Understanding how every Mass requires traveling
07/08/2024
We climb onboard our train of
reflections on the Fifth Gospel, that is, how the Holy Land can teach us about
the holy liturgy. The curious thing about saying Mass onboard a moving train is
that where we start Mass with the Sign of the Cross is miles always away from
where we end Mass with the Sign of the Cross and the dismissal “Go in peace.”
My parents and I started celebrating our train-Mass in the peaceful
prairielands of Manitoba, Canada, and finished the Eucharist before we reached
the borders of Saskatchewan. We watched the land flash by outside the window,
while the land watched the liturgy speedy by inside the window.
In this way, the land witnessed
the progression of the liturgy like mile-markers on the side of the highway. I
remember as a small child attending Mass thinking that when we stood for the
Our Father the Mass was mercifully almost over! We passed one of the last
mile-markers of the Mass! Celebrating Mass is a lot like traveling on a train:
some priest-conductors drive furiously fast, while other go agonizingly slow.
And the poor passengers have to put up with it all.
I want to suggest that the two
Masses we want to consider next – we will only get to one of them today – are
also curiously traveling Masses. That is, they begin in one location and end in
an entirely different place. Further, in this way, the Holy Land – upon which
this journey takes place – bears a unique witnesses to these first liturgies
and reveals that an essential characteristic of the Eucharist is that it
requires us to travel. First, we will see this in the Last Supper of Jesus with
his apostles, which begins in the Upper Room but ends on the heights of
Calvary.
But secondly, we will consider it
in the Mass of Jesus with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. There, the
Mass begins on the outskirts of Jerusalem with Jesus breaking open the Word as
they walk, and ends with the Breaking of the Bread in Emmaus as they eat and
their eyes are opened. If you have ever carefully watched choreography of the
liturgy, you will notice how every Mass sort of travels visually from the
Liturgy of the Word at the ambo to the Liturgy of the Eucharist at the altar.
Movement is a constitutive quality of the Eucharist.
First, we should note the
Passover – as prescribed by rabbinic tradition – consisted of consuming four
cups of wine, each charged with symbolism and significance. The first cup was
consumed after a special blessing, the Kiddush, was spoken over it. The second
cup was drunk after reciting the Passover story, “Why is this night different
from all other nights?” The third cup followed eating the lamb and the
unleavened bread called “the cup of blessing.” Fourthly, and finally, the Great
Hallel was sung, Psalms 114-118, after which the fourth cup was consumed,
called “the cup of consummation.”
Scott Hahn draws attention to the
stunning fact that Jesus did not drink the fourth cup, but rather took the Last
Supper, in effect, “on the road.” This break with liturgical tradition is
amazing because of that old joke: what is the difference between a terrorist
and a liturgist? You can negotiate with a terrorist. In any case, Hahn observes
how irregular such an interruption would have been:
"Among the difficulties
presented by the Last Supper narratives is the way they end the seder
prematurely. Jesus and his disciples exit the room and go off into the night
singing a hymn (see Mark 14:26). But they neglect to drink the cup of wine
prescribed to accompany the hymn – the fourth cup. This is a glaring
omission."
Then Hahn answers the question on
everyone’s mind: Well, did Jesus finally drink the fourth cup, and if so, when?
In order to find the answer, Hahn takes us to the scene of the crucifixion and
provides the color commentary: "Finally at the very end, Jesus was offered
“sour wine” or “vinegar” (John 19:30; Matthew 27:48; Mark 15:36; Luke 23:36).
All the Synoptics testify to this. But only John tells us how he responded:
“When Jesus had received the sour wine he said, ‘It is finished’; and he bowed
his head and gave up his spirit” (19:30).
At the moment he took that sip of
wine, Jesus not only concluded his passion and death, but he also finished the
Passover liturgy and thereby transformed it into the New Passover, that is, the
first Mass.
Every Mass, therefore is at heart
a “traveling Mass” because it traces Jesus’ steps from the Upper Room and finds
its fulfillment outside Jerusalem on Calvary. We daily travel between these two
poles of the mystery of our salvation: between the Upper Room and Calvary. We
can even say we are “fed” at the ambo, the table of the Word, and then we move
to the altar of sacrifice. Think about it: when you don’t hear a good homily,
don’t you feel like you leave Mass still spiritually hungry?
Pope Benedict insisted that these
two foci of the Eucharist were present from the beginning: "Thus, in the
early church buildings, the liturgy has two places. First, the Liturgy of the
Word [the spiritual supper] takes place at the center of the building. The
faithful are grouped around the bema, the elevated area where the throne of the
Gospel, the seat of the bishop, and the lectern are located. The Eucharistic
celebration proper [the unbloody sacrifice] takes place in the apse, at the
altar, which the faithful “stand around”."
Let us return to look at the
land. Along the road between Supper and Sacrifice, Jesus stops in the Garden of
Gethsemane to pray. And here the land gets a privileged taste of the liturgy. I
would like to propose that the first to taste the chalice of the Blood of
Christ, after the apostles, was the Garden of Gethsemane. How so? Fulton Sheen
eloquently explained: "No wonder, then, with the accumulated guilt of all
the ages clinging to [Jesus] as a pestilence His bodily nature gave way…He now
sensed guilt to such an extent that it forced Blood from his Body, Blood which
fell like crimson beads upon the olive roots of Gethsemane, making the first
Rosary of the Redemption."
That is, while the apostles drank
from the sacramental chalice of Christ’s Blood, the roots and rocks of
Gethsemane drank directly from the chalice of Christ’s Body. The name
“Gethsemane” literally means “an olive press” which squeezed out the juice of
the olives. Jesus’ Precious Blood was likewise squeezed out of him in that
spiritual olive press of his Passion, and the land was among the first to taste
the Lord’s love poured out in the liturgy.
At every Eucharist, therefore, we
like the apostles, follow our Lord as he travels between his Supper and his
Sacrifice, between the Liturgy of the Word (his three years of public
ministry), where he feeds us with his teaching, and the Liturgy of the
Eucharist (his three days of the Paschal Mystery, the Holy Triduum), where he
feeds us with his Body and Blood, and we, too, drink from the fourth cup at the
Cross.. And the land had a front row seat to the great mysteries contained in
the liturgy, where Jesus first preached the fullness of truth, and where he
perished to give us the fullness of salvation.
Praised be Jesus
Christ!
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