On Catholic Liturgy

Originally published in the Human Wholeness and Suffering (Spring 2019) issue

Thick smoke billows from the censer, perfuming the air with an ethereal mist that twists and dances like a drop of dye in a glass of clear water. Psalm 43, whispered, floats with incense into the rafters: “Introíbo ad altáre Dei. Ad Deum qui laetíficat iuventútem meam,” meaning, “I will go unto the altar of God. To God, Who giveth joy to my youth.”[1] The priest climbs the stone steps, rising unto the mountain of Calvary as Christ, the High Priest, did two millennia ago. On this altar Christ’s redemptive sacrifice shall be remembered, and He shall be brought into our presence by the hands of His priest.

Liturgy, the act of solemn public worship of God, is a set of prayers and rituals that have the four-fold task of thanking God, making atonement for the sins against God, adoring God’s Supreme Majesty, and asking for God’s blessing and grace. When contemplating the nature of liturgy, one must first consider the nature of worship. The illustrious medieval Catholic philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, reminds us in his Summa Theologiae that:

by the one same act man both serves and worships God, for worship regards the excellence of God, to Whom reverence is due: while service regards the subjection of man who, by his condition, is under an obligation of showing reverence to God. To these two belong all acts ascribed to religion, because, by them all, man bears witness to the Divine excellence and to his own subjection to God, either by offering something to God, or by assuming something Divine.[2]

Aquinas illustrates that worship of God is not only an act of service to God, but is an obligation of the whole world. God who did give Himself through Christ and sustains our existence deserves the highest praise and honor. In the Liturgy, we set aside time for the sole purpose of worshiping God. We are not “productive” in an economic sense; instead, we reflect on our past and await with longing Christ’s second coming. Hence, the Liturgy evokes joy and agony, pain and relief, life and death. It brings these polarities into stark contrast. The joy of commemorating the event which marked the opening of Heaven is bound tightly with the greatest suffering the world has ever known: Christ’s Agony and Death on the cross. Similarly, the joy and hope of Christ’s Second Coming is manifest in the remembrance of His Passion's tragic end.

How is the Catholic Holy Sacrifice of the Mass distinctive in its prayers and rituals? As we worship God, Heaven meets Earth and God incarnate hears our pains and sorrows as we stand face-to-face with God in the Eucharist. The Eucharist, from the Greek meaning “thanksgiving,” is mentioned in some of the earliest works of the Apostles and their successors, including in The Didache and in St. Ignatius of Antioch's “Letter to the Smyrnaeans.” St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and likely disciple of St. John the Evangelist, notes in circa AD 107 that the individuals separated from the Catholic Church “abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.”[3] This is the great Mystery of the Holy Mass: the belief passed from the Apostles and Sacred Scripture that when Christ first broke bread, the offering became the one, same bloodless sacrifice to be offered in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Malachi in the line of the priest Melchizedek. Melchizedek, an Old Testament High Priest who offered God a sacrifice of bread and wine, prefigures Christ the Eternal High Priest. Christ, upon offering Himself once and for all on Calvary, died in atonement for our sins.

The priest in the modern Mass, in the vein of priests generations ahead of him, offers to God the same sacrifice, but bloodless, in commemoration of the death of our Savior. But Christ is not re-crucified. Rather, the same sacrifice is manifested again in our midst, as Christ asked of us in John 6:55-57: “Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.”[4] It is also in the sacrifice of the Mass that we offer Christ all that we are, just as Christ offered Himself totally for our salvation. We pour out our hearts in abasement. God, our refuge and our strength, receives the petitions of His humble servants, and through this most intimate and profound connection of priest and the God-Man High Priest, God is brought into our midst.

In the Liturgy, the bread and wine offered at every Mass contain the fullness of Christ: body, blood, soul, and divinity. St. Ambrose (d. AD 397) wrote about receiving Our Lord in the bread and wine made Body and Blood: “I fly to Thee that I may be healed and take refuge under Thy protection, and I ardently desire to have Him as my Saviour whom I am unable to withstand as my judge. To Thee, O Lord, I show my wounds, to Thee I lay bare my shame.”[5] Christ’s words echo through the generations, “For this is My Body, For this is the chalice of My Blood, of the New and Eternal Testament: The Mystery of Faith: which will be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.”[6] The words “this is My Body” appear in Matthew 26:26-28, Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. They reflect the mystical reality of that which the Catholic Church rightly calls transubstantiation. Ludwig Ott, a German theologian, explains the doctrine of transubstantiation as: “Christ becomes present in the Sacrament of the Altar by the transformation of the whole substance of bread into His Body and the whole substance of the wine into His Blood.”[7] In this mysterious and beautiful conversion, the bread and wine cease to exist in the substance of bread and wine, though they retain their accidents, or physical properties, of bread and wine. They have undergone a change of substance into the living, resurrected body of Christ. And so Christ is bodily in our presence, and the same Sacrifice of His Passion is revealed under the veil of the accidents.

Holy Mass recalls not only the brokenness of human nature, but also our deep longing for the closeness of God. We offer all our pains to God and trust in His mercy. We are the living resting place of God whereby He transforms our souls, and beckons us onward on the path to sanctity. Our sinful souls are made close to Him that is sinless, and our King is made to reside in His body of Christian believers. We give our best to God, house Him in ornate and beautiful churches, present Him with our finest music to sing His praises, and yet, the nature of this worship always looks back to one event that took place in AD 33. The beautiful bleeds into the brutal sacrifice Christ undertook. In that sacrifice, we recall David’s song to the Most High: “Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary. Bring ye to the Lord, O ye kindreds of the Gentiles, bring ye to the Lord glory and honour: Bring to the Lord glory unto his name. Bring up sacrifices, and come into his courts: Adore ye the Lord in his holy court. Let all the earth be moved at his presence.”[8]

In the juxtaposition of suffering and thriving, victory and torture, we are reminded of our weakness and our rebellion against God, who is perfect Goodness. Housed in the Liturgy is the most profound reflection of self and the quest for that which is perfect, God. With our actions of worship, we experience the converging of Heaven and Earth. We are made witnesses to the stark contrasts between human folly and Divine Wisdom, human weakness and Divine Fortitude, and human fault and Divine Perfection. We are reminded of the life of sin we have lived compared to the grandeur and perfection of God. Made present before us, we see the suffering Christ endured for our salvation. Within a few pages in this mysterious divine story, however, we are given the great promise of eternal bliss that is to come.

[1] Missale Romanum, Ex decreto SS, Concilii Tridentini restitutum Summorum Pontificum cura recognitum, Editio typica (Boston: Benzinger Brothers, 1962), 216.

[2] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 81, A. 3, ad. 2.

[3] St. Ignatius of Antioch, “Letter to the Smyrnaeans” (AD 107).

[4] John 6:55-57 Douay-Rheims.

[5] The Daily Missal and Liturgical Manual (London: Baronius Press, 1962), 89.

[6] Sancta Missa, Canon Missae.

[7] Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Charlotte: TAN Books, 1992), 379.

[8] Psalm 95 Douay-Rheims.