Dear Dawn,
People become bored with Mass only because they don’t really understand what it is. I doubt very much that they would be bored if they witnessed Jesus panting for breath as He hung on the cross. After the nails were driven into the carpal tunnels of His hands and through His feet, the cross was raised upright. At this point while the nails in His hands were holing Him up, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs so that He couldn’t breath. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up enough that He could fill His lungs with air. This took a great deal of effort from a body that was growing weaker and weaker due to the loss of so much blood.
Each time He did this became increasingly more agonizing. Yet He maintained this dynamic for three hours–at the end of which He was so weak that He just didn’t have the strength to do it one more time. His agony was now at its peak as He suffocated. In this eternal moment, He gave up His spirit and died, giving us His life. This eternal moment transcends time. It covers all those who lived before this event, those who lived at the time and everyone who was to live in the future.
The Mass is the living memorial of that event. It is not a reenactment of His death on the cross, it is the SAME sacrifice offered there. The Eucharist is the living sign of His death. Blood that has been separated from a body gives evidence that the body has died. There on the altar we have His body and blood for all to see, under the appearance of bread and wine. The more we let the reality of His passion in, the more we appreciate that sacrifice as present on the altar. To recognize the significance of what is before one’s eyes is enough to break ones heart. God loves us this much!
Nothing that happens on the face of the earth can equal what the Mass is—no prayer service, no bible study—nothing! It is the greatest of tragedies for a Catholic to not know this sublime treasure to which he has access.
No one deserves to be blamed for what he does not know. I suggest that you share this information with your husband. Good Friday is the center of history. God revealed more about Himself on the cross than He ever did anywhere else. Would that all Catholics realized this great revelation on the altar.
Center yourself and your family on this and everything else will fall into place. I suggest that you spend time each day going over His passion and thanking Him for each of the sufferings He endured. You will know peace!
Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
