First Sunday in Advent, Year
B, 2011. Mark 13:33-37
AIM: To help the hearers understand the riches of
the Mass.
“Be watchful!” Jesus tells us in the
gospel. “Be alert!” That is the message of Advent, a word which means “coming.”
In Advent we are alert and watchful for three
comings of the Lord: his first coming at Bethlehem,
in weakness (as every baby is weak) and in obscurity: the only people who
showed up to celebrate were some shepherds, and three crackpot astrologers from
God knows where. Advent also reminds us to be watchful and alert for Christ’s
final coming at the end of time, in an event so powerful that everyone will
know that history’s last hour has struck. And between these there is a third, intermediate coming, here and now.
Like his
first coming at Bethlehem,
it is hidden and obscure. Yet like Christ’s final coming, this intermediate coming
is a thing of power. It is what Jesus had in mind when he told us: “Anyone who
loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to
him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14:23).
Let me start with the question –
Why
do we worship?
We do not celebrate the liturgy for
personal inspiration or uplift; to give us or others a nice warm feeling inside
or “a meaningful worship experience,” to use modern jargon. Those things may
happen, or they may not. None of them, however, is the purpose of our worship.
St. Thomas Aquinas places worship under the heading of justice. It is something
we owe to God, who has given us
everything we have and are – our sins excepted: they are all our own. The
Preface to each of the Eucharistic Prayers expresses this truth when it says:
“It is truly right and just, our duty
and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father,
almighty and eternal God.”
Sometimes people complain that they
don’t “get anything” out of Mass.
The proper answer that is: “So what?” We’re not here to get. We’re here to give – to give thanks, to praise and
adore. The liturgy turns us away from self, toward God. And only when God is at
the center of our lives can we have any chance at true happiness and fulfillment.
St. Augustine tells
us why when he says – and he was speaking from his own experience of life: “You
have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest
in you.” Or, to put it in terms which young people today understand best: We
are hard-wired for God.
Note how we begin Mass: “In the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I can never say those
words without being inwardly moved. They remind us that we gather in the name
of a God whose inner law is self-giving love: the Father pours out his love for
the Son; the Son returns this love to the Father; and the love who binds them
together is the Holy Spirit. As we begin Mass we are drawn into this love, into
God.
But which of us is worthy to stand
before the all-holy God? That is why we immediately confess our sins. “Lord,
have mercy,” we pray. We appeal to God because we can never rid ourselves of
sin on our own. Only God can do that. After that comes, except in Advent and
Lent, the Gloria, the great hymn of praise to God. This is followed by the
opening prayer of the Mass, called the Collect, because it collects the
petitions of each of us, and offers them to God.
Then we sit down to listen to the word
of God, messages from a world very different from this one, from our true
homeland. When we come to the gospel we stand, acknowledging that now Jesus
himself is speaking to us: calling us back to him when we have strayed, filling
our mouths with laughter and our tongues with joy (to quote the psalmist), when
the sunshine of God’s love shines upon us. In the Creed which follows we
profess our Christian and Catholic faith. The Petitions which follow remind us
that ours is not a private, me-and-God religion. We are members of a family,
taught by Jesus in the one prayer he gave us to say not “My Father, but “Our
Father.”
We move on then to the Offertory. But
what can we offer God? He needs nothing. He is, as the theologians say,
“sufficient unto himself.” The fourth weekday Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer
says: “You have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your
gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness, but profit us for
salvation.” Thanksgiving profits us for salvation, because the act of giving
thanks involves an acknowledgement that we are God’s creatures, dependent on
him at every moment for our continued existence. And whatever we give to God,
without any thought of return is not lost. It comes back to us, transformed.
The transformation of our gifts takes
place in the Eucharistic prayer or Consecration. It begins with the Sanctus or
Holy, Holy, in which we pray that “our voices may join with theirs” – with the
angels whom Isaiah at his call heard singing “Holy” three times over, because
God, though one, is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The
priest then prays for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine we
have offered. He recites the narrative of the Last Supper, using Jesus’ own words.
And the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of our crucified
and risen Lord. Jesus himself is truly present. Present also is the sacrifice
he offered at the Last Supper and consummated on Calvary.
This means that we are truly there: in the Upper Room with Jesus and his
apostles, and with Mary and the beloved disciple at the cross, with but one
exception: we cannot see him with our bodily eyes, but we do see him with the
eyes of faith – and seeing, we adore.
Following the Communion, the Mass
closes with the blessing; and then perhaps the most important word of all,
apart from Jesus’ words over the bread and wine: the little word, Go.
Go
forth, the Mass is ended.
Go
and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
Go
in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.
Go
in peace.
So much
beauty, so much drama, so much holiness, so much joy! Do we ever stop to
realize it, and truly worship?
Let me close with a personal testimony.
I have wanted to be a priest since I was twelve years old. I’ve never wanted
anything else. What drew me to priesthood above all was the Mass. Every time I served Mass, from age
twelve onward, I thought: One day I’ll
stand there. I’ll wear those vestments. I’ll say those words. On the 4th
of April this year it was be 60 years since that boyhood dream was fulfilled.
It was wonderful then. It is, if possible, even more wonderful today.
When I climb the steps to the altar, I
think often of God’s words to Moses at the burning bush: “Take off your shoes
from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy ground.” In India, which I
have visited twice, the priest does that literally. Before every Mass I
celebrated in India,
I removed my shoes.
I’m
not ashamed to tell you, friends, that
many times, as I bow to kiss the altar at the start of Mass, there are tears in
my eyes, and a catch in my throat as I think: This is what I have wanted to do since I was twelve years old. If
you ever notice me breaking off in the middle of a sentence, unable to go on,
that’s the reason.
When
I look around, I see men in their thirties and beyond who still don’t know what
to do with the one life that God has given each of us. And I have the privilege
of doing what I’ve always wanted to do – something of which no man is worthy –
not the holiest priest you know, not the bishop, not even the Pope; a privilege
extended to us not because we’re good enough, but because God loves us; and
because he wants to use us to serve and to feed you, his holy people, from
these twin tables of word and sacrament.
Do you understand now why I tell you
again, as I have told you so many times before, that I say every day, more
times than I could ever tell you: “Lord, you’re so good to me. And I’m so
grateful.”
Friends,
if I were to die tonight, I would die a happy man.
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