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There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more
precious, He would have given it to us.
– Saint Jean-Marie Vianney
The first time I walked through
the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, I was overcome. This greatest
treasure of Christian architecture impressed upon me an incredible and
awe-inspiring feeling of smallness. As I passed from the sunny piazza outside
into the cavernous interior of this church of churches, I was swallowed up.
Here, in this majestic testament in stone and marble, gilt and gold, to the
overwhelming glory of God, my insignificance became clear.
No religion in the history of the
world has ever inspired such temples; no pagan deity could claim the outpouring
of human innovation, craftsmanship, and achievement that has been made manifest
in the service of honoring the True God. The quantity and quality of
architecture, artistry, music, poetry, and theological exposition that have
been brought forth into the world by twenty centuries of Catholicism stagger
the mind. There is no greater source of inspiration than He who gives us
everything – our lives, our talents, our joys, our eternity. In honoring Him
through the finest works of our own capacity for creation, we are merely
returning all we are and have to Him from whom it was received. “Every best
gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration” (Jas. 1:17).
It is only fitting, therefore,
that God commands us to worship Him. We are created to know Him, love Him, and
serve Him in this world in order that we may be happy with Him forever in
Heaven. But do we believe that to fulfill these precepts on our own terms is
sufficient? Is God not exacting in what He obliges from us? Is He not a jealous
God, in the appropriate sense of the term – expecting that which is His due,
which is to say no less than our very best?
It has always been so. Most
people know the biblical story of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel, but not
many could tell you what drove Cain into a killing rage. It was envy – envy
that arose because Abel’s worship was more pleasing to God than Cain’s own.
Abel was a shepherd,
and Cain a husbandman. And it came to pass after many days, that Cain offered,
of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. Abel also offered of the
firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect to Abel,
and to his offerings. But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect: and Cain
was exceedingly angry, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said to him: Why
art thou angry? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou do well, shalt thou
not receive? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door? but
the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over
it. And Cain said to Abel his brother:
Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against
his brother Abel, and slew him. – Genesis 4:2-8
“Why art thou angry?” asked the
Lord. “why is thy countenance fallen? If thou do well, shalt thou not receive?”
When Abel sacrificed to God, he brought forth his very best. He sacrificed his
firstlings, giving to God not just the best of the flock, but their fat, which
is to say the most highly prized portion of their substance. He wasn’t holding
anything back; he wasn’t keeping the parts he really wanted for himself. It was
an outpouring, an emptying of self, his supplication before God pleasing in its
totality.
We don’t know what Cain offered –
only that he gave of some “fruits of the earth.” We know, too, by God’s words
to Cain, that his sacrifice could have been pleasing if he had been generous.
It is clear, therefore, that not all sacrifices offered to God are seen by Him
as equal. There is a distinction between worship that is pleasing to Him and
worship for which “He has no respect.”
It is not selfish of God to
demand our best. Not only has He given us every good thing, and not only does
He hold us in existence every moment we draw breath, but He “so loved the
world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may
not perish, but may have life everlasting” (Jn. 3:16). Whereas God sent the
angel to stay Abraham’s hand (and spare the life of Isaac), He allowed every
cruel torture that was perpetrated against His own divine and perfectly
innocent Son until Christ’s ignominious death on the Cross. This chalice of suffering,
as Christ Himself put it, was drunk “to the dregs.” There truly is nothing more
precious to us than the Eucharist, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of
Christ crucified. God loves us so much that He gave us this unspeakably
selfless gift to accomplish our redemption. There is nothing more great, for if
there were, it too would be ours, such is His love for us.
But do we treat this gift as the
greatest gift there is? Do we honor the Eucharist as the most precious thing in
the universe? Do we recognize that this gift of God’s Self demands one of our
own in return?
Every liturgy places us into this
cycle of self-gift anew. God gives us the best He has, and He asks for the best
we have in return. But we truly have nothing to give that can compare to what
we have been given. So in the absence of a sufficient gift, God gives us
Himself to give back to Him. He even takes our place as the offeror – by
becoming both priest and victim. Every priest who stands at every altar is
subsumed by Christ; it is Christ Who consecrates the Most Holy Sacrament of His
own Body and Blood, Christ Who offers and is offered to the Father on behalf of
us poor sinners.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is
not a meal. It is a holocaust. The priest does not set the table for a supper.
He places the Victim, butchered and bloodied, upon the altar of sacrifice,
because by His death He conquered death — the eternal death of sin — and by His
rising He restored us to eternal life. The Mass is not, truly understood,
celebrated; it is offered to Him whose Divine wrath must be appeased for all of
our great and many sins. The Victim is not only perfect, but beloved, and as
God looks upon Him, and us who receive Him, He pours out His mercy upon us as
Christ poured out His blood.
When we go to Mass, it is the
most intimate experience of God we will ever encounter in this life. We come to
the altar to participate in a mutual outpouring of self. He gives His all to
us, and though this is infinitely more than we can return, we nonetheless give our
all to Him. Whereas a husband and wife cling to each other to become one flesh
in the imperfect union of the marital embrace, God allows us to consume Him so
that He may literally, physically, become one with our bodies and our souls
and, in so doing, may consume us. It is a breathtaking experience.
Once we begin to truly understand
the nature of the Mass and our purpose there, it becomes possible for us to
recognize how important it is that it be conducted in a fitting manner. Though
the Mass can be said to have been made for man, it was made so that he might
have a fitting means by which to honor Our Lord. The object of our worship is
God, not ourselves. This is why any Mass where man becomes the center of
attention or the principle focus is dangerous inversion.
Some argue that the shape of the
liturgy does not matter as long as Christ is present. It is true that whenever
Christ is made present, the sacrifice being offered is perfect, but that does
not mean our worship or understanding of the sacrifice is. Christ’s Eucharistic
presence is accomplished through divine action. It is Christ the Priest
offering Christ the Victim to the Heavenly Father by the power of the Holy
Spirit. What we see taking place upon the altar is a glimpse of the inner life
of the Blessed Trinity, the love and interaction between Divine Persons that
takes place by no merit of our own. As the priest prays in the Quam Oblationem of the ancient Roman
liturgy:
And do Thou, O God,
vouchsafe in all respects to bless, consecrate, and approve this our oblation,
to perfect it and render it well-pleasing to Thyself, so that it may become for
us the body and blood of Thy most beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is God Who makes the oblation
pleasing to God, and this is possible because it is God Who is the oblation.
What we bring to the liturgy,
what we offer to God is our honor, reverence, supplication, contrition,
adoration, and praise. “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite
and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps. 51:17). The priest who
consecrates the Eucharist does so not by some power he possesses, but by one
that possesses him: participation in the One True Priesthood of Christ.
“When I say the Mass,” a young
traditional priest once told me, “I am a slave to the liturgy. The Church tells
me where to stand, how to place my hands, when to genuflect, when to kiss the
altar…I am gone, and it is Christ who acts through me.” The priest’s offering
is one of humility, of reverence, of the emptying out of self. “Judge me, O
God,” he implores at the foot of the altar, echoing the words of the Psalmist,
“and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the
unjust and deceitful man; for thou art my God and my strength…”
We, too, come as humble
supplicants, with a receptive and attentive disposition. The liturgy happens
independently of us, but it draws us into its mysteries and grants us heavenly
gifts, thereby perfecting us and propelling us toward Heaven. We unite our
prayer with the priest, who prays on our behalf, who performs, in virtue of his
union with Christ, what we cannot.
It is the most important and
beautiful thing this side of Heaven.
It is therefore inescapable that a proper understanding of liturgy
grounds us in a correct knowledge of our place in the universe. Liturgy that
emphasizes Our Lord’s Sacrifice and places us mentally and spiritually before
the Cross on Calvary humbles us and makes us receptive to our absolute
dependence on God for all good things, especially our salvation. Liturgy where
priest and people alike are oriented toward Heaven and where sacred things are
veiled and shrouded and reverenced in an appropriate way teaches us who we are
— and what duties we have — in relation to Him from Whom all good things come
and in Whom we must trust when we have no choice but to walk by faith rather
than by sight. Liturgy should make us feel small, like entering the great
edifices of Christendom.
The attack on the liturgy that we
have witnessed over the past half-century can be understood as nothing less
than a diabolical attempt to strike at the heart of our most important and
intimate connection with Our Creator — and also to confuse and disorient us
through this loss of perspective. We have been given over to idolatry – the
idolatry of self, such that we see the world only through the lens of our own
desires. Christ’s sacrifice has been replaced with food and fellowship, His
altar of oblation turned into a table, His priesthood adulterated by those
persons who intrude upon the domain of the priest but do not possess the
ability to act in persona Christi, the universal orientation of priest and
people toward God turned inward so that we are, in essence, all just talking to
ourselves, and nearly every act of reverence for the sacred stripped away.
Christ remains present in this
reinvented, banalized, man-centered liturgy, but He is ignored, forgotten,
abused, and upstaged. Like Cain, we no longer offer God our best, but keep it
for ourselves. Any who attempts to offer God what He deserves, like Abel, is
met with envy, contempt, and even violence.
The crisis in the Church is
manifestly a crisis of selfishness and anthropocentrism. It is the fruit of
this new idolatry. We have come to believe that we know better than God what is
best for us. The Second Vatican Council tells
us, “[A]ll things on earth should be related to man as their center and
crown.” We must reject this. All things on Earth should be related to Christ as
their center and crown. We are not worshipers of man; we are worshipers of
Jesus Christ! Of the Blessed Trinity! But if our liturgies fail to hold God as
our object of adoration, is it any wonder that we have become obsessed with
ourselves? We talk incessantly about how we “feel” about liturgy and what we
“get out of it” and whether it “moves us” – but Whom are we there for?
The architects of the Church’s
“new and improved” liturgy knew exactly what they were doing. And they have
been successful. They have, with a single stroke, moved the entire liturgical
edifice of the Church to a foundation of sand. And now that that edifice is
crumbling to the ground, and the faith along with it, they swoop in, telling us
that the other truths of our faith are nothing more than an “ideal” too hard to
live up to, that because things have strayed so far, we must now find ways to
accept and work with situations “as they are.” By destroying our understanding
of our relationship with God through the central act of prayer of the Church,
they have undermined all else besides. Now, after half a century of demolition,
they are dismantling what’s left of the faith almost unopposed.
Those who have come to terms with
the crisis in the Church will occasionally raise the question, “Why can we see
what’s happening when others can’t? Why does God seem to be showing this to
only a handful of us?” Could it be that it’s because of what he said to Cain?
“If thou do well, shalt thou not
receive?”
Someone recently wrote to me
concerning the level of denial among fellow Catholics about what’s happening in
the Church: “It’s only attending the Latin Mass,” she said, “that has allowed
the scales to fall off my eyes.”
It is not too late. Do not lose
your way, fellow Catholics. Do not be deceived. Good liturgy — and by that I
mean holy, reverent, God-fearing liturgy — will change your life, even if you
have to make difficult sacrifices to have it. Is there anything more important
to you than your salvation, or that of your children? If you don’t have a good
Mass to attend, move! If you can’t find a Traditional Latin Mass, turn to the East, which has been largely
ignored by the demolitionists!
The saboteurs had one shot, and
so they struck the one form of the liturgy that would affect the greatest
number of Catholics. They gave it all they had, but as God would have it, it
was not a killing blow. God is still truly worshiped. And we are obliged for
His sake and for our salvation to join in that true worship. No more excuses.
While it is true that good
liturgy alone will never be a panacea, there is nonetheless nothing more
powerful you can do for your faith, for your understanding of what is happening
in the world, for the good of your soul and those of your loved ones, than to stop, without delay, attending a liturgy
that was designed to separate you from the very Sacrifice it is alleged to
commemorate. You cannot drink poisoned water without ill effect, no matter
how thirsty you are, or how resilient. It does not nourish; it emaciates. There
is no future in it.
The new paradigm is collapsing on
itself even now. It will be abandoned in our lifetimes, a husk of what it once
was — or else rendered unrecognizable to anyone with faith as it becomes, like
the Arian churches of the 4th century, the exclusive domain of the enemies of
Our Lord.
The liturgy is the key to our
entire understanding of what we face, of who we are, and of what we must do.
There may well be no other way to weather what is coming. More importantly, it
is our most essential interaction with God. We have a duty to find a place
where the priest and the people worship God in a way that is fitting and
pleasing to Him. Once it is found, flee to it. Cling to it. Do not worry about
the hardships you must endure to accomplish this, for God knows these things,
and He will bless you for them.
Be reminded of your place in the
universe. Be subject to Him Who rules it. Love Him with all your heart, mind,
and strength, and adore Him as He deserves. It’s a decision you’ll never
regret.
