Live the Mass!

Originally Published: TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2009

(I wrote it 8 years ago, but everyone who can should try to live it... Jesus in the Eucharist is EVERYTHING... every second there are 4 consecrations taking place in the world (300,000 Masses every 24 hours) -unite your heartbeats to His sacrifice on the altar and you truly will be living the Mass with Him. )

So often in today’s world it is easy for people to become frustrated with God –feeling like He is far, watching us from His Throne in Heaven and once in a while ‘throwing us a bone.’ What people (even 'good practicing Catholics' -you and me and even our priests and sisters sometimes) often don’t realize is how powerfully and intimately He meets with us weekly –daily –in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass.

God is a personal God. And He meets us in a more intimate way in the Mass than any human person can meet us (even deeper, closer and more intimate than marital love.) Yet He is a kind Gentleman –and He forces Himself on no one. We receive this powerful, intimate love only to the degree that we open ourselves, desire it and allow Him to give it to us. If we take time in our ‘busy lives’ to sit in silence with God and listen to His Holy Spirit (so ever present in every aspect of our lives), we will begin to hear something new, something that we could not hear before –because our ears were ‘dirtied’ with too many other worldly voices.

Everyday at Mass God speaks to us. He is present to us deeply –as we make the sign of the Cross at the beginning of Mass, it is as if a veil between us and heaven is ripped opened. God –the Holy Trinity –is before us to serve us in Love, by Love. A God Who serves –that is such an awesome thought that it instills holy fear if we can glimpse its meaning. What can we ‘get’ from the Mass? Exactly what we put into it. Jesus says, “Seek and you shall find.” He waits for us to seek Him, hidden behind a veil, but so present to us there –present in a way more real than any reality we can know on earth.

Listen to where the Spirit ‘touches’ your heart each Mass. Is it where we are reminded of our sins and ask for mercy? Does He show you somewhere you failed or blocked His Love that you may not have even seen yourself? Does He heal your blindness in pride somehow? Does He speak to you in the Gloria or Alleluia, helping you ‘see’ in a new way the presence of so many angels in this world, ever praising the Father (and waiting for us to join in with them.) You may go to Mass worried about your daughter, but if the Spirit can ‘show’ you His angels in some way, that answer is all you need –for it will inspire you to love God as they do, trust God (with your daughter) as they do, call on them for help. Does He ‘speak’ to you during the petitions –by allowing you to empty your heavy heart out into His loving arms and care? He waits for you to entrust your concerns to His Love.

Or is He speaking in the readings? EVERY DAY something in the readings can speak to your heart. I know that for some it is impossible to go to daily Mass (I know from my sisters how impossible this really can be for mothers of young children –it would not be loving God to abandon their little ones’ needs in order to drag them to church.) And yet, if you take time to reflect on the readings from Sunday Mass (and what God is speaking to your heart in this) it is more than enough ‘food’ to carry you through the week. Not everything will speak to everyone. But in the readings the Holy Spirit is actually reading YOUR heart and answering your needs and questions. Take the first reading today about the water in the temple –ever growing deeper and deeper (Ez 47:1-9, 12 -click on the headline for the reading). Perhaps God is inviting you deeper into trust –where before you only waded in it, now He wants you to swim. Maybe He is inviting you deeper into forgiveness, or into the blood flowing from His wounds on the Cross (He wants you to discover His crucified Love for you in a new, deeper way.) Last Sunday the Psalm was, “Let my tongue be silenced if I ever forget you!” Wow, that’s something you can work on all week… If you forget God (and your words are not going to reflect Him and His Love), then be silent. And if ‘you are silenced’ accept it as a gift from God to keep you close to His Love. The Gospel today is the paralytic who could not get into the pool to be healed, and so Jesus healed him. Maybe God is asking you to pray for someone who is so lost in sin that they can’t ‘get into the pool of His Mercy’ by themselves –they need you to put them there through your prayer. Maybe Jesus is telling you that it is okay you are weak in some regard –and that if you trust Him and wait, He will come and heal your weakness. Maybe He is speaking about obedience –when the man did not obey and be silent, it caused Jesus trouble. Do we realize how deeply we wound Him when we disobey His Love? Maybe He is speaking to you about a physical illness –calling you to look up to heaven to what is important (eternal life) and not at earthly realities that might cause you pain. He said to the man, “Look you are well, do not sin so that nothing worse may happen to you.” Sin is the worst disease –not cancer, pneumonia, aids or debt. Is there a word or sentence the priest said in his homily that touches you? It’s a ‘gift’ that only you can discover for yourself with Jesus in every Mass –only you (with the help of His Spirit) can find the treasure He is speaking to you. How many Masses we come and go from leaving the treasures He wants to give us behind! LOOK… LISTEN… HEAR O ISRAEL! God is waiting to help you in this.

And then you come to the epicenter of all life, hope, joy, meaning and love –the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Heart crucified and risen on the altar of Love. During the offertory you should be putting yourself on the altar with Jesus. Taking every struggle, sin, joy, need, sacrifice, prayer, step, word, moment, sleep that you lived the previous day or week and putting it all into Jesus’ Heart on the Cross in the Eucharist –this is the purpose for which He gave us this gift. He wants to redeem us, in our normal everyday lives. Therefore, we must give Him our lives –unite them with Him there –so He can transform them in His Love and place His Life in us in return. There –into that little white host –mysteriously He takes all of our darkness, our ‘nails,’ our temptations (how funny that He in a little white host takes our blackness into Himself and gives us light through His dark, red blood.)

 

(Before) (After) 

Amazing! And this happens day after day, week after week. Even if we hear nothing at Mass –this gift of His Heart is a loud enough word of love to strengthen us and give us direction in life. When man and woman are in deepest love, there is no need for words. Sometimes the ‘word’ of the Word to your life will simply be the kiss of His Love in the Eucharist.

We must begin to live the Mass more fully. We should not live in time –from day to day or week to week –but instead from Mass to Mass. It is not so important to know the day of the week or the date, but instead to know the readings from Mass that day and the readings for the next. Jesus’ Heartbeat should be the center of our lives. How quickly we could all be transformed into being LIVING JESUSes if we accepted all the gifts He wanted to give us. All we have to do is begin with saying, ‘Yes. I do want to live with You this deeply. Teach me.’ Take time this Friday or Saturday night either alone or with your husband/wife and read the readings for Mass on Sunday and think for a few moments about what God might be telling you or your family in it. Do it with your kids. You’ll be amazed at how fully the Spirit can speak to you through them. Try to discover what Jesus is asking you to ‘work on’ or give to Him at that Mass. And then, when you are at Mass and the baby is screaming behind you –you still will be able to ‘get something out of it’ –for you did your meditation before hand and what you hear on Sunday just reminds you of what you already discovered. It does not matter if the music ‘is bad’ –for you have been living the Mass all week (collecting every drop and aspect of your life as you go along) and now all you have to do is put that onto the altar when you come. And He in turn, will give you His Life and Love in answer to your sacrifice. And then, when you leave Mass, you carry a new special grace –the grace of His blood which touched and flowed within your own to change you into Himself –with you out into the world. This grace will work with you all week –giving you strength and ‘light’ and love and hope and wisdom –whenever you open yourself to it in your daily lives. 

This was on my heart to share with you guys. Every one of us can go deeper into His Love at Mass everyday -every week -no one is 'too advanced' for that. I know I find a new 'wow' daily when I meet with Him. And I promise that if you take time to read the readings before Mass –just once –it will work. God is just sitting there waiting for your little ‘yes.’