I shall continue this weekend with my short trip through the Mass. I have so far described our Sunday experience as a walk from the gateway of a Temple in the penitential rites at the beginning, to the several atriums of memory in the readings from the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible, to the doorway of the confession of belief in the Creed (where we are invited also to make an offering of ourselves, in the Offertory). The door to the inner sanctum is opened and we are greeted with the song of the angels, the Holy-Holy-Holy, as we arrive at the foot of the Cross and the holiest part of the Mass – the Eucharistic prayer.
At the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer, the priest takes up the narrative of the offerings made a little earlier (principally, the offering of ourselves) and requests that these be received and blessed, and he prays for the Church and her centre of unity – the Holy Father in Rome – and our local leader, the Bishop in Nottingham. There comes a moment then at the beginning of the first Eucharistic Prayer when we pray for the living, just as nearer its end when we pray for the dead. As you may have heard me do, it is at one or both of these two points that I bring in the intention of the Mass, or any prayers people ask of me, and we pray for these in particular and for ‘all those gathered in the church, whose faith and devotion are known’ to God already.
It is for all these that the priests offer the ‘sacrifice of praise,’ and indeed this sacrifice of praise is offered by all the people present, for themselves and those they love. Now, we come to a moment when we reflect again on the nature of the Church, which is not only a community of us here on earth, but a community of all the living, even those Saints in heaven. We cannot name every one of those thousands of Saints, but we name the few who are primary to the Roman Church, namely, the Holy Mother, her spouse S. Joseph, the eleven Apostles and S. Paul, several of the early Successors of Peter (Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius), the great bishop Cyprian, and several martyrs (Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian).
In effect, what we do as Christians in walking thus into the heart of the Mass is we put our hearts and minds in trust into the hands of God. We trust then in Him alone, and (as above, in the Eucharistic prayer) we have just made a first listing of the one Lady and the several men who did the same thing – they gave their lives, especially the martyr Saints, for Christ and for His Church. In the witness of their lives, today’s first reading comes alive, for we are called as Christians to set aside any reliance on the fickle people of this world, and indeed the more untrustworthy among them, who have themselves turned away from God. With no knowledge of Him, these who have turned from God would be the blind leading the blind, having no eyes for what is good (as the prophet says), if we were to be foolish enough to put ourselves into their hands.
“Cursed shall he be, the Lord says, that puts his trust in man, and will have flesh and blood to aid him, his thoughts far from God. Never shall the sight of better times greet him; forlorn as some bush of tamarisk out in the desert, he dwells in a parched waste, the salt plains for all his company. Blessed shall he be that puts his trust in the Lord, makes the Lord his refuge. Not more favoured is tree planted by the water’s edge, that pushes out its roots to catch the moisture, and defies the summer heat; its green leaves careless of the drought, its fruit unfailing.”
Prophecy of Jeremias, 17: 5-8 [link]
Rather, as the prophet suggests, and as our Lord Himself once said when He was talking about building upon solid rock rather than on sand, if we were to rely on the Holy One, God our Lord, being sure of His protection, we would have fewer worries, even when suffering and distress comes upon us. And so therefore, we have had the first psalm of the Book of Psalms this weekend: Blessed is he (or indeed, she) who places trust in God alone.
“Blessed is the man
Psalm I [link]
who does not guide his steps by ill counsel,
or turn aside where sinners walk,
or, where scornful souls gather, sit down to rest;
the man whose heart is set on the Law of the Lord,
on that Law, day and night, his thoughts still dwell.
He stands firm as a tree planted by running water,
ready to yield its fruit when the season comes,
not a leaf faded;
all that he does will prosper.
Not such, not such the wicked;
the wicked are like chaff the wind sweeps away.
Not for the wicked, when judgement comes,
to rise up and plead their cause;
sinners will have no part in the reunion of the just.
They walk, the just, under the Lord’s protection;
the path of the wicked, how soon is it lost to sight!”
For our gospel reading, we for the first time in a while have an accurate translation of what we call the Beatitudes. Some of us may remember that for a few decades, we have heard that they are happy who are poor, who mourn, who weep, etc. Rather, now, blessed are they who are poor of spirit, who are hungry for God and His justice, who weep at primarily the state of mankind in this ‘vale of tears,’ as we sometimes call our short lives of strife in this world of sin and death. For we shall one day find riches in God, rejoice in His reign and witness His renewal of the world. If we truly walk in faithful trust in God, we shall find ourselves occupied somehow with the things that are His: simplicity of heart (poverty of spirit), justice, union of all men and women with Him, etc. And significantly – for Christ makes loud mention of this – we shall find merit in our attachment to Him in spite of everything while we still suffer the indignities of this world, for then we should be like the Saints of God who suffered for Christ, and our reward (He says) will be great in heaven.
“With them He went down and stood on a level place; a multitude of His disciples was there, and a great gathering of the people from all Judaea, and Jerusalem, and the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon. These had come there to listen to Him, and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled by unclean spirits were also cured; so that all the multitude was eager to touch Him, because power went out from Him, and healed them all. Then He lifted up His eyes towards His disciples, and said; ‘Blessed are you who are poor; the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are hungry now; you will have your fill. Blessed are you who weep now; you will laugh for joy. Blessed are you, when men hate you and cast you off and revile you, when they reject your name as something evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. When that day comes, rejoice and exult over it; for behold, a rich reward awaits you in heaven; their fathers treated the prophets no better. But woe upon you who are rich; you have your comfort already. Woe upon you who are filled full; you shall be hungry. Woe upon you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep. Woe upon you, when all men speak well of you; their fathers treated the false prophets no worse.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 6: 17-26 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 