The Beauty of the Roman Mass

The Roman Liturgy of the Mass is a beautiful thing. The depth of the mystery I experience grows on me continuously. It is a mystery for several reasons (and I am certain that I can not name them all). The first that always comes to mind is that as we celebrate the Mass we transcend time so we are present at the sacrifice Jesus made on Calvary. We also make a quick journey through the history of our salvation, beginning with the fall of mankind up to the Eucharist and the reception of God’s blessings with the command to evangelize the whole world. This is not something the Roman Catholic Church just made up one day. This is the way the first Christians worshiped their God, the liturgical format was something inherited by the Church from Israel because the first Christians were all Israelites. The classical interpretation of the Song of Songs is God’s approach to Israel and Israel’s response to the advances of their God. What a perfect metaphor! Beginning with the fall of man God has been approaching mankind as a lover attempts to seduce his object of desire. God seduces us. He approaches us and our response to His advance is prayer (as the Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser so eloquently put it). When I first converted to Roman Catholicism I had no understanding of the significance of the Liturgy. At first I looked forward to the homily, then I preferred the Liturgy of the Word to the homily, but now (as I feel I am more mature in my approach to worship) the part I love the most begins with the offertory and lasts until the reception of the Eucharist. The Liturgy continues to be a call and response, a sort of dialogue between our Creator and the congregation. God initially declares His love for us by proclaiming, through His regent, that He will manifest Himself to the congregation and the congregation answers with the affirmation of His holiness, “Blessed be God forever!” So at the conclusion, being filled with the Word, we are sent into the world to fulfill our Christian vocations.

One of the books I recently read was the Pope’s “The Spirit of the Liturgy.” One of the things that surprised me was his references to paganism. It shouldn’t have though. In the beginning of the book the Pope pointed out that the entire cosmos is subject to the Christ. Of course it is and those who observe the norms of the cosmos witness the testament of God. According to the Pope the first day of Creation was the 25th of March, which was also the day of Abraham’s sacrifice, which was also the day of the Annunciation and the day of the Resurrection! Wow! This is also why we used to always pray facing east: the New Heaven and New Earth have not yet come. The sun has not yet reached its zenith, he said. So we pray facing east, towards the Son. In all this is the marriage of three different aspects of Christian worship. The Jewish liturgical practices were married to the Christian liturgical practices in the presents of the Lord in the Eucharist through the norms of liturgical practice. That is why following the liturgical norms are so important and why it is a serious matter to deviate or add things expressly forbidden or ignore things expressly required.