In the last post, we saw that the Liturgy is a Heavenly, eternal reality. It is Christ’s work on behalf of His people – His offering of Himself, once and for all, as the perfect sacrifice to the Father in order to make human salvation possible. The question I ended with was how this all connects with Mass at your parish this Sunday morning. How does the earthly liturgy, which we experience when we go to Mass, relate to the Heavenly reality? We call them both ‘the liturgy,’ right?
The idea of a Heavenly liturgy is pretty obvious in Scripture (especially in Hebrews and Revelation), not to mention in the Church’s 2000 year tradition. You will find an understanding of Heavenly liturgy in most Christian denominations. The question of earthly ritual has been much more difficult over the years. One approach to the question has been to think of Christian ritual as a set of words and actions that magically summon Heaven down to earth so that we can experience it. Or, the same type of thinking might lead to the idea that the magic words shoot us up into Heaven to be part of it. Neither idea is correct, from the Catholic perspective. The key thing to understand as a Catholic is that the ritual and words are not magical means to an end at all. Instead, the ritual and words at Mass are themselves actual participation in the heavenly liturgy. Here is an example from the Mass that might be helpful:
During Mass, the Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) is not a ritual cause which has the effect of enabling us to participate for a moment in the worship of the angels in heaven. It is not a question of cause and effect; rather when we sing the Sanctus during Mass we are actually singing with the angels in heaven. The reason we use particular words at this moment of the liturgy is not that the Church has mandated a specific formula as our way of getting up to heaven. The words of the Sanctus are not our ticket in; we are already participating in the heavenly liturgy. The reason we use those particular words is that we are joining with something already taking place. The Sanctus is especially important because we have the words and context directly from scripture. The Church had the idea to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in the liturgy because God revealed that that’s what the angels are singing in Heaven (Revelation 4:8)!
In other words, during Mass earth and heaven are united – we don’t have to ‘get up there’ or bring heaven down to us. That is a pretty amazing reality, isn’t it? As the Church understands it, when you participate at Mass you are participating in what goes on in heaven! Here is how the Vatican 2 documents describe the liturgy:
“In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle (see Rev. 21:2; Col. 3:1; Heb. 8:2). With all the hosts of heaven we sing a hymn of glory to the Lord” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 8).
On earth, we don’t experience the fullness of heaven (otherwise we would be up there already!), but as the Church says, we have a foretaste of heaven in the liturgy – a hint of what it is like.
So, the first thing to understand is that the Mass is not a bunch of magic ritual words and actions we have to perform, in order to get an early taste of heaven. Instead, the Mass is the early taste of heaven – when we participate at Mass, we are participating in heaven.
This gives us an important distinction between the Heavenly Liturgy, which is eternal (‘once and for all’) and never changes; and the earthly liturgy which changes over time. Over 2000 years, and in different ways in different places, the Church has developed various forms of the earthly liturgy. We have to be careful to keep the distinction in mind – the forms (words, actions, music, language) change in different times and places on earth, but the reality we participate in does not change. You can think of the different rites and languages and historical developments of the earthly liturgy as a hundred different ways of participating in the same heavenly thing. As an analogy, you might think about the many ways a married couple celebrates their anniversary. Maybe one year it is a surprise trip, or a party, or a special dinner, or a gift. Whatever form it takes in a particular year, the underlying reality (the love and unity of the couple) remains the same. They are celebrating the same thing in a hundred different ways over time. If you take that analogy around the world, you would see that in different cultures and places and times there have been many different customs for celebrating the beauty of married love.
The same thing is true of the liturgy. Be careful not to get too complacent as a suburban American Catholic – what you see on Sunday morning is only a part of the Church’s history and tradition. The word ‘Catholic’ means universal – that means for all places, but also for all times. The earthly liturgy has taken many different forms, as the Church has grown and developed over time. What remains the same through all changes in earthly liturgy is the heavenly reality that the Church participates in.
That brings us to an answer for this post’s question – “What is the Mass?” The Mass is the particular form of the earthly liturgy that we happen to participate in, as 21st century Catholics. You may not know this, but even if you just look at our particular time there are many different ‘rites’ (forms of the liturgy) celebrated around the world. This happens because the Church respects historical liturgical traditions, even when changing the mainstream liturgy. For example at the Council of Trent in the 16th century, liturgical traditions more than 200 years old were allowed to continue. That’s where we get the Dominican Rite, the Mozarabic Rite (in parts of Spain), and the Ambrosian Rite (just in the city of Milan!), among others. Or, in some cases Christian groups joining the Church are allowed to keep most of their traditional liturgy. This is the case with the “Anglican Use” rite, and is being worked on right now with the large numbers of Anglicans interested in coming into communion with Rome. Similar things have happened through history with Orthodox Christians from various countries – they have come back into communion with Rome. So, there are many Eastern rites of the Catholic Church (Greek, Hungarian, Ruthenian, Ukranian, etc). There is also the Coptic rite – composed of Egyptian Christians who returned to communion with Rome. This is just a sampling of the many liturgical traditions around the world today. The Roman Rite is by far the largest, but these others exist alongside.
So, the Mass is what we call the particular form of the liturgy most Catholics around the world participate in today (the Roman Rite). The important thing to remember is what unites all of these different forms of liturgy in different times and places – participation in the eternal Heavenly Liturgy!
You may be wondering how this works – how do we have the ability to be united with heaven? That is the subject of the next post – “How does the Liturgy work?”
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