A Primer For Clueless Catholics: IV -- The Road To Golgotha

Boston Catholic Journal ^ | June 2, 2005 | Boston Catholic Journal

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

 

A Primer for Clueless Catholics

IV 

The Road to Golgotha
 
We had just said that

"With us, that new world of unspeakable life and beauty will be revealed ... when we close our eyes. "
 As the eyes of the body close, the eyes of faith open.
 And what they will see, discover to us, reveal, will touch the fiber of our being ... and more than touch it,
 transform it!" 

How so?

Once you begin to understand where you are --- really and truly --- a change, a profound change, will begin to occur within you. You will be unable to prevent it. Initially --- even necessarily --- it will come to you through your understanding, and as you enter more deeply into the realization of where you are, your understanding itself will begin to be eclipsed by something deeper still, by something more vital.

Understanding will "tell" you where you are --- but faith will take you beyond the appearances, to the the realities beneath them. The change that will come will occur within you --- not in the appearances of things about you.

You will have changed.

But as we had also said, before any of this occurs, you must first understand what is happening before you --- and it is this, and nothing less than this in any way:

Jesus Christ is being crucified before you. He is on the Cross --- He is bleeding and He is dying. And you are witnessing it. You are even taking part in it!

It is not another Sacrifice, but the same Sacrifice that He enacted 2000 years ago. It is not a "re-enactment" much as great battles are re-enacted for theatrical effect. It is an "enactment", the "same" enactment, re-presented to us (not represented to us, but "re-presented" to us ... enacted again while not being a second or another sacrifice. It is the same Sacrifice, but now you witness it before you, take part in it ... see the unspeakable value of your life ... and the consequences of your choices  ... before you.

Time, we told you, had been left in the vestibule as we entered the Church. It no longer divides us from that day.

We have entered into something sacred, and everything sacred is invested with the eternal, for it pertains to God Who Is eternal. Whose Son is eternal. The Son of God, now here before us on that Cross of agony hewn from our sins.

How then will you enter?

Everything that leads up to the Canon of the Mass (that most sacred part of the Mass in which the Consecration occurs, when the bread becomes Jesus' Body, the wine His Blood) is a prologue to that epic moment when He will be sacrificed before you.

When you passed the doors leading into the Church and to the Sanctuary, you began to wend your way through the road that leads to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull --- the Mount of Crucifixion, the Altar of Sacrifice.

Not unlike 2000 years ago, the people that line the way, the voices, the talking, the laughing, together with all the other things that compete for your attention as you walk that road to your pew --- one and all, they will call you aside, distract you as though to call you away from a false prophet on a road well worn and ultimately tiresome ...

Something has changed, however. This day is unlike other days. You begin to understand ...

How, then, will you enter?

What we have learned today:

 

The Mass is the enactment, really and truly present before you, of Jesus' Sacrifice on Calvary

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

Part 1 - The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - A Primer for Clueless Catholics (Part 1)

Part 2 - The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Part 2 - A Sacred Darkness

Part 3 - The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Part 3 - "I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore, Toto"

 

[NYer]

Jesus Christ is being crucified before you. He is on the Cross --- He is bleeding and He is dying. And you are witnessing it. You are even taking part in it!

Is it any wonder that some Catholic Churches have taken down the Crucifix and replaced it with a 'Risen Christ'. What is it they fear?

[Salvation]

**Is it any wonder that some Catholic Churches have taken down the Crucifix **

Or replaced a REAL crucifix with a sanitized one -- showing hardly any blood spilled by Christ

[Salvation]

I just tried to find the thread about the number of wounds of Christ as stated in a vision by Saint Anne Catherine Emmerich. But the search function isn't working again.

Will look later.

(I seem to remember it being over 5,000 -- something like 5,280 or 5,820.

[Desdemona]

BTTT

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I adore thee, O Christ, and I bless thee,
for by thy holy cross thou has redeemed the world.




O Bread of life,
You who offer yourself
to feed this sad, sin-sick world,
who joins us anew,
day after day
the living God
who comes to us in so fragile a form
that even a child may partake,
waiting patiently for those who love him,
waiting patiently to cure our sin-sick souls
with the light of heaven,
O blessed Lord,
I come to you,
unworthy but summoned,
undeserving, but loved.
I long to say,
Feed me, cure me, heal me,
I who have failed you time and again,
Yet when I see you there,
broken, poured out,
waiting for me,
all I can do is fall on my knees
in grief at my imperfection,
in awe of the depths of your love,
and only say
I adore thee,
I love thee,
help me to love thee more.

[ArrogantBustard]

Should any of y'all ever visit Harper's Ferry, WV, you should be sure to include St. Patrick's Church ... they have a crucifix that Mel Gibson would surely approve.

[Salvation]

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[kstewskis]

Is it any wonder that some Catholic Churches have taken down the Crucifix and replaced it with a 'Risen Christ'. What is it they fear?

my former parish did this when they built their new church several years ago.

You can guess where the Tabernacle is too. Off to the side behind some weird "cage".

[NYer]

You can guess where the Tabernacle is too. Off to the side behind some weird "cage".

And I'll bet their packing them in like sardines, right? That's what happened in my former parish. Catholic Lite homilies, contemporary music, felt banners, an expanded parking lot and now they just finished renovating the interior. It was already contemporary; I can only imagine what's been done to 'improve' on it.

The Tabernacle belongs in the Sacristy along with the Crucifix.

[kstewskis]

Catholic Lite homilies, contemporary music, felt banners, an expanded parking lot and now they just finished renovating the interior. It was already contemporary; I can only imagine what's been done to 'improve' on it.

Wow, that sounds exactly like a "mirror" of what is happening at the ex-parish. Sheesh!

[KateatRFM]

Thank you for alerting me to this series; I have read the first six and will ponder them, then continue on. The part that discusses Courtesy is the most striking of all; often we do see people (and unfortunately hear them) waving, blabbering, socializing and carrying on in the sanctuary not only in blithe disregard of other worshippers but in disregard of the Lord God Himself. Would that more priests emphasized the necessity to "be still and know that I am God"! I wonder if we are so afraid of what we might find in silence that we are compelled by our guilt to fill every moment with blabbering nonsense? It's certainly worth considering ... how hard it is to be still and focus only on the Lord who stands before us in the sanctuary.

[sneakers]

Bump!

[trisham]

bttt

[Salvation]

**. The part that discusses Courtesy is the most striking of all; **

Absolutely. What would we do if we met Jesus Christ in person? Well...................we do!!!

[Salvation]

**I wonder if we are so afraid of what we might find in silence that we are compelled by our guilt to fill every moment with blabbering nonsense?**

Definitely a part of the secular world that Catholics at Mass have fallen victim to.