Get Real: Pray the Mass

I read escapist novels – like fairy tales and westerns – to escape. Duh. But how does it happen?

The story puts me into a different world. An unreal one, where death is comic-book death, where there are superhuman helpers, and the good guy always wins. I can get out of the real world for awhile, lose myself in a different one. Escape.

It dawned on me: this is what Mass is, except the unreal world we get into there is the real one.

This world is true and false reality. The ground is solid under my feet – as long as God keeps willing it into existence. Of itself it is nothingness. So are other people. So am I.

My relationship with others, no matter how deep, still doesn’t reach the core of their being. I don’t know any of them as they really are. Nor do I know myself.

I feel alive. I am alive – tentatively. But what feels like life has already ended in death, if I include the future. I am more “living” than “alive.” It is a passing condition.

Things give me pleasure. I think of it as happiness. Money and health make me feel secure. Approval and success make me feel I am worth something. Sirach said it like it is: “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity!”

Now let’s go to Mass.

From the moment we enter church we are in a different world. God’s world. What is real is God: Father, Son and Spirit. What is real about us is that we share in the divine life of God (the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”). We are forever. We are divine. That is reality.

At Mass our conscious connection with others is the mystery of “communion in the Holy Spirit.” It is not sociological Catholicism. We are one as the Father, Son and Spirit are one (John 17:11-21). That is a mystery. But it is reality. One that will last forever.

We praise God, calling to mind who he is: “For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High!” That restores perspective. That is reality.

We listen to God’s words read at Mass. They clash with the words of the culture, the words we see and hear all day. But God’s words are true. They are reality.

Jesus Christ becomes present in the act of offering himself on the cross. It is a “real presence.” Calvary is present to us. We are present on Calvary. We are united to Jesus, participating in his act of sacrifice. That is reality. It is the reality of our lives. .

At Baptism we “presented our bodies as a living sacrifice to God.” We were incorporated into Christ’s body on the cross, died in Christ and rose to be his living body on earth (Romans 6:3-4; 12:12). The truth about our being is that we “were buried with Christ in baptism, and were also raised with him” and “seated with him in the heavenly places” (Colossians 2:12; Ephesians 2:6). That is what we celebrate at Mass. That is reality.

We were “reborn,” “raised with Christ” out of the “womb tomb” of Baptism, so that we might “walk in newness of life.”

“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). That is reality.

At Communion time we enter in preview into the “wedding banquet of the Lamb.” Christ the “Bread of heaven” has entered visibly into each one. For a brief moment all divisions are forgotten, all resentments put aside, all offenses forgiven. We are one as we will be in heaven – and, in the eternal “now” of God, already are. That is reality.

Now “the Mass is ended. You are sent forth.”  We are sent back into the “real” world of shadow permanence, of wavering focus, false perceptions and phony promises. The world which lures us to forget who we are.

But we are sent back to remember. And to proclaim. We go out to bring the whole world into reality, into the celebration that lets us “escape” into the world that is real.

We “Go in peace.”

Praying the "Hail Mary"

The “Hail Mary” is probably the prayer Catholics recite most often, although it is not an “official” prayer of the Church. (Every prayer in our liturgy is addressed to God; never to Mary or a Saint).

No one really knows who put it together or popularized it. It just “caught on” and became a part of the Catholic mentality. We could call it the “laity’s prayer,” because it sums up the blessings common to every Christian. It encourages all of us to live out our vocation.

The “Hail Mary” is just two verses of the Gospel (Luke 1:28, 42) that someone memorized and began to recite, followed by a one-line petition: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

To appreciate the Hail Mary, substitute your own name for Mary. Then the prayer becomes a proclamation of what all Christians are by the gift of grace:

“Hail (NAME), you are favored by God.” Mary was in fact “full of grace,” but the phrase is a mistranslation of kekaritomene, “favored one.” All the reborn are “highly favored” by God and should draw strength and comfort from recalling it.

“The Lord is with you.” He is with all of us. We proclaim it every time we say “Dominus vobiscum,” “The Lord be with you.” Or “Goodbye,” short for “God be with you.” The prayer helps us stay constantly aware of his presence and confident of his help.

“Blessed are you among women/men.” Within the community of believers, each one of us is singularly and specially blessed. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit…To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1Corinthians 12:4-7). Like Mary, each of us is “highly favored” and singularly blessed. We need to keep ourselves conscious of it and use gratefully for others the gifts God is giving us.

“And blessed is the fruit of your womb/life.” Jesus said to each of us: “You did not choose me but I chose you,” as I chose Mary. “And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 15:16). As Paul expressed it, all of us, like Mary, are “in the pain of childbirth” until “Christ is formed” in everyone we deal with. We are all “building up the body of Christ, until we become one… in the knowledge of God’s Son and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature” (see Galatians 4:19; Ephesians 4:13). The Hail Mary reminds us that, in everything we do, God is at work in us to bring Christ to be and to fullness in others. We are chosen to live fruitful lives.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...” We turn to Mary, remembering how holy, how great she is. She gave birth to God himself. We ask her to pray that we, who are sinners, will be able to do the little things God asks of us and that we aspire to do for the world.

Now, and at the hour of our death.” We ask her to pray that we will be able to surrender to God here and now, while we are still sinners. And we ask her to help us surrender totally at the hour of our death, when our “Yes” to God will be made perfect.

Amen. So be it. This is our life. What we see in Mary is the preview and promise of the perfection we will all have when we see the Church, all of us, “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

Hail, favored one of God, blessed are you.