In the Catholic tradition, every concrete thing is a sign and symbol revealing an invisible truth. A family isn't just a family (father, mother, children); they are a sign of the Trinity (God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Marriage isn't just two people uniting on the basis of mutual attraction; it is a sign of Christ's eternal marriage to His bride, the Church. A meal isn't just something tasty we share with friends and family; it is a sign of Communion, the holy meal of immortality.
God intended for creation to be a sign. We are meant to move from the tangible to the intangible, the concrete to the abstract. All of life can be "read" in this way.
At any given moment, so many things are happening to me. It mostly seems mundane, and yet mysteriously purposeful. People come and go. Opportunities present themselves, doors close. I feel inspired to try this or that. In spite of my best efforts, trials come and not everything is within my control.
What is the invisible, ultimate reality constantly at play beyond what I can see? When I sense greater forces at work, what are they?
The standard religious response to this would be, "God." His Providence, etc. But can we flesh that out? Can we draw back the veil?
Eden and Heaven
I think yes, and I believe the mass is the key. Before we can understand the significance of the mass, however, we must first understand Eden and Heaven.
First, Eden.
In the Bible, we read that in the beginning, somewhere between metaphor and reality, there was a sacred garden in Eden. It was a place of flowing waters, bejeweled rivers, trees and wildlife, a Tree of Life, and an Eternal-Life giving fruit from said tree. It was also a place of free choice and the possibility to choose God, or not to choose God. Before our first parents rejected God, it was a time of harmony: within man, between man and God, and between human beings. Everything "worked" because the love of God animated and harmonized every aspect of reality.
Then, Heaven.
In the Book of Revelation, we read of another realm in conversation with our own. Angels travel back and forth between this realm and hours, carrying our prayers to God and shaping world events in accordance with His designs. There is a Lamb of God, an altar, candles, gold, and incense. God is adored by a multitude of martyrs in white robes. There is praise and singing, the reading aloud of the Word from a scroll, and a moment of silence to acknowledge what is unspeakable.
The Mass
In light of these definitions of Eden and Heaven, let's see if anything sounds familiar.
Imagine stepping inside a Catholic church...
One's first instinct would be to speak in hushed tones; for some, this is a sacred space. There is water; a baptismal font may be quietly flowing, or at least there may be various fixtures filled with water in which people dunk their fingers and bless themselves. Stained glass glistens like gemstones above us, and if we are in a cathedral, there will likely be foliage and animals carved into the stonework. Distantly, we see a crucifix, a man hanging on a tree. We have heard the strange custom of eating and drinking something called Communion (eternal-life giving food?) Are we in Eden?
Mass begins. Ahead, is the throne-altar, attended to by deacons in white robes. Candles flicker, and incense may be burning. The choir sings the Gloria, a lector reads the Word of God. Following the homily, there is silence to acknowledge what is unspeakable. Like martyrs, the faithful make an offering of their lives to God in acclamation after acclamation. Have we stepped into Heaven?
My answer to both questions is yes! In the mass, Eden is restored and Heaven is revealed and made present. We really do experience Eden, or Earth set right, Earth as it was meant to be (ordered to God). We really do step into the realm of Revelation, or Heaven. The great surprise is that they are experienced together, as one and the same thing.
The Union of the Physical and the Spiritual
In God's plan, Heaven and Earth are meant for each other. The Book of Revelation describes God coming down from Heaven to dwell with His people at the end of time. The Nicene Creed reminds us that we await a New Heavens, and a New Earth. Although we fail to reflect adequately upon it, Heaven will not be as otherworldly as we imagine. It is of the faith that we will be resurrected and live on a new, renewed earth. The difference is that we will "see" God with the eyes of our hearts completely and perfectly, even as we dwell on this earth. In the final analysis, Heaven will be like Eden, only Eden brought to a greater degree of grandeur than it was before the Fall.
Understood in this light, Earth (and all of creation, including us!) is destined for glory. Heaven and Earth will be one and the same reality.
Yet, in our sin and ignorance, we struggle to unite the two. We are suspicious of the spiritual (Heaven), as though it will sabotage the joys of the physical (Earth). We are suspicious of the physical (Earth), assuming that it is too base in comparison to the spiritual (Heaven). Yet, it is God's will that Heaven and Earth be united, at the end of time. The incarnation of Christ was a foretaste of this blessed union. In His very person, He united the divine (spiritual) and human (physical).
We the baptized are living, walking first fruits of this Earth/Heaven marriage. The Holy Trinity lives in our hearts, therefore Heaven dwells in our physical bodies. In our very beings, the union of the two has already taken place.
Heaven is Earth redeemed. It starts with us, with the redemption of our bodies into temples of the Holy Spirit by virtue of our baptism. It then extends to our little corner of creation, which we set right under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We might as well say that we already live in Heaven, though we will experience it with more perfection and intensity after death. We can rightly say that our lives, homes, and workspaces are Heaven because we have sanctified them by our stewardship and they are now ordered to God.
Everyday Heaven
Heaven looks surprisingly everyday, doesn't it? It is simply life lived in union with the Holy Spirit. As our life flows by, the greatest tragedy is to see nothing particularly extraordinary in it. We try to "make it," hungry for achievement and pleasures in the hope that we will be enough. We intuit that we are here for a purpose and we are. But we too easily succumb to ideas of greatness that are easier for the human mind and ego to visualize: all that impresses, all that sounds good, all that looks good.
But just as Jesus's life was hidden to Israel, so is the purpose of our life--Jesus in us--hidden. As we go about our day to day, making phone calls, finishing projects, fixing this, putting food on the table, helping a loved one, we may not see that we are God's heavenly, helping hands. The extraordinary and heavenly is hidden in the ordinary and earthly events of our lives.
We struggle so much to unite the two in our minds. We have a tendency to think of our messy, imperfect lives as "mere Earth." Heaven is distant, imperfect, unattainable. But the truth is that, for the baptized, Heaven is now. And it will continue to intensify in us and in our lives as we die to sin and grow in the Holy Spirit.
The Mass as Seeing
The mass is an exercise in "seeing" reality as both physical and spiritual, Eden and Heaven. All of the trappings of Eden and Revelation are present, and yet. Maybe the lector is your neighbor. You've driven past this parish for years. The homily was a bit long, will mass really end by 11:00am because you need to be somewhere....
Yet, as everyday Catholics celebrate the mass, they are acting in concert with the Heavenly mass. They are doing so in a sacred space, Earth redeemed. If they have the eyes to see it, they are in Heaven. And they have a solemn obligation to bring Heaven into their homes, workplaces, and communities. The mass invites us to entertain the mystery of the divine amidst the everyday, where we least expect it to be.
The Divine is often less otherworldly than we expect it to be. No one recognized Joseph and Mary for anything special. The Son of God was almost born outside, roadside for lack of anywhere to stay. When He came forward in the synagogue in Nazareth and read from Isaiah, citing Himself as the fulfillment of Israel's hopes, the people could only say one thing, "Isn't that (just) Joseph and Mary's son?" Much of the Bible reads like genealogical lists, wars, migrations, and marriages made. Yet, God is present in all of those things, using those things to further His Kingdom.
The challenge of the spiritual life is not escaping reality, it's seeing divine purposes in everyday reality, where we least expect them to be. The hardest thing is not to levitate to somewhere else, it's to give the ordinary extraordinary dignity.
Next time we attend mass, may we remember that we are stepping into Heaven, and that this Heaven is meant to overflow into our daily lives.
St. Lucy, pray for us that we may "see"!
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