The greatest prayer we can offer is the Mass.
If the sanctification of our soul is found in an increasingly more intimate union with God, then the greatest means to this union is the Mass: the source and summit of the Christian life.
As we become more inwardly focused, we begin to understand that the Mass is the source of all the graces we need to live our day as Christ lived his.
It renews, preserves, and increases in our souls, the life of grace, which is eternal life begun here on earth.
Reflections such as these protect us from attending Mass out of habit and without faith.
So often we come as to a routine affair, without thought, and more, without the love that ought to be inspired by what we are experiencing here.
Refreshed by contemplation of the profundity of this act, it should become the greatest act of each our days, and all other acts that we offer God in the course of the day should be only the accompaniment of this act.
For what we celebrate is the same sacrifice in substance as that of the Cross.
To stir up the right response to what is happening, we should go in our imagination to Calvary and understand that we are there with Christ in the here and now.
We should unite ourselves with him there in that great contemplative prayer to the Father that he makes on our behalf.
Here is the real presence of Christ acting on our behalf on the altar: “When you see the ordained priest at the altar raising the sacred host towards heaven, do not believe that this man is the true (principal) priest, but, raising your thoughts above what strikes the senses, consider the hand of Christ invisibly extended,” St John Chrysostom counselled.
The priest whom we see with our eyes cannot penetrate all the depths of this mystery, but above him there is the mind and will of Christ, the principal priest.
Let us see and enter into the love expressed in this mystery, the love which inspires this act.
“I have not a vague thought, but the absolute certitude that if a soul saw and contemplated any of the intimate splendours of the sacrament of the altar, it would take fire, for it would see divine love…those who take part in it, ought to meditate profoundly on the deep truth of the holy mystery in the contemplation of which we should remain motionless and absorbed.’’ So says St Angela of Foligno.
This act of Christ pleases God more than all sins together displease him.
“The Eucharistic sacrifice is more powerful than all the evil in the world,” St John Paul II said.
Its effects are poured forth on us if we desire that. If we do not resist the graces on offer it leads us to profound repentance and renewal of life.
Another way of saying this is that its effects are in proportion to our fervour. If we unite ourselves with it to the best of our ability, we will obtain abundant graces, not only for ourselves but for those we love.
Because the Mass is essentially the same sacrifice as that of the cross, it is a universal cause of graces of light, attraction and strength.
The greater the love, faith, confidence, and reverence with which we assist at Mass, the greater the fruits we draw from it.
If we can develop this attunement to what is happening, this attention whereby the mind is fixed on God, sometimes to the extent that it forgets everything else, we will produce fruits in holiness of life. We will hardly recognise ourselves.
There are contemplative cues to such attunement: we can attend to the words of the liturgical prayers, so beautiful in their simplicity, and full of meaning; we can think of ourselves as standing at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady, or like St John, resting on Jesus at the Last Supper.
The important thing is to use our mind and imagination to be there with Christ.
When we understand the Mass as a fruitful source of holiness and ever new graces, we can become more connected with Christ in his high priestly prayer and have a deeper understanding of its relevance to us.
The “they’’ Christ refers to in this prayer is not just the apostles but all who will follow in their footsteps.
We come to realise that “the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me’’, John 17:19-23.
These are no longer just words on a page, but become a living reality and the source of union with God.
In the presence of Christ in the Mass we become silent in order to listen to him, and leave ourselves in order to lose ourselves in him. Together at worship, in union with him though lost in ourselves, we are one.
