Glasses for the Masses

As we were leaving daily Mass yesterday, my good friend and golfer extraordinaire Anthony came up with a great illustration.

We were talking about how some Catholics, especially kids, find the Mass "boring", and that they "don't get anything out of it". Very often, these folks cease attending Mass altogether.

But I'm convinced that the only reason someone would think that way is because they really don't understand what happens at Mass.

Consider, if you will, this parallel: my wife wasn't a football fan like me when we met. We could be watching the exact same game - I would find it thrilling, while she'd think it was unbearably dull. Why? We were witnessing the same event, but she didn't understand what she was watching (I've since remedied that little situation - with me having the TV perpetually tuned to the NFL Network, it's difficult for her not to learn about it!). I think this is what happens to many people when they go to Mass. They don't understand what's unfolding before them. If they did, they'd never be bored, and leaving the Church would never cross their minds.

That's because the Mass is heaven on Earth. Why? Because Christ himself is there - body and blood, soul and divinity - his Real Presence in the Eucharist. His flesh and blood becomes one with ours in the moment of communion. Many Christians speak of, and rightly so, the importance of having a personal relationship with Christ. Well, it doesn't get any more personal than this! You can't get any closer to Christ on this planet. Talk about an altar call! There's nothing like it.

This is why intentionally missing Sunday Mass is such a grave sin. If one prefers the "Church of the Holey Comforter", as it were - sleeping in, watching cartoons, whatever the case may be - to being with Christ at the Mass, that's tantamount to saying to God, "I don't want to go to heaven!" And God, being the gentleman lover that he is, will not force you to go there against your will.

Anthony's illustration was this: he said, "If only God could give us all a pair of special, 3-D type glasses to see what's really happening during the liturgy - you'd never be able to keep anyone away from Mass after that!"

So true. If we could see with human eyes for just a moment what really goes on at Mass - if the curtain separating time and eternity could be pulled back, just for a moment - we would see the worship of heaven and earth united around the Lamb. There's a reason we ask blessed Mary and all the angels and saints to pray for us during the Divine Liturgy of the Mass - because they are (unseen to us) right there, worshipping with us.

We need to develop a sanctified imagination to see, with the inner eye of faith, these realities. We are oh, so proficient at using our minds to conjure up things that are, shall we say, somewhat less than holy. Let's instead use those mental "3-D glasses" to train ourselves to witness the reality of the Mass as Heaven on Earth.

Imagine, for example, as the priest elevates the Eucharistic Christ high in the air and says, "This is Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" - imagine Mary standing there just as she did at the foot of the Cross, with yourself there in the place of John, the beloved disciple - for we are all beloved disciples.

I'll be posting much more in the next few days about understanding the Mass - how we know that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, for example, and it's fascinating connection with the Book of Revelation. But for now, remember that no matter how bad things get from a human perspective - a dry homily here, some off-kilter singing there - it can never change the reality that Jesus himself is there, at each and every Mass.

I've learned the lesson that the greatest touchdowns on Sundays don't happen in the NFL - they happen when Christ touches down on each of our altars. And because he is there, at the Mass, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.