But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. The priest – an ordinary man given an extraordinary privilege – holds bread and wine aloft, speaks a prayer of consecration, and the Holy Spirit supernaturally transubstantiates them into the body and blood, soul and divinity of our God-who-took-the-form-of-Man.
Jesus.
.jpg)
Sunday Morning at Mass
A mixed-media creation by Nancy Maffeo
No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway.
During that time of the Mass, our time intersects with eternal time, a time in
which time does not exist; certainly not as we understand time. And we are there, at the whipping post, two thousand years ago as we
count time. His blood oozes from strips of flesh across his back and arms and
legs and buttocks sliced open by the Roman whip. Blood oozes and drops to the
pavement at His feet.
No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway.
God carries the cross laid across His bloody shoulders. Soldiers push Him along
the Via Dolorosa, flogging Him again and again with their whips. Mocking Him
with their jeers. Wetting Him with their spittle. And His blood continues to
ooze and to drop onto the pavement beneath His feet.
No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway.
He stops at the top of Calvary’s hill. Soldiers throw Him down onto the cross
He carried. They grab His hands and feet – they grab God’s hands and feet – and
hammer spikes into His battered flesh.
No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway.
But at each Mass the faithful can follow with their eyes of faith the drops of
blood, like pearls of great price, glistening along the path from whipping post
to splintered cross, the path which only the God-Man could walk, which only the
God-Man could transform from a place of death to a throne of eternal life.
No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway.
But it happens at every Mass.
3 comments:
Awesome reminder of what happens at every Mass. Thanks!
In the DVD companion to the book "Consoling the Heart of Jesus", Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC, says that when God (who is outside time) entered time at the Incarnation, time freaked out! So what ever Jesus did was in God-time. At mass and when we reflect on Jesus' life, we reach out and touch God-time (the ultimate time machine :D ). So we become present at what is taking place (especially at the mass). God is awesome!
Awesome, yes. The more I contemplate Him, the more wonder I discover. Thanks, Peg.
Post a Comment