On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (13). The Mystery of Faith

Here, after the shocking reality of Transubstantiation, as of Tabor, we are left to mumble with Peter and the Church the truth of this experience (Mt 17:4).  How else but to tell the mystery of the slain Lamb on the altar just the way it is:

We proclaim your Death, O Lord,

and profess your Resurrection,

until you come again.

When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup,

we proclaim your Death, O Lord,

until you come again.

Save us, Saviour of the world,

for by your Cross and Resurrection

you have set us free.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed (Jn 20:29). It is silly to opt for a preference of seeing the actual cosmological dynamics taking place during the Eucharist; who can withstand the sight of God, that which every Prophet dreaded, and an experience from which all Apostles fled? 

Instead, the Eucharistic sign becomes, through the God given gift of faith, an act of mercy that leverages our sight, shielding from us the blazing mountain, the darkness, the gloom and the storm of Transubstantiation, and allowing us a corporeal access to the Divine Sion (Heb 12: 18-24). 

But how sure are we that this faith is not a figment of imagination? The answer is in the ‘know’, and a verification of the sign; the sheer strength of a belief gifted by God, and a conviction born of personal experience through an attentiveness to the Eucharist (Jn 14:11). 

Signs, while necessary, suffer from a contemporary crisis of verification that is ruled by the dictatorship of minds focused on the spectacular, an anomaly which has transmogrified modern man into an evil and adulterous specie (Jn 12:39).

The ‘know’ also suffers from the constant constraint of materialism and consumerism. But the paradigm of reality has shifted, the real has become unreal and the unreal is more real than the real. Seeing is surely believing, but more importantly now, believing is seeing. Mind rules before Matter.  

The starting point of this perception is in faithfulness to little things (Lk 16:10) and an accompaniment of thanksgiving that enables the signs of times also to be seen in great things (Jn 12: 54-56). Discard not your good ‘silly’ mustard thoughts, follow through and see how it would blossom into a reality greater than your very self.

Faith is built out of a fellowship with Christ (Heb 12: 2) and an accompaniment by the Church (1 Tim 3: 15) amidst her numerous scandals. Detest scandal but develop a thick skin against it, refuse to be scandalized, for no man can be trusted (Ps 116:11). Every scandal has found an alibi in the great scandal of Transubstantiation. Get over it and follow.

 

The ‘know’ and verification of every sign and wonder shall ultimately narrow down to the historical drama taking place within the Eucharist, that is the promised sign of Jonah, the mystery of our faith (Jn 12:39).

On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (12) Transubstantiation

Up the Cloud of Unknowing lies the mountain where the Lamb is immolated (Rev 5:6). Transubstantiation is the great Passover. It is where the sun stands still and time becomes a farce that moves no more (Joshua 10: 12-13).

Time and space are deceptive; perfectly warped on Calvary, they long ceased and we knew it not. Transubstantiation is at once His Baptism, Incarnation and Crucifixion. It is the summit of all God’s work and of creation. Unless a grain of wheat falls and dies it bears no fruit (Jn 12:24). Such energy released by this Victim eludes any quantification by Science, for it is love. Love is the real energy!

Ah! What have I come to? Why did I come here? As He broke the final seal (Rev: 6), there pervades a dreadful convergence of every malefaction which exposes the carnality of our being in order to destroy them. A garbage, a sink, a dump of every ill, ignorance and corruption of man. Here is the summit of every war and judgement, the peak of every ordeal. It is the slay of God, and who can stand the disgust?

Atheists cannot fathom the idea of a merciful God within such ‘evil’. The reason why Greeks and Jews reject a crucified One (1 Cor 1:23) is the same motive why drove of Christians object Transubstantiation in the Eucharist, and who can stand this if not by grace? Any playfulness of the Communicant at this point becomes a terrible toying with destiny. Pay attention.

‘This is my Body’

You have prepared a body for me (Heb 10:5) and have permitted gravity to have a brief say. But you will not allow my body to see corruption (Ps 16:10), for this act of judgement has become mercy; at once a Black hole and a Big Bang, His motif for descending towards such evil eludes man’s understanding.

‘This is the cup of my Blood’

It is the Eternal Alchemist who offers the Father a perfect thanksgiving: the oblation of his life in order to transform us. How can I repay the Lord? The cup of Salvation I raise and call on the Lord’s name (Ps 116: 12-14). The highest worship is about this immolation of Self which is thanksgiving. He takes our stead and becomes the great Victim.

He who dreads suffering should multiply his Masses and its accompanying devotion. Ask what thou wilt but pray the more for reverence. Pay attention and the mood of your experience shall change and your wonder shall increase and your capacity to ask shall be muted, for petition reaches its utmost efficacy when awe stills the mind. 

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing (Rev 5:12-14).

On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (11). Sanctus.

And a door opened in heaven… (Rev 4:1)

Climbing this spiral stairway at the Eucharist, we arrive with Christ unto Jerusalem and the temple door (Mt 21), and we sing:

Holy, holy, holy Lord God of host
Heaven and earth are full of Your glory (Is 6:5)
Hosanna in the highest
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord (Ps 118:26)
Hosanna in the highest (Mt 21:9)

This Jerusalem temple door is at the same time His descent into hell and His ascension into heaven (Eph 4:8-10). Sanctus is a sung by heaven and earth. It is through the Eucharistic Sanctus that we enter the quantic paradox of the mystery of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, where heaven meets with humanity.

At this juncture, rhetoric and explanation means nothing. Sanctus is a reality that staggers the faithful and confuses the faithless. Experience alone tells it all. How dare He leads us, poor sinners that we are, through this narrow door (Mt 7:13), which only permits the clean and spotless, and where, even faithful Patriarchs shivered and dared not behold (Is 6:5)?

Sanctus seems to me as the make or break of the Eucharist, where many see but do not perceive (Mk 4:12) and a great lot turn back and follow Him no more (Jn 6:66), leaving only a remnant few to push through (Mt 22:14).

The Catholic Eucharist is one hell of a mystery, meant neither for the lazy nor the ignorant and immoral. But the consoling paradox is that, it is precisely because we are as such that Christ calls us; but we’ve got to be ‘willing’,in order to be vindicated by Him. I have no idea how to explain ‘unwillingness’ away.

At Pentecost, heaven descended through the Spirit, but during Sanctus, we ascend heaven only by the Spirit. We sing in the church with the angels whom we may likely not see up the ceiling or on the high altar; but angels, in reality gush forth in droves, from our mouths, the more we sing in Spirit and in truth (Jn 4: 24).

We may discover nothing of the external reality of heaven if we look without, heaven lies deeply within, and only from within does it manifests without (Lk 17:21) and these are realities greater than our existence to tell.

On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (10). The Journey Forth.

P The Lord be with you

R And with your spirit.

P Lift up your hearts.
R We lift them up to the Lord.

P Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
R It is right and just.

Then the Priest begins some salvific chants which we barely get attentive to, but it is within this inattentiveness that Christ transports the select up the spiral stairs unto the mountainous clouds of unknowing, where eye has not seen, ear has not heard and nothing has entered into the heart of man… (1Cor 2:9).

Who can handle this? May the Lord be with you.

And with your spirit…

It is more realistic that the ‘you’ here has been changed to ‘spirit’; for, now, no matter what our senses portend, we are no more in control, and it is for our good no to be. We cannot handle this arduous and risky journey, so for it to be safe, it has to be an entirely spiritual plight. It is the Spirit that gives life (Jn 6:63), thus necessary it is that we lift up our hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord...

Nothing is found in a heart that is stuck to the earth; so, dropping the earth we lift up the heart. The journey forth, up the mountain to the cloud of unknowing with Christ, is that of the heart, and only a clean heart is capable of lifting the ancient gates (Ps 24). A clean heart clears the mind and thus faith is fostered.

It is useless to assume the capacity to climb unto where we dare not venture. Here, the beggar triumphs, only pleading saves. It is the capacity for a lack of correspondence that can deepen insight (Mt 5:3).

It behoves that the One who dares summon a people with rotten hearts into such inexhaustible ocean of mercy be acquiesced great gratitude, so let us give thanks to the Lord our God!

It is right and just…

The root of everything positive on earth is thanksgiving, the whole secret of success is gratitude. The more we are gracious the more we receive grace. The heart provokes thoughtfulness and a thoughtful mind is a thankful heart. The whole Eucharistic gesture finds meaning in one word: Thanksgiving.

Yinniyinni…

This is what Christ is up to up the clouds of unknowing.Giving the Father thanks. That is how He repays the Lord for humanity (Ps 116: 12-13).

Let us journey up with Him to Jerusalem taking advantage therefore of this thankful brevity called the Eucharist.

On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (9). The Summon

P: Pray my Brothers and Sisters that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.

R: (i) May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hand (ii) for the praise and glory of His name (iii) for our good and the good of all His Holy Church.

After the offertory, we stand on the precipice of a seemingly endless spiral stair, like the scroll which no human can open (Rev 5: 4) and unto the floors which leads to the clouds of unknowing.

‘May the Lord accept the sacrifice…’

A wasted gentile that I am, I discovered this Eucharistic journey as that within the summit of a history of works and sacrifices, of which neither me nor my ancestors have done much to build. 

The culmination of the toils of the Patriarchs, from Abel, to Abraham, to Jacob, to every Israelite great and small, is that which I have found myself, as its unworthy beneficiary in time, where everything happens because of me, simply and fast, as lightning (Mt 24:27), until we lose its sense of its awe.

Much reverenced and dreaded are the non-Christian rituals, because they are more adept at manifesting their potency; but a dying bull kicks the hardest, an empty barrel makes the most sound. Gravity may bully, but it is the weakest of the 4 universal forces. The real God’s strength is foolishness, because it manifests in simplicity and humility Its potency is as gentle as silence. 

‘For the Praise and glory of His name…’

The Kingdom of God is not ‘till thy kingdom come’. It is a praise and glory which happens in time. The Lord does always accept the sacrifice from His People, but we little know what we have come unto (Heb 12: 22-24). 

What goes around comes around, the praise and glory of His name that we pray for adds nothing unto Him. The Lord’s motive for acceptance of the sacrifice, of the praise and glory of His name, lies in the fact ‘that we may see! (Lk 18:41)’. Awe is the pedestal of the spiral stair leading to the cloud of unknowing!

‘…Our good and the good of all His Holy Church'

A Priest sacrifices God for a people and mirrors the privileged site and scene that supersedes where we have ever been, what we have ever seen and what we have ever done. 

As I stood by the door leading to the endless spiral stair, I did not see God, I did not see Christ, I only saw Father (So and so) who represents a materialism that fades further into the spirit, the farther that I climb the stairs in response to his summon. 

No man is an island, the further we would go with the Priest along this stair, the clearer we shall see that ‘ I am we’ , ‘you are us’ and only the Church is real!

On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (8). Offertory, and the Biddings of the Faithful.

When Creed becomes real in us, charity grows, even to the point of selling all for a treasure worth our life (Mt13:44). 

In the Eucharist, the fellowship of His sufferings lies within the contributory works of mercy arising from bidding prayers and offertory(Phil3:10). 

It is therefore proper that this gestures of Spiritual and Corporal Charity (works of mercy) follow that of the Creed, where we make our mustard contribution to the great Eucharistic miracle of mercy.

Our Christmas is as good as our Advent; Our Easter is as good as our Lent, and our Eucharistic benefit is as good as the humility in our Kyrie, the faith in our Credo, and the love within our bidding prayers and Offertory.

Who has never faced struggled regarding how much to drop into the offertory bag? When we are tempted to be calculative about offertory, or callous with bidding prayers,did we give in?

The clarity of our Credo determines the bounty of our Offertory and the gesture of our offertory is a reflection of quality of our faith. Creed is our faith, Offering is our love (2Cor9:6). Only a Faith animated by charity leads us into the heavenly realm of the Eucharist. 

From a clear Creed is born the awareness that, money may belong to Caesar, but Caesar belongs to God (Mk12:17). Letting go of money is a great reflection about the extent we can sacrifice self (Lk14:33). The more we let go of mammon, the more we understand the treasures within the Eucharistic realm, until we find the pearl of great price (Mt13:46). 

Even thus knowing, forcing an act of generosity on another is a devilish act , often making the last state worse than the first in the person (Lk 11:26). Gentle admonition is what provokes conversion and spontaneous giving, not harsh cajoling .

Our giving at offertory is work, work (with Faith) is what creates, and this work also manifests in the entire liturgical actions of sound responses, audible songs and participatory services during Mass. These are the greatest works we may ever do on earth (Jn 6:27).

Our toils and sweats are what our money represent , and a collegial giving of these finds an ultimate unity in the one bread of the Eucharist, for it is from money that the wheat for the Eucharistic bread and fruit of the Eucharistic wine, which are offered to God, are procured, which then becomes the constituent of our Lord and savior: the Bread of Life (Jn6:35). 

It’s myopic to be stingy at Mass; what goes around comes around. The strength of the Eucharist is in the love with which we offer ourselves in our money. The pure love we give becomes infinitely less  than the mercy that we receive. An exchange we can never regret. 

And henceforth in the room, the baton of the journey lies entirely within the control of the Spirit...

On the Eucharist: Thoughts from the Pew (7). The Apostles’ and Nicene Creed

Moving through with and in the spirit of the Word, we arrive at what eye has not seen, what ear has not heard and what has not entered the heart of man (1Cor 2:9) by faith, so we pray the Apostles or Nicene Creed. 

The Eucharistic room has got many doors, but the one huge gateway that leads to the other doors of the final phase of our journey is the Creed. 

On Easter Sunday we renewed our vows, but instead of saying the Creed we recant the devil and affirm the Divine, rhythmically and rhetorically responding ‘I do’ to the questions from the Priest. 

As in marriage, so also of faith: from a callous 'I do' runs the danger non-realisation of the basis upon which our entire destiny depends. How, many ‘I dos’ have suffered from a 

non-realisation of the consequences of non-compliance. Faithful vows are at an all-time low in history!

The temptation surrounding the Creed comes from a recitation by rote. Without grasping the potency and protection behind a faith that is not abstract but real (Heb 11:1), the door leading into the Eucharistic channel where heaven resides may be left shut.

The Creed constitutes the profound mystery surrounding our faith. It is the summary of mercy which is the covenant of our eternal salvation, it is the pass-code which justifies and allows us access into the serene realm and destination of our journey (Rm 5:1). 

Mean what you say in the Creed, and the devil gnashes and howls, but flies away in anger from you. Do not mean what you say and you become its sport and it tears you into pieces through the vicissitudes of life. Say it not at all and you are given a fake cuddle which neither gives peace but keeps you eternally fighting on the side of the big liar.

The Creed is potent and it makes us strong, it bestows on us power and grace. When we are tempted to fear, let us pray the Creed. When we feel the dreadful force of evil, let us recite the creed. The Creed protects against the evil one. Let us say it, mean it, believe it, live it and be part of this winning exodus to the Promised Land.

The Creed is a profession of a reality from timelessness, through timeliness, into the thankfulness of a merciful journey and a positive destiny. Let us recite the Creed, not callously or carelessly, but carefully and ceaselessly until we reach the fruitful abode of mercy, I do not say only in eternity, but even in time at the Eucharist!

Faith without work is dead. The Creed is eternally potent, yet very impotent without the energy of the mystery of what comes next (Jm 2: 26): The gestures of a collegial prayer and an offering made from a cheerful and free heart.

Happy Easter!