Has all ended with the bestowal of Peace and Mercy? One would suppose so, but no.
He moves again, through the Priest. He moves forth from the altar to bestow on us the entire abode of heaven: Himself. Ah!
Heaven is Him and His perception of things. He brings this heaven forth from the altar and changes the abode of our body and soul into it, because the entirety of our beings is infinitely dearer to Him than all the seraphic realm of the altar and tabernacle. And this is the end, but just the beginning…
We become Him by Him. There transposes a merger of the beginning and the end. The finale and beginning actually is about us; Infinity confluences in us and the word ‘eternal’ takes an entire new dimension. This occurrence changes everything and overturns all we think and understand about love, about beauty, about peace and serenity. This is the entire subject of the popular Jn 3: 16. Standing on the aisle, we cannot help but ask, why?
The scandal of the altar started with the Transubstantiation, the understanding of which attains its ultimate irresolution in holy communion. Holy communion is like death, a ‘consumatum est’ where the Liturgy recommences from the catacombs of our hearts, bringing forth life within and making of us ambassadors of His work (2 Cor 5:20), a consequence of the fallen Grain on Calvary (Jn 12:24).
What attracts Him in our soul is trust and an awareness of our lack and dependence; and like Mary, these subjects makes of us His comfy abode (Lk 1:38). But our adamant pride belabours Him, resulting into an arduous space distortion and time prolongation of our destiny. So much discrepancy about worthiness, a begging sinner is the champion of positivity.
Sins are ugly, but we need an enlightenment that thrives, not only in spite of them, but such that sees in them a great utility for progress and a positive paradigm for salvation. Sins fuel progress for a man who is not only discomforted by them, but who is also full of confidence, in such a way that these anomalies indeed become manures for the next level of progress. ‘O happy fault’ is the triumph of mercy.
A devotion to the science of our weakness is the source of an ultimate strength and power, which should translate to the world around us, such that, like faithful sentinels, we develop a keen awareness and sustain an ingenuity that creates the capability of tapping goodness out of every corruption.
The conscious and unconscious champions of the next golden age of freedom would be found - not from the mainstream- but from among the non-conformists, the radicals, the Ignored, the marginalised and the abhorrent. It is within this matrix of chaos that freedom would be picked up by the wise who would be stopped by nothing (Mt 10: 34).
But how would rebels and canal beings like us, who cannot manage with humility, survive such gargantuan energy as the Eucharist? Love burns, and love burns hard. The Lord does arises and His enemies are scattered (Ps 68:1). Even if we often do not imagine ourselves as constituting any of the bad soils (Mt 13: 3-9), the unmoved ego within us will pay the price of adamancy. Rethink before you come off the Pew. Can you drink of the chalice? (Mk 10:38).
If It is said that the energy hitting the earth from the sun in a single hour is way more than that which powers our civilisation in an entire year. How can we sustain our presumption at approaching a Source far more powerful than the sun when we even dread a simple 240V electric shock?
How can we resolve the issue of ‘worthiness’ in Holy Communion without a proper awareness of our utter insufficiency, and how can we sustain this awareness without involving the Blessed Virgin? She is the champion of this awareness, and she introduces us to the Confessional, the source of this self awareness. Confession is the sacrament of the Blessed Virgin. The more we frequent the confessional, the more we understand the consequence of a whole vista of faults, failings and imperfections, the consciousness of which becomes for us, a great source of wisdom translating into peace and mercy.
Keeping confession solely within the realm of mortal sins or reserving Communion only until Sunday could perpetuate a stunted spiritual growth within this age of ours where there are just too numerous militating agenda against the theological virtues.
The greatest pilgrimage we shall ever make is neither to Jerusalem nor Rome, it is that which we thread from the Pew to the Altar in order to receive the Lord of the Universe, we should thus keep our focus and never be distracted. That is the peak of all journeys.
