All Feelings Aside,
the Mass is the Mass
Spend this Easter season preparing for
the coming of more.
Some Masses, one feels the weight of
the world lifted. The union of Heaven and Earth that we know takes place at
every celebration of the Mass is tangible.
Other Masses, one spends the time hoping somehow to get to that quiet
place that once seemed so effortless. And some Masses, one goes and rests on
the knowledge, despite all our distraction, Jesus is present, and grace
abounds.
The problem is, we rely often on how we feel as an indicator of the
“success” of the Mass. If the liturgy and the music and the homily somehow
generate a feeling of peace or joy, the person talks about it having been a
“good Mass,” and it was. If someone goes and doesn’t like the music or can’t
quiet themselves or is constantly struggling with the all of it, they wonder
why they go. In this Easter season, people come to Mass hoping to have an
“experience.” But regardless of one’s feelings, the celebration was still
a “good Mass.”
Why?
It was the Mass. If you went to big events and found yourself
feeling unprepared, as if unready for the occasion, underdressed spiritually so
to speak and wondering what you got out of it, rejoice.
You’ve received a gift. You’ve been offered the opportunity to enter
deeper into God’s mysterious abiding love, to know all the spaces in your soul
that have yet to allow God’s love to overflow into them.
God’s grace permeates everything, can pierce any soul, but only does so
at the behest of the soul itself. So thank God for that awareness of your
emptiness. It is a quiet people spend their whole Lent seeking to find, a
quiet we cannot create, we can only seek. We just spent the 40 plus days
wandering in the desert using prayer, fasting, the sacraments, stillness in
front of the Eucharist, and listening to Scripture — looking for the Burning
Bush, for the Lamb we’re to sacrifice, for our own lives to quiet enough to
hear the still small voice of God who is always speaking, always whispering to
our souls, “Be opened.”
As the women walking to the tomb to anoint Christ’s body, the rolling
away of the stone from our hearts is not something we can do. It is a gift of
God’s grace. However the bracing rush of the Holy Spirit into the cave of
our souls accentuates for each of us, all the parts of ourselves that ache, all
the parts which are empty. So if you didn’t “feel” something this Easter,
rejoice. Rejoice because you know something of your emptiness, of your need for
God. The mass is a celebration of love, and love is always more than our
feelings.
We are only the earthen vessels, always seeking to hold more of the
precious body and blood of Christ. Trust that this emptiness is in preparation
of the more of Pentecost. Spend this Easter season preparing for the
coming of more.
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