I’m getting to the very centre now of my my short descriptions of the Catholic Mass. I have called it a festival of divine love, specifically the love that dies in order that the Beloved may live. The Mass requires a relationship of intimate love with the Holy One, which is likened to marital love, so that God in Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. Any marital relationship, as most of us know, requires an active spirit of reconciliation between spouses, and unsurprisingly the Mass has a penitential rite at the beginning.
Then having divined a little of the mind of the Bridegroom in the readings from Scripture, and in the homily, we declare our faith in Him in the lengthy formula we call the Creed. And then we offer our heart to Him, for He has given us His own. And then we arrive at the foot of the Cross, where the Sacred Heart is indeed bared in His great love for mankind, whom He raised up from the dust of the earth. We sing the Holy-Holy-Holy of the angels at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer and gather together around the names of the Holy Father and the Bishop and a number of Saints.
Something I sometimes say is that the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and indeed the Resurrection, although they took place across a series of consecutive days, are really one great event. So, as we kneel before the altar and hear the words of Christ – ‘…this is My Body, this is My Blood…’ – from the Last Supper, we are simultaneously watching that Body heaving upon the Cross as the Holy One struggled to sustain His torturous breathing, we are simultaneously watching that blood pour down and stain the blessed wood. And then, beyond the horror of the Crucifixion, we see (also simultaneously) that Body now gloriously risen and walking out of the tomb on Easter Sunday.
Our next move will be to take up this glorious Body and Blood of Christ and offer it back to God the Father – His gift to us, so cruelly treated by sinful mankind, we offer back to Him. It is our best possible offering, the most pure, most holy, most spotless.
What makes the Sacrifice of our Lord upon the Cross so perfect? In a single word, His humility, which perfectly reverses the pride of mankind and negates the punishment due to that pride. Humility creates the locus for that self-sacrificing love we always talk about. Without pride, the command of the gospel story this weekend is not just possible but becomes probable. It is a message of perfect love, even for enemies, and of endless generosity.
“‘And now I say to you who are listening to Me, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you insultingly. If a man strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; if a man would take away thy cloak, do not grudge him thy coat along with it. Give to every man who asks, and if a man takes what is thine, do not ask him to restore it. As you would have men treat you, you are to treat them; no otherwise. Why, what credit is it to you, if you love those who love you? Even sinners love those who love them. What credit is it to you, if you do good to those who do good to you? Even sinners do as much. What credit is it to you, if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much in exchange. No, it is your enemies you must love, and do them good, and lend to them, without any hope of return; then your reward will be a rich one, and you will be true sons of the most High, generous like Him towards the thankless and unjust. Be merciful, then, as your Father is merciful. Judge nobody, and you will not be judged; condemn nobody, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be yours; good measure, pressed down and shaken up and running over, will be poured into your lap; the measure you award to others is the measure that will be awarded to you.'”
Gospel of S. Luke, 6: 27-38 [link]
The corresponding illustration from the old testament, given by our first reading, is the story of King David, not yet a king, and fleeing from persecution by the legitimate king who had grown to hate David and envy David’s relationship with God, a relationship Saul himself had briefly enjoyed but had lost. David’s companion Abishai suggests to him that he dispatch the king his enemy, who has fallen so marvellously into his hands.
“So, at dead of night, David and Abisai passed through into the Israelite lines, and found Saul asleep in his tent, with his spear driven into the ground by his pillow; all around him, Abner and the rest of his army lay sleeping too. ‘Now,’ said Abisai, ‘the Lord has left thy enemy at thy mercy! Let me pin him to the ground as he lies with one thrust of yonder spear; there will be no need for a second.’ ‘Nay,’ answered David, ‘kill him thou must not; none can lay hands on the king whom the Lord has anointed but he incurs guilt.'”
First book of the Kings (aka. I Samuel), 26: 7-9 [link]
David, although a seasoned warrior, would not sink as low as to kill the anointed king, his enemy, and centuries later his Successor, hanging upon the cross with all the power of God Himself, would only bow His head and ask His Father to forgive His enemies, for they did not know what they were doing. Give, He says to us in the gospel reading, until you can give no more, and do not hope for a return. Give your very life for even your enemy, and you will show the world the heart of God, because you are compassionate/merciful as your Father in heaven is compassionate/merciful. Unusually, the second reading has a common message, asking us who share the humanity of Adam to take upon ourselves the Humanity of Christ…
“Mankind begins with the Adam who became, as Scripture tells us, a living soul; it is fulfilled in the Adam who has become a life-giving spirit. It was not the principle of spiritual life that came first; natural life came first, then spiritual life; the man who came first came from earth, fashioned of dust, the Man who came afterwards came from heaven, and His fashion is heavenly. The nature of that earth-born man is shared by his earthly sons, the nature of the heaven-born Man, by His heavenly sons; and it remains for us, who once bore the stamp of earth, to bear the stamp of heaven.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 15: 45-49 [link]
Now, that is the humility of Christ. In humility, as per the gospel reading, neither shall we judge, for humility does not take upon itself the mantle of a judge. If we didn’t have two thousand years of church history, we would think all of this impossible for the human heart. Most people today will still have an eye for every eye taken from them, a tooth for every tooth knocked out of their mouths. Vengeance lives wonderfully in the human heart.
But through long centuries, saintly Christian men and women have given and given beyond human ability, have knelt before cruel torturers in superhuman endurance and, hanging from their own crosses, they have spoken the message of their Lord, a message of undying love for fallen men, whom He would like to raise despite everything to eternal life.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 