he begins to
rebalance by giving up another pleasure or comfort of comparable
value. But we say "begins", for the imbalance from even one mortal
sin is infinite: an Infinite Person is offended. So to fully
rebalance, an Infinite Person is needed, for He can generate an
infinite value or weight to fully rebalance. That is what Jesus did
by His suffering: He gave up, though He owed nothing, more than all
sinners of all ages had taken. That rebalanced the objective order.
That was the price of redemption. In accepting it, the Father
pledged to make available for us forgiveness and grace without
limit, since the price is infinite.
In spite of such an infinite price, a sinner could still be lost
by making himself blind or hard through much sinning, so as to be
unable to perceive or accept the first motion of any grace, which
needs first of all to put into his mind the thought of what God
wills that he do. The pulls of creatures, to which he has given
himself so much by much sinning, can prevent him from seeing. We
are thinking of a mental meter, something like a compass needle
with a coil of wire around it. The current in the coil, grace,
should make the needle register what God calls for. But just as
such a needle can be so strongly pulled by outside power lines or
magnetic steel as to be overpowered and thus unable to register the
current in its own coil, so too, our mental meter may be unable to
perceive the first movements of grace, if we let these outside
pulls get so strong a hold on us.
Since no one can be saved without grace, such a man is lost,
eternally lost. This is true in the ordinary course of graces - but
there are extraordinary graces, comparable to a miracle, that can
still get through the resistance, or even keep it from ever
developing. Then such a man can be saved. But since such a grace is
comparable to a miracle, it cannot be given routinely.
When is it given:? When someone else puts into the pan of the
scales an extraordinary weight, by extraordinary prayer and
penance. That will call properly for an extraordinary grace, and so
the man can be saved. St. Paul was doing this sort of things as he
says in Colossians 1:24: "Now I rejoice in my suffering for you,
and I fill up the things lacking of the sufferings of Christ, in my
flesh, for His body, which is the Church." Of course, Christ the
Head as an individual did not lack any suffering - but His members
may lack, through their own fault. Yet, thanks to the goodness of
our Father, someone else could make up for them, so they would be
saved.
If one has a relative or friend who is in hopeless spiritual
state, such an extraordinary grace is probably needed. To get it,
more than ordinary work is needed: heroic work, joined to the
sufferings of Christ can bring the result. It is precisely to the
Mass that we should bring such offerings in union with the
sufferings of Christ. We read in the lives of the Saints that when
one of them went after a hardened sinner, the sinner was usually
converted. That is because the Saint did such extraordinary prayer
and penance as to call for an extraordinary grace. St. Augustine's
Mother did that for him.
So there is much indeed to be done at Mass.
As we said, we are to join our wills, that is, our obedience
to the Father, to that of Christ at the Mass. It would be good to
take a few moments before a Mass and ask ourselves; What have I
done since the last Mass in fulfilling the will of the Father? If I
have done well, I have something to join to the offering of Christ
the Head. If I have been deficient, I must beg pardon. But I can
also look ahead to the near future after the Mass. Not always, but
sometimes, I will see something that is coming up, in which I know
well enough what He wills - but I am not so much inclined to do it.
Then I ask: Do I really mean to do it? If not, this is not the
place for me.
So Mass in this way becomes the focus into which the past and
the future are both channeled. It dominates all of life. That is
hardly dull.
To what point in the Mass do I bring my offering? To the very
point at which Christ Himself makes His offering, namely, the
double consecration, which is the very means He Himself used in the
first Mass, on Holy Thursday. It is not the kiss of peace, nor the
great Amen, nor the Our Father - it is simply this one moment.
These other things especially the prayers after the consecration
can be as it were an extension of that one critical moment, to help
us to have more time to join.
One tragic missalette in the month of May said that at Mass we
must leave Blessed Mother aside. How far from the truth! Vatican iI
(On Liturgy #10) said that the Mass is the renewal of the new
covenant, in the making of which she had so great a part. Vatican
II taught (<Lumen gentium> #61):". . in suffering with Him as He
died on the cross, she cooperated in the work of the Savior, in an
altogether singular way, by obedience, faith, hope and burning
love, to restore supernatural life to souls." The redemption
included three aspects:it was a sacrifice, but she, by her
obedience to the Father, joined in that obedience, even to
obediently willing His death at that time; it was a new covenant,
as we said, in which the essential condition was and is obedience;
it is the repayment of the debt or rebalance of the objective
order, in which Jesus gave up more than all sinners had taken from
the scales, and she joined with Him in doing that. Pope Benedict XV
wrote of her(March 22, 1918): "Together with Christ she has
redeemed the human race."
Every soul is required to will positively what the soul knows
the Father wills. At the cross, she knew all too well what the
Father willed: that He die, die then, die so horribly. So she was
called on to positively will that, in spite of her love which was
so great that as Pius IX wrote in 1854 (<Ineffabilis Deus>): "None
greater under God can be thought of, and only God can comprehend
it." (Speaking of her holiness, which is the same as love). So her
suffering, her cost was beyond the ability of any actually existing
creature to comprehend: only God Himself can do that!
She did this not as just a private person looking on, but "by
design of divine providence" as Vatican II said twice (LG ## 58
&61), as the New Eve sharing with the New Adam in the "struggle
which was <common> to the Blessed Virgin and her Son"(Pius XII, in
the document defining the Assumption).
At Mass, the body and blood being offered are still the same
that she provided. The interior offering of His obedience is that
in which she joined her obedience, and still joins in from heaven,
as we have said. Vatican II three times in <Lumen gentium> (##56
and 61) spoke of her obedience as her cooperation. So she does have
a role in each Mass.
Therefore it is no rhetoric, but sober theology to say:The
more we are united with Christ in each Mass, the more we are united
with her; and the more we are united with her, the more we are
united with Him. Even if we do not think of the fact, yet it is
objectively true, and it is good that we do think on it.
Rightly then did Pope John Paul II tell a crowd assembled in
St. Peter's Square on February 12, 1984: "Every liturgical action.
. is an occasion of communion. . and in a particular way with
Mary. Because the Liturgy is the action of Christ and of the
Church. . she is inseparable from one and the other. Mary is
present in the memorial - the liturgical action - because she was
present at the saving event. She is at every altar where the
memorial of the Passion and Resurrection is celebrated, because she
was present, faithful with her whole being to the Father's plan, at
the historic salvific occasion of Christ's death."