Cont. from last post
- Why go to Mass? Because I have a body.
I am no angel, in more ways than one. I am human, and I have been taught and have verified in experience, that nothing is fully human until it is expressed through my body; or, as a friend of mine says,
If I think for a moment, I realize how true this is. If someone says he or she loves me, but never says a word to me, never looks at me, or touches me, or gives me a gift, or even a nod, the smallest child in the world could tell me that this “lover” of mine doesn’t love me.
The need for body-expression is why we have words, signs, symbols, sacraments - outward signs. We couldn’t live without them. If we didn’t have ritual, we would make it up. The Mass (and many other religious actions) are part of the human side of our faith. Jesus, our Savior, Himself is not only God; he is also 100 percent man. That said, we need someone we can see, hear, and touch. He says, now:
“What happened then at the breaking of the bread, happens now. Now my real presence, my action, is contained under what looks like bread and wine, and under the words and songs and bodies of people.”
Jesus said, “Do this” physical, visible, audible, touchable, tastable thing in memory of me.
- Why go to Mass? Because I have sinned.
We might almost accuse God of making us spoiled children. Being God, he can’t help loving us. He can’t help forgiving us. He just is forgiveness. There is no unforgivable sin except refusing to be forgiven. Shall I be a freeloader, then? Just presume God’s forgiveness? Go blithely along with no sense of healthy shame, simple gratitude — at least a bit of embarrassment?
Don’t we all, rather, need to respond to God’s goodness with some visible, external action?
True again, I can go out into the woods and tell God, “I am sorry.”, (Why do those who say this never actually go to those woods?), but the most proper place to be reconciled is the place where the redeeming death and resurrection of Jesus is made present to us — where the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus is, and where he specifically invites us to remember Him.
- Why go to Mass? Because I need energy.
I don’t know how grace “works”, but I do know that when I feel I can get along without God’s very presence, power, love — then one of two things will happen.
I will become “independent,” isolated, the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, etc. I will become a self-starter, self-made, blind, but all-seeing.man or woman.
Or, I will spend my life desperately trying one hypodermic after another. With poet Francis Thompson, I may be lucky enough, someday, to realize that “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the mist of tears; I hid from Him, and under running laughter” (The Hound of Heaven) .
So, I need the energy, paradoxically, to be come powerless, weak, and totally dependent on God, relaxing in his presence; humanly-psychologically mature and responsible, yet childlike in my need. I need the energy to stop running away from this Hound of Heaven; to stop being the hungry, exhausted wanderer, going from one empty well to another.
- Why go to Mass? Because I need roots and a future.
There are no “ghosts of Christmas past” in my parish church, but as I walk through it, empty, with the sun lighting those old German stained-glass windows, I know that my mother and father looked at them, and my grandmother and grandfather. I see the pew that my grandfather always managed to rent — not too far up, not too far back. There’s where we knelt as children, for “First Communion”. There’s where good old Gertrude Reilly knelt for 60 years and prayed up a storm. There’s the altar, where I hammered the chimes at the precise moment the priest began to lift the host.
Though religious practices may change (as they did at Vatican II), here is where hundreds, thousands, will come after me, after I walk on to join Mother and Dad and the rest — thousands who will hear the same words of Jesus, eat the same body and blood, under the appearance of the same bread and wine — be the same Body of Jesus, but in a future period of time.
- Why go to Mass? Because I was made to praise.
I was not made for myself, however contrary the evidence. As Victor Frankl says,
Happiness is a by-product: If I seek it directly, I’ll never find it. If I am for others, and for the Other, I find it. My eternal life (I hope) will be an instant of ecstasy as I see the Living God and respond to the Wonder as a newly sighted person is thrilled with the brilliance of color and form.
This sounds very dull to us, poor people who live on “What’s new?” It’s not only sophomores in high school who are appalled to think that heaven is the “Top 100” played on a thousand guitars for a million years and saying,
“Man, this is, like, boring!”
O. K., let’s take it simply, even if abstractly. We are made for love, joy, truth, peace, beauty, and goodness. God is all of that, without limit. God answers our questions and our search. And we should say,
“You are God: We praise you.”
(It’s not an eternal “Wow!” though that comes within an infinity of expressing the truth.)
We don’t just start singing this great song of praise the moment we die, as if by some magic a sheep could start singing Aida. I won’t suddenly be a praiser, exulter, singer, contemplater, without some training in my earth bound existence.
There are many ways and means of singing to God, but the praise God, Himself, arranged on earth is the voice of Jesus and his people, together at Mass.
This is, finally, the reason Jesus’ followers come to the Eucharistic thanksgiving celebration on the Lord’s Day."
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Leonard Foley, O.F.M., is the author of numerous books and articles. He has many years of experience as an editor, teacher, retreat master and parish priest.
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