The Meaning of the Mass - Venerable Fulton Sheen

I'm going to talk to you today about the mass and try to make it clear to you if I can I'm sure there are some young people here in this church who have said oh I don't want to go to Mass I don't want to go to church I don't get anything out of it do you know the reason why because you don't bring anything to it now some of you boys for example I am sure have mothers who are not the least bit interested in football you say come look at this game it's wonderful she gets nothing why because she doesn't bring any knowledge and football to it think of how many people would not go to an opera they would find it boring that's because they bring no knowledge of music to it just suppose that you were suddenly put down in the in Athens on the hill of the areopagus would you understand it would you think oh this is where Socrates defended himself and this is where st. Paul gave that great discourse to the senators of Athens you'd have to bring something to Greece in order to understand it and so certainly you'll get nothing out of it because you've made no sacrifice no effort to understand what the mass is very simply what the mass is is reaching to Calvary and laying hold with your hand of the cross of Christ with Christ on it and you plant it down here today whenever a mass is celebrated we take the cross we planted down in Nairobi we planted down in Tokyo we planted in New York we planted in this city that's what the mass is the continuation of Calvary and in order to take a part in it you have to bring little crosses our Blessed Lord said take up your cross daily and follow me everyone has a cross for example if you young students you've got the cross of spelling the mathematics and of obedience and mother says do the dishes that's a little cross and the older people have different kind of crosses and we bring all of our crosses here and we plant them down alongside of that great cross of Christ and we mash them all together under him that is the mass it has three acts it's like a great drama just suppose that four or five centuries before Christ there was a great drama because that was the great age of drama a drama presented that moved hearts purged Souls which wise old Greek said was the purpose of drama anyway but it was played only once and if you were at that theater and your soul was better because you witnessed the drama you would say what a pity everyone in the world should see this how could that be done well it could be done by establishing road companies new actors same lines same drama but appearing on the different stages of the world apply this now to the death of our Lord this drama was played once but the night of the Last Supper our Blessed Lord said I am going to prepare this drama so that it will be interacted all over the world and hearts will be purified and souls purged so he established road companies as he said to his apostles in his priests do this repeat it same lines same purpose only the stages are different we will now follow the three acts of the drama in the first act you offer yourself to Christ act 1 act 2 you die you die with him act 3 because you died with him now you get new life act 1 where you offer yourself as the offertory act 2 your death with Christ the consecration and thirdly rising to a new life is Holy Communion now follow me through these three acts Act one you offer yourself you bring yourself to Christ and say I want to be one with you in your great act of redemption when when the mass begins the Lord looks out from heaven and he says I can't die again in this nature I took from Mary this nature is glorified but Peter Paul Mary Ann will you give me your human nature offer yourself to me and I will die again in you and let you pass through the same stages of life as I pass through now how do you offer yourself to the Lord not just by being present not just that but by using symbols of bread and wine so when the bread and wine is brought to the altar you are brought to the altar why did our Lord say bring bread and wine well first of all because no two substances better signify unity than bread and wine as bread is made from a multiplicity of grains of wheat and wine from a multiplicity of grapes so we who are many are one in mind and heart with Christ then furthermore when we bring bread and wine the substances which have most traditionally nourished mankind when we bring that which gives us life we're bringing ourselves and then we're also bringing part of creation we were taking some elements out of creation namely bread and wine and we're saying to God these are going to be wholly yours someday this there will be a new heaven and a new earth everything in creation will be totally subject to you but this is the first fruit of total giving of creation to Christ so in the offer tree therefore you become present on the altar you are on the pattern you are in the chalice under the form of bread and wine that is your symbol as a matter of fact one of the reasons the collection is taken up with the offertory there's to be a symbol of your self-sacrifice it buys the bread and wine helps the sacrifice see if I were pleading for a collection that's the idea that I would develop but I'm not but I merely want to indicate to you now that you're on the altar that's the end of Act one now we come to Act two you die you are crucified we cannot leave to Christ unless we die to our lower nature so our Lord now is representing his death at the consecration and you are with him so you die with him now I will tell you how that is done first of all how do we represent at the consecration of the mass his death now think about this how did our Lord died on the cross by the separation of blood from his body here were great fountains fountain in hand right and left fountains in the feet the fountain of the heart and the very last drop of his blood came from his body with the piercing of the pericardium the heart so that our Lord was practically drained therefore a blood on the cross and he died by this tearing apart a blood from body whereas the Old Testament puts it life is in the blood now we reenact this death by the separate consecration of bread and wine the priest does not say at the altar this is my body and my blood that would be life but first this is my body then over the wine this is my blood that separate consecration of bread and wine there's like a tearing apart rending asunder a blood from body and that is the way Christ died on the cross so we sacramentally reenact the death of Christ at the consecration but you are with him so you have to die with him die to that which is evil to pride and lust and envy and gluttony sloth avarice at the moment of consecration therefore you have to say the words of consecration in their secondary sense the primary meaning of the words of consecration we know this becomes the body of Christ this becomes the blood of Christ but there is a secondary meaning and at the consecration you should be saying as every priest says when I consecrate the bread and wine I always have not only the intention of making present the body and blood of Christ but I say to myself as you must say this is my body this is my blood I care not of the accidents of my life remain my duties my avocation my responsibilities in life these are species let them stay as they are but what I am substantially body soul intellect will I'm Dino Lord this is the totality of myself I die with you that's the consecration so you're dead with Christ but no one ever dies to Christ without receiving new life now we come to the communion act 3 and this is one of the beautiful mysteries of communion to understand it I'm going to let you view nature in the springtime if the sunlight the phosphates and the carbons in the earth could speak they would say to the plants unless you eat me you shall not have life in you if the plants could speak in the grass of the field they would say to the animals unless you eat me you shall not have life in you and if the plants and animals could speak they would say to us unless you eat me you shall not have life in you and Christ says to us and communion unless you eat me you shall not have life in you and the law of transformation holds way chemicals are transformed into plants plants into animals animals in demand and and into Christ we now therefore have his life in us this becomes and the great moment of love we've died to that which is lower now we're going to have the higher life and this higher life involves as in marriage lover beloved and love the husband gives self to wife the wife gives self to husband out of the lover being defeated by the love of the beloved there comes the ecstasy of love and what the union of husband and wife is in marriage that communion is to the spirit the union of our soul in Christ lover and beloved produces the ecstasy of love this then is the third act it has another aspect which I will pass over and quickly for a matter of time only and it is forgotten aspect when we study theology it's hardly mentioned in Scripture it's mentioned constantly and that is that when we receive communion we have to bear this death of Christ in our lives we constantly have to deny ourselves in order that the Christ's life may emerge now see how nature represents that if the grass and the lilies and the roses could speak they would say to thee into the air and to the sunlight and chemicals would you like to live in me I'm a plant you're only crystals you can't live in me the way you are you have to be changed die to yourself then you live in me the animal could speak it would say to the grass you cannot see you cannot taste you cannot move from place to place you cannot change from sunlight to shadow I can I have a higher kingdom than yours would you like to live in my kingdom not the way you are you've got to be taken up from the earth round beneath the jaws of death and then only can you live in my kingdom to the animals we say you cannot think you cannot scan the heavens I have a higher life than you would you like to live in them in me then submit yourself to the knife shed your blood otherwise you cannot live in my kingdom so our Lord says to us unless you take up your cross daily and follow me you cannot not you will not you cannot be my disciple communion therefore is not only the taking in the life of Christ as I explained and incidentally for the students of biology let me tell you that the first process I described as the anabolic in the sacrifice which I am now describing as the catabolic process of nature so now in the in st. Paul we have the second element of communion st. Paul says no you not that as often as you eat of this bread or drink of this chalice you announce the death the death of the Lord until he come so communion therefore is an incorporation to the higher life of Christ but in as much as we have to go back into the world we're going to take with him our death this is the mass do you know that I believe that when we go before the judgment seat of God our greatest regret is not that we were more faithful to the Holy Sacrifice of the mass what a blessing is our faith now I have no reason to assume absolutely none to assume that you'll be good people are not at Mass every morning every morning I've been here look at the crowds now I'm glad to see that you people are our attendance the daily Mass this is marvelous I wouldn't come back some morning sneak up on you to see if you were here I wouldn't do that I just assumed that you would be now I hope I've made this clear to you young people especially what the mass is always think of it as three acts and how you are united with the cross of our Lord but since I I have been tiring to you and even at the risk of keeping you a little longer I'm going to tell you a story about the mass and the Eucharist this incident happened in China a bishop was arrested by the communists put in prison and he told one of the missionary sisters to whom he gave the tabernacle key to remove the Blessed Sacrament from the chapel it was on the second floor of his house lest it be defiled by the Communists who would take over his residence the bishop was in prison for two or three years he wasted away the skin and bones or a black stocking cap black kimono was too weak to stand during the few moments of the day they were released from the prison in the prison yard he had to be supported by two fellow communities rather Chinese prisoners the nun went to the chapel took the Blessed Sacrament but she hid it in a loaf of bread and as she closed the door of the chavín was about to come down a communist Colonel came up the stairs and said I'm taking over this house I have the key to the chapel he tried to open the door and it would not open he said here you open it she said I can't my hands are filled with bread put the bread on the stairs she said the stairs are dirty then give me the bread she said she reached him the Blessed Sacrament hidden in the bread with such reverence and fear that he laid hold of the loaf as if it might have been a baby but he cooked a gun in case you she should turn on him and then he gave back the Blessed Sacrament the naan was later on put in prison beaten with rods and underwent a kind of a bloody sweat from the terrific agony finally came the death march and the bishop was put out in the March between two fellow Chinese prisoners the Communist Colonel took a sack that was loaded with perhaps stones weighed about twenty or thirty pounds and tied it on the bishops back and then tied the rope in such a fashion that the weight would tighten the rope and he would eventually be choked to death in the March but the Communists would not kill anyone the sister who told me this story was back in the line of March and she saw the communist Colonel Tigh this bag around his neck and she broke the line of March and she said don't do that look at the man it was a kind of an H a homo the Communist Colonel looked at her and the end of the face of the bishop and seemed to see pain for the first time in his life and he called her a dog and told her to get back in line she watched the weaving of the prisoners as they made their death march and after over a mile or two she caught sight of the bishop still supported by the two fellow Chinese prisoners but the sack was not on his back it was on the back of the Communist Colonel I said why did the Communist Colonel take it off his back off the bishops back and she said because he once carried the Blessed Sacrament the last we know of that Communist Colonel is that he was put in prison for the bishop the bishop died on the Death March the sister today is still burying the effects of it and this bishop in prison she told me used to read Mass he was the only one in prison who was ever given wine not through any act of charity on the part of the Communists this was just divine providence making it possible for him to say Mass and she said no mass in the Gothic cathedral surrounded by all the pomp of liturgy could ever equal the beauty of this frail Bishop full of prison vermin and sores leaning up against the wall with a tin tray and loaf of bread and the small glass of rice wine moving his fingers over the tin tray and then pronouncing the words of consecration and during the day secretly giving communion to prisoners who would pronounce the right word the cold word which was the same code word in the early church fish why fish well the Greek word for fish is exos and in our letters IX th us exes and in the early church the I stood for Jesus the extra Christmas that they you of God you for we our son s for SOT our Savior Jesus Christ son of God Savior the world and I could tell you two of the way that mass was read at Dachau under the threat of the Nazis and how priests underwent every kind of torture to make it possible to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the mass you're really assisting at Calvary realize its meaning but there's a law that runs all through nature we live by what we slay food that we have torn up from the earth the animals that have been butchered we live by what we slay and through the marvelous paradox of divine grace we who have crucified Christ by our sins now through the mercy of communion live

Channel: CatholicClips

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Keywords: Fulton J. Sheen (Author), Mass (Religious Practice)

Id: UqDMO5iAX64

Length: 29min 11sec (1751 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2013