I thought we could make an end of my descriptions of the Eucharistic prayer this weekend. I had mentioned from the very beginning of my short theology of the Mass (from January) that entering into the Mass means remaking a very intimate covenant with God that we entered into on the day of our baptism. A covenant that requires making peace with God constantly, and therefore entering His presence in holiness. The readings assist this, the homily assists this, and so we make our offerings before God. The Eucharistic Prayer then ushers us into the presence of God, surrounded by His angels and Saints.
After the consecration, by which the bread and the wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, we find further and repeated references to the offering of the Church, which is nothing more than the self-offering of Christ made together with the offerings of all the rest of us. Then we find ourselves making a memorial of the dead, whom we call the Church Suffering, the Holy Souls in purgatory. We add these very important souls to the worshipping community of the Saints in heaven and the Church living in this world to complete the overall picture of the Church.
Then we have a second long list of Saints on this other side of the Eucharistic prayer, and it’s worth looking through it: there are
- the important New Testament martyrs John the Baptist and Stephen (the first deacon),
- there are the Apostles Matthias (who replaced Judas the traitor) and Barnabas (the associate of Paul),
- there is the martyr bishop Ignatius of Antioch, and there are several martyrs of the early Roman Church…
- men like Alexander, the priest Marcellinus and the exorcist Peter, and
- women like the mothers Felicity and Perpetua,
- and the virgins Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia and Anastasia.
We end with the great doxology at the end: for all glory and praise is due to God the Father through, with and in Our Lord Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
It’s difficult to hear the story of Moses and the Burning Bush (the subject of the first reading) and not think of our experience at Mass. For if we accept the Church’s teaching of Mass as a divine encounter and communion with God then we are obviously standing before a quite different type of burning bush, but a Burning Bush nevertheless, and it would be surprising if we were not given a mission, as Moses was.
“Let me remind you, brethren, of this. Our fathers were hidden, all of them, under the cloud, and found a path, all of them, through the sea; all alike, in the cloud and in the sea, were baptized into Moses’ fellowship. They all ate the same prophetic food, and all drank the same prophetic drink, watered by the same prophetic rock which bore them company, the rock that was Christ. And for all that, God was ill pleased with most of them; see how they were laid low in the wilderness. It is we that were foreshadowed in these events. We were not to set our hearts, as some of them set their hearts, on forbidden things. You were not to turn idolatrous, as some of them did; so we read, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to take their pleasure. We were not to commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, when twenty-three thousand of them were killed in one day. We were not to try the patience of Christ, as some of them tried it, the men who were slain by the serpents; nor were you to complain, as some of them complained, till the destroying angel slew them. When all this happened to them, it was a symbol; the record of it was written as a warning to us, in whom history has reached its fulfilment; and it means that he who thinks he stands firmly should beware of a fall.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 10: 1-12 [link]
In this second reading, S. Paul talks about the sequel to the burning-bush episode – about the baptism of the people into Moses when they were guided by God through the sea and the desert, eating the spiritual food and drinking the spiritual drink during that great pilgrimage from Egypt towards the Holy Land. Paul wants us to be extremely careful during our own great pilgrimage from this world (our Egypt) towards Heaven (our Holy Land), he wants us to learn from the mistakes of those Hebrews, and not fall into sin as so many of them did. When he talks about the baptism of the people into Moses, Paul surely means their baptism into the way of God as given to them by Moses, just as we are baptised into the way of God as given us by OLJC. In each case commandments are issued and a spiritual government of priests is established, by which we should be able to live lives acceptable to God.
The same warning that Paul issues is given by our Lord in our gospel reading as well this weekend – the warning of care in our dealing with temptation and sin, and care in our observance of the commandments. At first Christ treats of some Galileans who were massacred by the Roman procurator Pilate at the Temple (‘mingled their blood with their sacrifice’) and still others who died when the tower of Siloam fell upon them. Whether killed by human hands or killed by accident, Christ declares that they did not necessarily so die because they were greater sinners like everybody else. More important than the way we die is how we live our lives, in repentance and building virtue.
So, our Lord speaks in parable of God planting us as fig trees in his vineyard (the Church) and then perhaps being dismayed when we do not produce the fruit He is expecting; God may then wish to cut down the fruitless trees, for their being useless. The merciful heart of Christ here steps forth as the keeper of the trees and speaks for us, saying, Leave it another year and let’s see if things improve. This is the season of grace, the time of mercy, and we must make avail of this extra time given us by Christ to build virtue and produce fruit – fruit that will last.
“At this very time there were some present that told Him the story of those Galileans, whose blood Pilate had shed in the midst of their sacrifices. And Jesus said in answer, ‘Do you suppose, because this befell them, that these men were worse sinners than all else in Galilee? I tell you it is not so; you will all perish as they did, if you do not repent. What of those eighteen men on whom the tower fell in Siloe, and killed them; do you suppose that there was a heavier account against them, than against any others who then dwelt at Jerusalem? I tell you it was not so; you will all perish as they did, if you do not repent.’ And this was a parable He told them; ‘There was a man that had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, but when he came and looked for fruit on it, he could find none; whereupon he said to his vine-dresser, See now, I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree for three years, and cannot find any. Cut it down; why should it be a useless charge upon the land? But he answered thus, Sir, let it stand this year too, so that I may have time to dig and put dung round it; perhaps it will bear fruit; if not, it will be time to cut it down then.”
Gospel of S. Luke, 13: 1-9 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 