Suzy B Software 2/Suzy B Software CD-ROM 2 (1994).iso/christin/e_cathol/five.txt

Text File | 1995-05-02 | 13KB | 196 lines

6 (of 6) AVATAR Mar. 30, 1987 at 18:08 Eastern (12553 characters)

                            LITURGY AND SANCTITY
                                LESSON FIVE
                             THE DIVINE LITURGY

             THE GREAT ENTRANCE TO THE CONSECRATION (INCLUSIVE)

         It is at this point we begin to prepare for the Coming of the Word
of God,  in much the same way as Israel prepared,  for a thousand years and
more,  for the Coming of the Redeemer.   We prepare,  however,  unlike  the
ancient Israelites who knew nothing of a Trinity or of Incarnation, for the
Coming  of  the  Incarnate Word of God,  the Second Person of  the  Blessed
Trinity  -  and we begin with entreaties that we be strengthened  ahead  of
time  in His Grace,  and in Wisdom and Knowledge and Beauty before God  and
Men,  as the Scriptural phrasing has it.   The First Prayer of the Faithful
makes that abundantly clear.

         "We Thank Thee, Lord God of Powers,  who has granted that we stand
even  now before Dhy holy altar to implore Thy mercy for our sins  and  for
the ignorance of the people,  receive,  O God,  our supplications;  make us
worthy to offer Thee prayers and entreaties,  and a bloodless sacrifice for
Thy whole people.  By the Power of Thy Holy Spirit, strengthen us whom Thou
hast placed in Thy service,  so that we may always and everywhere call upon
Thee  without  blame and without offense,  with our conscience as  a  clear
witness;  and Thou, hearing us,  mayest have mercy on us,  according do the
abundance of Thy Goodness."

         The  Second  Prayer  of the Faithful is very similar  in  content.
"Often  and again we fall down before Thee,  gracious Lover of Mankind,  so
that Thou mayest listen to our prayers,  cleanse our souls and  bodies from
all defilements of flesh or spirit,  and allow us to stand without blame or
offense before Thy holy altar.   Grant,  O God, that these who join in  our
prayer may advance in life, faith,  and spiritual understanding; grant that
they  may always worship Thee without guilt,  but with fear  and love,  and
share in Thy holy mysteries without condemnation,  and may become worthy of
Thy heavenly kingdom."

         And  the  great prayer of preparation itself - the prayer  of  the
Cherubimic Hymn (here abbreviated):  "...look down upon me a sinner and Thy
unworthy servant; cleanse my soul and my heart from an evil conscience; and
strengthen me by the power of Thy Holy Spirit,  so that I,  whom  thou hast
endowed with the grace of the priesthood,  may stand before Thy  holy altar
and consecrate Thy Sacred and spotless Body and Precious Blood."

         Note  particularly the strong and repeated emphasis on  cleansing,
purification, readying of ourselves to be present and to participate in the
coming mysteries.   And, make no mistake about it,  mysteries they are - in
the  classic  root sense of the Greek "mysterion,"   -  i.e.,   secret  and
unknowable things.   The Church would appear in the liturgy to warn us that
to  assist  worthily at the Holy Sacrifice requires not one's  presence  so
much  as a good deal of strength and grace,  wisdom and understanding;   so
much so,  in fact,  that humanly speaking it is impossible.   And it is for
this  reason,  if  for no other,   that we turn to the only true source  of
strength and grace, wisdom and understanding, the Lord God Himself.

         All too often,  as I have said,  we have fallen into the  attitude
that "Church" is something we "go to" to "do" something; and in fact, it is
something  we  "are."    That participation of which we speak in  terms  of
reference to the liturgy is not the participation of a shared endeavor, but
the participation of shared BEING.   Here the analogy of the Mystical  Body
used by Pius XII in his encyclical of the same name does us great service -
because  the analogy (though it is  analogy)  makes it clear that one  hand
does not so much share the labor of the other,  or of the head,  as it does
share the existence of the being who has both and does all.

         When we,  as a people,  as a people chosen by God for his especial
service, consecrated to His service by His sacraments, and dedicated to His
service  by our own free and willing choice to respond with a loving  "yes"
instead of the defiant "non serviam," "I shall not serve" of Satan prior to
the sin of Adam - then,  and only then,  will the Spirit work through us to
bring about the Kingdom which we are meant to share.

         Once the Great Entrance is completed - that entrance with the Holy
Gifts (which is intended to remind us of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem
on Palm Sunday, preparatory to His final sacrifice),  we find the Prayer of
the  Offering recited immediately upon arriving at the main  altar,   where
once  again  a  petition for an increase of grace  is  reiterated.  "...and
grant that we find grace before Thee...,"  "...and let the  good  spirit of
Thy  grace rest upon us and upon these  gifts  offered here,  and upon  Thy
whole people..."

         Another  litany  follows  immediately,  beginning again  with  the
petitions that God "help,  save, have mercy on us,  and protect us"  by His
grace,  and continuing on so until the end.   And the final preparation for
the Coming of Christ, the Profession of Faith, the Creed.  "I believe..."

         The Canon (or Anaphora,  as it is called technically)  begins with
"Let us stand here with fear, let us carefully offer this holy sacrifice in
peace...,"  and immediately thereafter a blessing is given, dispensing  the
grace of Christ in symbol to the people gathered here  and  present:   "The
grace  of  Our Lord Jesus Christ,  the Love of  God  the Father,   and  the
Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all!"   "And [may it be] with YOUR
spirit,"  respond  the people,   returning a blessing of their own  to  the
celebrant.

         At  last,   with the Preface,  we cease,  for the time being,  our
petitioning of the Lord for grace and enlightenment, and we begin to offer,
at  long last,  something of ourselves to God.   Here we begin to offer our
gifts of praise and thanksgiving, adoration and glorification.  Here is the
point  when we should take especial care to be certain that we have offered
to God not something of what we possess,  but that which we ARE,  and  only
secondarily  alongside  the gift of ourselves of those things which He  has
placed into our custody.  If, as St. Paul has said, baptized into Christ we
have become one with and in Him,  then the ONLY real sacrifice we CAN offer
which will be at all pleasing to the Father is the SAME sacrifice which was
offered by Christ - the sacrifice of Himself.   And only in and through our
oneness  with  Him and in Him can we do so.   It should be eminently  clear
from that fact alone, if from no other, that simple presence at the liturgy
is  insufficient for the true Christian.   Not only must we offer the  same
sacrifice  as Christ,  the gift of self and everything pertaining to  self,
but  it  must be offered for the same intentions as Christ offered -  i.e.,
not  in  any pursuit of salvation for ourselves,  but for the salvation  of
mankind,  each and every member of it, past,  present and yet to come.   As
Christ lived and died and rose again for every human who was to be,  it  is
exactly in that that WE must share,  in every liturgy (which is always  the
SAME liturgy,  as pointed out previously).   For it is not our "good deeds"
that  will  win salvation for us,  nor our gifts,  nor the nobility of  our
souls and our virtue.  The Kingdom of God has already been won for us,  and
has  been given us as a free and untrammeled gift from the hand of a loving
Father.  Nothing we can do can earn us more.  The only thing it is possible
for us to do with that gift is to reject it,  to lose it, to waste it.  And
for that we need take especial care, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by
day.  That kind of vigilance is beyond human beings - and so again, we find
ourselves  forced by reality to plead with God for the grace not  to  throw
away His precious gifts.

         At this point the Liturgy will have become a two-way path.   Grace
and strength and wisdom come down from God the Father,  and we,  responding
in  love  with praise and thanksgiving,  in union with Christ,   our  head,
offering  sacrifice  of  reparation and propitiation  -  THE  sacrifice  of
reparation  and propitiation,  for ALL mankind.   Not simply for those  who
happen to share our beliefs.

         The Consecration is difficult to speak of.   Whatever one says  of
it, it is inadequate.  The mystery is such a profound one that however much
we struggle to grasp the thoughts and concepts,  they are fleeting and ever
just beyond our grasp,  as is the concept of a Trinity itself.  This is the
Sacrifice of Christ, the Crucifixion on Calvary,  the final offering of the
totality of Life Itself - that same Christ who called Himself "The Way, and
the Truth,  and the Life" -  in reparation for the sins of mankind,  and to
restore  man to favor with His Father - because both He and the Father have
loved  us since long before time itself began,  and therefore also did  His
Holy Spirit.

         And the Elevation,  which is the commemoration of His Resurrection
and  Ascension  follows  immediately.   That it IS meant to  symbolize  and
remind us of both Resurrection and Ascension is clear from the accompanying
prayer,   the  Anamnesis,   (commemoration/reminder):   "We,   therefore,
remembering  this salutary precept [to do this in remembrance of  Him]  and
all that was done on our behalf,  the cross, the tomb,  the resurrection on
the  third day,  the ascension into heaven,  the enthronement at the  right
hand  of  the Father,  the second and glorious coming - we offer  to  Thee,
Thine of Thine own, of what is Thine own, in all, and for the sake of all."
For the first time we find here the added thought that the Liturgy, besides
being  the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary,  is  ALSO  the pledge and promise
that Christ WILL come again one day in glory,  seated at the  right hand of
the Father,  and coming on the clouds of heaven as  He promised Caiaphas to
his very face in the courtyard of the High Priest.

         What a comforting thought!   All WE need to do is to bear up,   to
hang  on,   to accept gracefully and gratefully what has been given  us  to
bear.  The time is coming when Christ will come for each one of us, and the
time  is coming when He will come for the entire human race as  well.    We
need not "succeed"  at anything,  we need not become "great"  or "rich"  or
"powerful"  or "wise with the wisdom of this world."  We need to endure, in
patience and in trust, and leave the rest to Christ.  One caution,  though,
there  is here also the added encouragement to keep ourselves worthy,   (in
the sense of "clean" and "undefiled") because no one of us knows the day or
the hour when Christ will call us to Him.

         The  Epiclesis  is  the Invocation of the  Holy  Spirit,   and  is
reminiscent  of Pentecost,  when the Holy Spirit came down upon the  Chosen
People of God with the thunder of winds and tongues of fire.

         And immediately following that, the Epiclesis,  we begin instantly
to renew the various petitions for the different intentions,  to begin anew
to beg once again the mercy of God,  His Grace,  His Wisdom,  His Strength,
His  Understanding,  in the deep awareness that we cannot survive even  for
those few seconds without them;  we being immediately to prepare  ourselves
further  for  the  highest point of the Liturgy,  the  culmination  of  the
"Economy  of Salvation,"  the Plan of Christ to save us - participation  in
the Sacrament of Love itself;  the most intimate sharing it is possible  to
receive,   far more intimate even than that intimacy of  marital  relations
which is so necessary for the procreation of life itself.   "...We beg, and
pray, and beseech Thee: grant that we may partake of Thy heavenly and dread
mysteries,  of this sacred and spiritual table with a pure conscience,  for
the remission of sins, for the pardon of offenses, for the Communion of Thy
Holy  Spirit,   and for the inheritance of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,   for
confidence toward Thee, and not unto judgment nor unto condemnation."

NEXT  WEEK:   The  Communion,   beginning with the  Prayer  of  Preparation
(Etaisis)  to the Dismissal,  Inclusive.   Following that,  there will be a
discussion  on  the place of the Liturgy in the sacramental system  of  the
Church, and in the Catholic system of theology and dogma.