HOMILY—The Mysteries: The Eucharist III

The past two Sundays, in my post-Easter homilies on “The Mysteries” I talked about the consecration, and in particular, the mystery of transubstantiation: the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Mass. In order to help you understand it better I drew from Aristotle’s understanding of our world’s physical reality, used also by St. Thomas Aquinas. In transubstantiation, the substance undergoes a total change, while the accidents of bread and wine remain. And although this is the greatest of mysteries, it is essentially a discussion about the physical attributes of the Eucharist, both those we can see, as well as those that are hidden from our eyes. Today, I would like to look at some of the supernatural realities, which surround this Mystery because Christ’s presence in the Eucharist doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Our problem is that we have a hard time grasping mysteries. And we are handicapped even further because our culture, and therefore our mentality, is very deeply influenced by the Enlightenment. We instinctively think rationally and scientifically. If we can’t see something and measure it, we have a hard time understanding and accepting it. And as a result, this is also the way that many Catholics approach the liturgy, often without even being aware of it.

But if we look at the liturgies of the early Church, we get an entirely different perspective on the mystery of the Mass. The Christians of the first centuries approached the liturgy on an entirely different plane of understanding. For them Christians the liturgy evoked a sense of the transcendent and awe, whereas today, so many Catholics say that Mass isn’t interesting. But for the early Christians, mystery was at the root of the liturgy because it expressed otherworldly realities. One could say that “the ancient Church lived in a mystery”[1] and that’s why Christianity is essentially a mystery religion.

If we look back to the Old Covenant we see that the priests, who served in the Temple, were aware that the rituals, which they performed in the Holy of Holies, took place “outside of time and matter, in the realm of the angels and the heavenly throne.”[2] Once a year, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies in great fear and awe.

The sanctuary of the Old Covenant, however, was nothing more than a foreshadowing of the sanctuary of the New Covenant, this very sanctuary, which is not a different sanctuary but merely a clearer manifestation of the same heavenly reality of which the Old Testament priests were so aware. That’s why priests in early Christian times were filled with the same holy fear and awe as they entered the sanctuary for the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries. In the Liturgy of St. James, which originates from the earliest centuries of the Church the priest states, “We have been counted worthy to enter into the place of the tabernacle of Your glory, and to be within the veil, and to behold the Holy of Holies.”[3] And how casually people sometimes now treat this space. If only they knew what really takes place here. Another ancient liturgy states, “How awesome today is this place! For this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven”[4] These are no metaphors. They are realities—realities that are far beyond our comprehension, but nonetheless realities. It’s just that our eyes are incapable of seeing them.

In 988, Prince Vladimir of Kiev sent emissaries to Constantinople. After experiencing the Byzantine liturgy in the cathedral of Hagia Sofia, they informed the prince: “We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth. Never have we seen such beauty. … We cannot describe it, but this much we can say: there God dwells among mankind.”[5] Our small church is much more modest but God dwells here ever much as He did in that magnificent cathedral.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the unbloody Sacrifice of the Altar, not because Christ is crucified again and again with each Mass, as some people think, but because at every consecration, we break through the barriers of space and time, and actually stand at the foot of the Cross in the presence of Christ crucified. The same Cross, which rose over Calvary 2,000 years ago rises over this altar at every Mass. And as the priest, acting in the person of Christ, re-presents this one sacrifice once again to the Father, the bread and wine miraculously become the glorified Body and Blood of Our Savior as He is now in heaven.

In their writings, the Fathers of the Church were unambiguous in their understanding that, what happened on the altar during the Eucharistic sacrifice, was something far from ordinary. It was an entry into the liturgy of heaven. From this sanctuary, which is an earthly image of the heavenly liturgy, we enter into and are truly present in the New Jerusalem. This sanctuary is the place where heaven opens up, leading us into the eternal liturgy.[6] And Catholics say they are bored at Mass. They just don’t realize what they are actually experiencing.

Because early Christians were fully aware of this reality, the liturgies of the Early Church were permeated with images of the Holy of Holies surrounded by hosts of angels. St. John Chrysostom wrote that the priest “call[ed] down the Holy Spirit over the Holy Sacrifice, while angels surround[ed] the altar!”[7] He said this because he was entering heaven. In the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark we hear: “We pray and beseech Thee, O Lord, in Thy mercy, to let Thy presence rest upon this bread and these chalices on the all-holy table, while angels, archangels, and Thy holy priests stand round and minister for Thy glory.”[8] Ancient Christians knew that when they were present at the Sacred Mysteries of the Eucharist, they were, as an early Christian author wrote, in the presence of: “the unutterable One, the incomprehensible One … before whom all that is high falls down and remains silent … and beholding whom all creation surrenders in silent adoration.”[9]

One of the most striking aspects of the ancient liturgical prayers is their vivid and effusive descriptions of the heavenly realities unfolding in the sanctuary: “Round Thee stand ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands of holy angels and hosts of archangels; and Thy two most honored creatures, the many-eyed cherubim and the six-winged seraphim.”[10] These are realities of which so few Catholics even think these days. There are those, who feel that beautiful vestments, chalices, sacred music, soaring architecture and clouds of incense are just fancy extras. Not so! If the liturgy of heaven is beauty incomprehensible, then the beauty with which we surround our liturgy is merely a means to help us understand what we are really experiencing. In fact, what we have is only a dim reflection of the magnificence of the heavenly liturgy. No. It is not fanciness. It is an attempt to reflect the reality of the mystery taking place within the sanctuary. Contemplation of this mystery directed and stimulated the lives of early Christians and it should ours.

We all know about the mystery of transubstantiation that takes place on the altar when the priest pronounces the words of consecration over the bread and wine but how many of us think about the awesome mystery that becomes present around the altar at the same time? Although we cannot see it, the veil is pulled aside and we find ourselves present at the heavenly liturgy recounted in the Book of Revelation—not figuratively, but really. Because where Christ is, there also is heaven. Where Christ is, there also are all the hosts of heaven, angels and saints, surrounding Him in endless adoration. For the early Christians, the liturgy had a sense of transcendence and inexpressible awe because it expressed something beyond this world. This is what we need to reclaim for ourselves.

20 April 2008                                                                                                                       Hom-Myst-EuchIII

St. Peter’s in Volo (6:00 p.m., 8:00 a.m. & 12:15 p.m.)