To go to Mass is to go to heaven, where “God Himself … will wipe away every tear” (Rev 21:3–4). Yet heaven is even more than that. Heaven is where we place ourselves under judgment, where we see ourselves in the clear morning light of eternal day, and where the just Judge reads our works from the book of life. Our deeds go with us when we go to heaven. Our deeds go with us when we go to Mass.

To go to Mass is to renew our covenant with God, as at a marriage feast—for the Mass is the marriage supper of the Lamb. As in a marriage, we take vows, we pledge ourselves, we assume a new identity. We are changed forever.

To go to Mass is to receive the fullness of grace, the very life of the Trinity. No power in heaven or on earth can give us more than we receive in the Mass, for we receive God into ourselves.

We must never underestimate these realities. In the Mass, God has given us His very life. This is not just a metaphor, or a symbol, or a foretaste. We must go to Mass with eyes and ears, mind and heart open to the truth that is before us, the truth that rises like incense. God’s life is a gift we must receive properly and with gratitude. He gives us grace as He has given us fire and light. Fire and light, misused, can burn us or blind us. In a similar way, grace received unworthily subjects us to judgment, and to much more dire consequences.

In every Mass, God renews His covenant with each of us, setting before us life and death, blessing and curse. We must choose the blessing for our own, and reject the curse, and we must do this from the very start.

MAKING A SPLASH

From the moment you walk into church, you place yourself under oath. By dipping your fingers into holy water, you renew the covenant begun with your baptism. Perhaps you were baptized as an infant; your parents made the decision for you. But now, with this simple motion, you make the decision for yourself. You touch the water to your forehead, your heart, your shoulders, and you sign yourself by “the name” in which you were baptized. Wrapped up in this motion is your acceptance of the creed, which your parents accepted in your name at your baptism. Wrapped up in this motion is your rejection of Satan, and all his pomps, and all his works.

Doing this, you testify, you make testimony, as you would in court. In court, a witness puts himself, his reputation, and his future on the line. If he fails to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he knows he will face severe consequences.

You, too, are under oath. Don’t forget: the Latin word sacramentum literally means “oath.” When you make the Sign of the Cross, you renew the sacrament of baptism, thus renewing your obligation to live up to the rights and duties of the New Covenant. You will love God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength; you will love your neighbor as yourself.

You have especially vowed to tell the truth during this Mass. For this is the court of heaven; here, God will open the book of life; here, you will take the witness stand. Many, many times during the Mass, you will say “Amen,” the Aramaic word that conveys assent and agreement: Yes! So be it! Truly! “Amen” is more than a response; it is a personal commitment. When you say “Amen,” you commit your life, so you’d better mean it.

Thus, in the Mass, you are not merely a spectator. You are a participant. Yours is the covenant that you will renew. Yours is the covenant that Jesus Himself will renew, here and now.

OATH MEAL

Whenever God made a covenant, He also gave a program for its renewal. A covenant wasn’t just a past event; it was ongoing, perpetually present, continually reactualized. Generations might pass since the covenant at Sinai; but whenever the children of Israel renewed that covenant, whenever they marked the Passover, it was as if the covenant were being made today.

The Mass is our perpetual renewal of the New Covenant. The Mass is a solemn oath you take before countless witnesses, as in the court of the Book of Revelation. “And so with all the choirs of angels we sing …” When heaven touches down upon earth, you receive the privilege of praying beside the angels. But you also receive the duty of living up to your prayers. Those same angels will hold you accountable for every word you pray.

And not only for what we pray, but for what we hear. Because it is God’s Word that we hear proclaimed, and not the promises of some politician whom we can vote “for” or “against.” We hear the Word of God, and not some news report whose reliability we may choose to doubt. In earthly courts, witnesses merely swear on the Bible; at Mass, we swear to the Bible. We hear God’s Word; we will be held to it.

“I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Do we live by the teachings of that Church without stint and without exception? Studies indicate that more than 90 percent of Catholics in the United States, for example, reject the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control. Yet we can assume that these same Catholics place themselves under oath each Sunday and recite the creed. What are the consequences of such enormous false witness?

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We, who beg God’s mercy, place this condition upon His mercy: that we will first forgive those who have wronged us. Yet nearly all of us carry some grudges with us, even beyond the doorway of the church.

“Peace be with you. And also with you.” We symbolically extend peace to every neighbor. Yet how many hours will pass between the end of the Mass and the first outburst of our temper?

“The Body of Christ. Amen.” With what attention do we receive the Bread of Life, the Christ of faith and history? If we greeted an earthly king with the same attention, how would we be judged?

To hear the Word of God. To receive the Bread of Life. These are profound mysteries; they are incredible gifts; yet they are also mighty commitments. In the Mass, we receive divine life, divine power, more mighty than the greatest forces on the earth. Think about electricity, which can light your home or stop your heart. Think about fire, which can warm your family or consume a city block. These are but dim shadows of the supernatural power of God, Who created fire and formed the earth out of nothing. If we teach our children to treat electricity and fire with respect, how much more respectfully should we ourselves treat the very mysteries of heaven, which fill us in Holy Communion?

TRUTH—OR CONSEQUENCES

We cannot explain away the judgment we bring upon ourselves when we fail to live up to our witness. Hear the testimony of St. Paul: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27). Guilty of blasphemy! This is no small matter. To ensure a pure sacrifice, the early Christians confessed their sins—in public! Today, the sacrament of confession is private, and not as burdensome. Do we make the most of it?

“This is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor 11:29). We dare not dismiss this as outdated or superstitious. Paul meant what he said, and the Church, even today, preserves this idea in its liturgy. Bad Communions bring judgment upon our heads. The priest, before receiving Communion, says: “Let it not bring me condemnation, but health in mind and body.”

To receive Communion, then, is to receive heaven—or to bring the most severe punishment upon oneself. In some times and places, the weight of this judgment kept Christians away from Communion for years at a time. Yet this is not Paul’s solution. Rather than stay away, he recommends repentance. “Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor 11:28).

This is an exam that no one passes. We are all sinners. No one is worthy to approach almighty God—never mind enter into Communion with Him. Even St. John, the Beloved Disciple and a model of purity and virtue, fell down in awe when he saw His best friend, Jesus Christ, in glory. How do we respond, interiorly, when the priest holds up the Host and says, “This is the Lamb of God …”?

No doubt about it: We must fight the spiritual battles that will win us recollection, attention, and contrition during the Mass.

TRUE LOVE ALWAYS

We want the blessing of the covenant, and not the curse. The more we are prepared for Mass, the more grace we will take away from the Mass. And remember: the grace available in the Mass is infinite—it’s all the grace of heaven. The only limit is our capacity to receive it.

This blessing is pure power, though not as the world understands power. Grace means freedom, though not as the world understands freedom. Union with Christ made Simon Peter stronger than the Roman emperor Nero, even though Nero authorized Peter’s death. Peter received heaven; Nero ruled the world, but was consumed by his perversions, which grew ever more depraved, driving him to suicide in the year A.D. 68.

Grace makes up for every weakness of our human nature. With God’s help, we’re able to do what we could never do on our own: namely, love perfectly, sacrifice completely, lay down our lives as Christ did. We will cling to nothing of the earth, preferring instead to rise to heaven.

The martyrs of the Apocalypse are the ones who speak from the altar. They are sacraments of the Eucharistic sacrifice of Christ. In their lives, they manifested the true nature of love: sacrificial self-offering.

We can live this martyrdom wherever we are. We need not travel to oppressive, anti-Christian countries to be martyrs. We need only do all the same things we’ve always done—but now making every one of those gestures, actions, thoughts, and feelings an expression of love for the Father, an imitation of the Son within us. That’s what it means to live the Mass.

WORKING WONDERS

That’s what it means to be a missionary and a martyr, restoring all things in Christ. It means cooking dinner unto Christ, and through Him to the Father, and for His children, who are yours. It means going to work and doing a job with friendship for your coworkers, and not merely to get a better wage next year, or get a promotion, but to earn an eternal inheritance.

Remember again the words of Vatican II: “[T]heir work, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily labor, their mental and physical relaxation … all of these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. During the celebration of the Eucharist these sacrifices are most lovingly offered to the Father along with the Lord’s body.”

Our whole life gets caught up in the Mass and becomes our participation in the Mass. As heaven descends to earth, we lift up our earth to meet it halfway. That’s the splendor of the ordinary: the workaday world becomes our Mass. That’s how we bring about the Kingdom of God. When we begin to see that heaven awaits us in the Mass, we begin already to bring our home to heaven. And we begin already to bring heaven home with us.

We become martyrs, witnesses to Jesus Christ, Whose Parousia, Whose Presence, we know most intimately.

SUPPER’S READY

We were made as creatures on earth, but we were made for heaven, and nothing less. We were made in time like Adam and Eve, yet not to remain in an earthly paradise, but to be taken up into the eternal life of God Himself.

Now, heaven has been unveiled for us with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now is the Communion God has created us for. Now, heaven touches earth and awaits you. Jesus Christ Himself says to you: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:20).

The door opens now on the marriage supper of the Lamb.