|  Meditations Before Mass
by Romano Guardini
XXV. Reality
AT THE Last Supper we saw how
the Lord established institution upon institution: the memorial of
His saving love and its covenant between God and the new holy people
upon the memorial of the liberation from Egypt under the old
covenant, now completed. For He "to whom all power" and
authority has been given declares it terminated, since all that it
promised and prepared for has been fulfilled. Now the new, valid,
commemorative feast is there, to remain "until the Lord
returns" at the end of time. Those who believe in Him are to
come together and "do this," to do exactly what He did on
that last evening. The command involves Him too; for when His
followers obey and do, what happened then will happen again, just as
when He Himself acted. They are to take bread, give thanks, bless it
and speak over it the words He spoke. They are to take the chalice
and again thank, bless, speak as He did. Not anyone is entitled to
do this, but those whom Jesus addressed at that time, His
table-companions at the last Passover, the apostles, to whom He had
already committed His authority (see Matt. 10); after them, those to
whom they in turn would pass on their powers, the bishops and their
assistants in the divine office, the priests. What these bearers of
office do will be no private act. The whole concept of office
suggests something that lies not in the sphere of the personally
creative or the spontaneous, but in the law and in the delegation of
authority. An office exists not for its bearer, but for all, for the
whole. When the priest performs what the Lord commanded, all act
with him, so that after the Lord's death one can truly say that
"they," the believers, "continued steadfastly in the
teaching of the apostles and in the communion of the breaking of the
bread and in the prayers" (Acts 2:42). "And continuing
daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread in their
houses, they took their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
praising God and being in favor with all the people" (Acts
2:46-47).
From this we see that at the
time the Christians were still living in the old order, observing
the prescribed services of the temple as the others did. They had
not yet realized that the temple with its services, together with
the entire order of the Old Testament, was ended and that a new
life-pattern was slowly taking shape. Already the little community
has something entirely of its own, the ceremonial breaking of bread
"in their houses." In all probability, groups of early
Christians met in homes large enough for the purpose. At first there
was simply an ordinary meal, an expression of fraternal unity and a
means of helping the poorer among them. Sometimes however, probably
on Sundays, the meal took on a special, festive note (see Acts
20:7). It was always a real meal, though judging from St. Paul's
first Epistle to the Corinthians, it was not always an entirely
spiritual affair! The Epistle is concerned chiefly with current
abuses, but it also suggests how those gatherings were supposed to
be, and how-at least in the beginning-they usually were. The
believers shared together the Agape or meal of love and community in
the sight of God, to which each contributed something. On Sundays
and special days the celebration, longer and more impressive, was
deeply imbued with the memory of the Lord. On those days the one who
presided over the meal, the apostle or his representative, related
the story of Jesus' life and teaching and salutary death. In the
first Epistle to the Corinthians, for instance, we see St. Paul
urging the believers not to forget that they "proclaim the
death of the Lord" whenever they partake, the proclamation
referring to the solemn pronouncement and praise of the sacred
mysteries to follow. Here again the old Passover tradition of the
host's reverent account of the exodus from Egyptian slavery is
terminated and supplanted by the new message of our liberation
through Jesus Christ.
Then, at a certain moment in
the meal, the Lord's representative took bread and the cup, acting
as the Lord had commanded him to do. Before this it has been
commemoration in the spirit, a speaking and hearing, weighing and
accepting: now it is still commemoration, but of a totally different
kind. For that which was commemorated during the first part of the
Mass was not actually present, save in the imagination of the
believers, in the continually efficacious love and grace which
stirred in their hearts and souls. Now the significance of the event
changes. The moment the priest as the Lord's representative, speaks
the words, "This is my body" What is "commemorated"
is also actually present in truth and in reality.
"This is my body,"
"this is my blood"; under no circumstance may the "is"
in these holiest of sentences be interpreted as "means" or
"is a symbol of" my body and blood. If ever the Lord's
admonition, "Let your speech be, 'Yes, yes'; 'No, no'; and
whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one" was deeply
urgent, it is here. It is not only wrong but sacrilegious to tamper
with these words. What they express is simplest truth, and what
takes place pure reality. He who speaks them is neither a "great"
nor "the greatest" religious personality of millenia, but
the Son of God. His words are no expression of mystical profundity,
but a command of Him who has all earthly and heavenly power. They
have no equivalent in human speech, for they are words of
Omnipotence. We can compare them only with other words of the Lord,
when "he arose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there came
a great calm" (Matt. 8:26); or, to the leper, "I will, be
thou made clean" (Matt. 8:3); or to Jairus' dead child, "Girl,
arise!" (Luke 8:54). Their real equivalent is the Father's "Be"
(light made) from which creation itself emerged. (See the first
chapter of Genesis.) Christ gave these sacred words to those He
delegated to guard and execute His memorial. Their origin does not
lie in the priest or bishop who speaks them but in Christ, Who gave
them to priest and bishop. Yet because they are God-given (given
entirely) through grace, they become the priest's own words when he
speaks them in obedience to Christ. Hence the Mass is a
commemoration, but a commemoration of a very special kind. By the
words of the Transubstantiation, what took place on Maundy Thursday,
Christ's gift of self as nourishment for eternal life, takes place
again-in a form which also outwardly resembles the Savior's act on
that holy night.
The commemoration of the Mass
is unique. Since it does not exist at all on the human level, it is
impossible to judge it from here, or to "compare" it with
other apparently similar religio-symbolic acts. Who are we to define
the limits of its possibilities? All we can do is to "hear,"
for what is taking place is revelation. And it could not be revealed
more simply or directly; there can be no question of symbolism here.
The apostles were no modern psychologists or symbolists, but men of
antiquity, whose thinking was characteristically objective and
realistic. They had not forgotten the great speech at Capharnaum in
which Jesus had insisted (for many to the point of intolerability)
on the fact that He was to offer Himself as real food and real
drink, thus forcing His followers to an uncompromising either-or of
faith. There is not a trace of symbolism in the Acts of the Apostles
or in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, or in any of the
earliest Christian writing on this sacred mystery. Without exception
it is taken as revelation, which we cannot call into question,
asking whether it be possible. It is a communication and a command
of God, for whom all things are possible. Our attitude can be
neither that of testing nor of criticizing; it can only be that of
belief, and belief implies obedience. As it is a question of
mystery, we must acknowledge it solely because of God's word. As
soon as we lose sight of this fact, everything is lost. That is why
there is the call of warning and reminding just prior to the heart
of the Mass, the Consecration: the call "mysterium fidei."
Don't forget: we have here a mystery of the faith!
This cry, this call reminds
us of the speech at Carpharnaum, where the same possibility of
rejecting salvation had been displayed:
Many of his disciples
therefore, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying.
Who can listen to it?" But Jesus, knowing in himself that his
disciples were murmuring at this, said to them, "Does this
scandalize you? What then if you should see the Son of Man
ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life;
the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life. But there are some among you who do not believe."
For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not
believe, and who it was who should betray him. And he said, "This
is why I have said to you, 'No one can come to me unless he is
enabled to do so by my Father.' " From this time many of his
disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. Jesus
therefore said to the Twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"
Simon Peter therefore answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou hast words of everlasting life, and we have come to believe
and to know that thou art the Christ, the Son of God" (John
6:60-69).
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