One of the stories that touched my heart during my
seminary formation was the story of a Chinese archbishop. Dominic Tang, the
courageous Chinese archbishop, was imprisoned for twenty-one years for nothing
more than his loyalty to Christ and Christ’s one and true Church. After spending
five years of solitary confinement in a windowless, damp cell, his jailers told
him that he could leave it for a few hours to do whatever he wanted. After five
years of solitary confinement, he had a couple of hours to do what he wanted! A
hot shower? A change of clothes? A long walk outside? A chance to call or write
to family? “What do you want to do in these two hours?” the jailer asked. “I
would like to say mass,” Archbishop Tang replied. That is something incredible
to think about.
We come once more to the wonderful feast of Corpus Christi,
The solemnity of the most Body and Blood of Jesus. The reading for this year
focuses on the priesthood of Jesus. In the first reading, we see the mysterious
priest Melchizedek. The contest is this. Abraham was coming after a battle in
which he rescued his nephew Lot. On his way back, he met the priest-king of Salem,
which later became Jerusalem, Melchizedek, which means righteous king. He, in
thanksgiving to God for Abram’s victory over his enemies, offers an unbloody
sacrifice of bread and wine. Thousands of years later, we have another priest,
the king of righteousness, king of Jerusalem, prince of peace, performing a
sacrifice involving bread and wine, an unbloody sacrifice of bread and wine in
thanksgiving for the victory over his enemies; not earthly kings, like Sodom
and Gomorrah, but the principalities and the powers of the darkness, over the
angelic powers of the kingdom of Satan.
Why do we need to sacrifice? What is the logic of
sacrifice? In any sacrifice, we return to God some aspect of creation in order
to show our gratitude to God for all his gifts. But does God need our
sacrifices?
Not at all, but it pleases him to receive them, for
they are an expression of justice. They establish the right relationship between
God and us. We can think of a little kid offering his parents a gift. The
parents don’t need the gift. Not as though they see it as something of great
high value. But they treasure the gift because it expresses their child’s love
and gratitude. Something similar we obtain in regard to God and our sacrifices.
He doesn’t need them, but he delights in them because they establish us in the right
relationship.
Now things get a little more complicated when you
take sin into consideration. Sin is an aversion to God. Then our acts of
gratitude and thanksgiving will hurt because they will involve reordering the
self. Sin is always a kind of active ingratitude. To sin is to fall out of
right relation to God. Therefore when the sinner approaches God in the sacrifice,
that sacrifice will hurt. Now we can understand the importance of animal
sacrifice in the old testament. When the blood of the animal is poured out, the
life of the animal is lost in sacrifice. It is an external sign of our painful
inner sacrifice.
But the bread and wine are the less painful sacrifice.
But if we look at what Jesus did the night before he died, taking these simple
elements of bread and wine like Melchizedek, doing something more than animal
sacrifice. Because he identifies those elements with his very self, with his
body and blood and says, they will be offered for us. This is not a sacrifice
among many. But this IS the sacrifice, painful sacrifice on the cross, the
sacrifice which sums up, recapitulates and gathers unto itself all of the
sacrifices of the human race. Because by this one act, Jesus will make righteous
the human race. he will be Melchizedek, the king of righteousness. This
sacrifice re-establishes the right order between God and us.
“What
is it we present to God when we offer Him the Holy Mass?” We present to Him a
treasure so costly that it outweighs the vast heavens and all their infinite
riches. We offer Him a gift of such unspeakable worth that nothing short of the
Almighty, Infinite Deity and His boundless perfection and majesty can equal it.
More cannot be said than this, for in the whole universe, nothing exists, nothing
can be conceived greater than God Himself. Now let us reflect ourself how
priceless a treasure we offer to the Most Holy Trinity in presenting the divinized
humanity of Christ for its acceptance.
Thus,
in Holy Mass, we have the noblest burnt-offering, the sublimest sacrifice of
praise and of thanksgiving. It is the believer’s greatest treasure and the
devout Christian’s dearest joy. It is a salutary atonement for the sinner, a
powerful support for the dying, the surest earnest of deliverance for the
departed. We may truly say that in Holy Mass we are made rich in Christ Jesus,
so that no grace is wanting to us.
So let
us prepare ourselves to offer this immense gift to the Lord with all our hearts
and receive infinite graces.
May God bless you!
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