8/6/2023

We have heard from quite a few people who wanted to keep the noon Mass time for Monday rather than changing it to 8 AM. Your voices have been heard; we will keep Monday Mass at noon! We will, however, have Mass on Tuesday at 8:05 AM instead of the Communion Service at noon. Since Fr. Karl is here, it is easier to have more Masses. A Communion service allows one to receive communion, which is the greatest fruit of the Mass. However, the Mass is a sacrifice which produces the Communion we receive. A Mass is a sacrifice – in fact, it allows baptized Christians to enter into, join with, and celebrate the Perfect Sacrifice of Christ on the cross. This is perhaps the greatest privilege of being baptized. More on this at a later time.
Today I wish to reflect on the contrast presented by last week’s parables of the Treasure in a Field and the Pearl of Great Price, and this week’s celebration of the Transfiguration. Christ became human, and his humanity was the presumed state by those who met Him. Through listening to His teaching, watching Him perform miracles, and ultimately through the Resurrection, Ascension, and Descent of the Holy Spirit, the disciples came to realize that Jesus was God as well as man. But His divinity was hidden in His humanity. We call this the period of Christ’s presence in History.
After the Descent of the Holy Spirit, Christ came to be present in and through the Holy Spirit acting in sacramental SIGNS. That is the period we are in now, and which we refer to as the period of Christ’s presence in Mystery. This means He is present through SIGNS. That is why we say Christ is hidden – like the treasure in a field, like the pearl of great price. We search and we do not always find Christ’s presence. It is a mysterious presence, sometimes fleeting, sometimes powerfully present.
The final period is one where Christ is present in Majesty when he comes again in glory. This presence is more like His appearance in heaven, when we see him face to face. It is the deepest longing of our hearts – to see God face to face. It is also permanent – theologians call it the beatific vision, when God dwells in us and we in Him forever. There are certain times when God has shown Himself to humans in all His glory – to Moses on Mt. Sinai, to Peter, James, and John on Mt. Tabor, to the disciples as He Ascended into heaven. Why does God come in Mystery? Nikos Kazantzakis in The Last Temptation of Christ (p. 189+) has this parable:
A man came up to Jesus and complained about the hiddenness of God. “Rabbi,” he said, “I am an old man. During my whole life, I have always kept the commandments. Every year of my adult life, I went to Jerusalem and offered the prescribed sacrifices. Every night of my life, I have not retired to my bed without first saying my prayers. But...I look at the stars and sometimes the mountains – and wait, wait for God to come so that I might see him. I have waited for years and years, but in vain. Why? Why? Mine is a great grievance, Rabbi! Why doesn’t God show himself?”
Jesus smiled and responded gently: “once upon a time there was a marble throne at the eastern gate of a great city. On this throne sat three thousand kings. All of them called upon God to appear so that they might see him, but all went to their graves with their wishes unfulfilled. Then, when the kings had died, a pauper, barefooted and hungry, came and sat upon that throne. ‘God,’ he whispered, ‘the eyes of a human being cannot look directly at the sun, for they would be blinded. How, then, Omnipotent, can they look directly at you? Have pity, Lord, temper you strength, turn down your splendor so that I, who am poor and afflicted, may see you!’
“Then – listen, old man –God became a piece of bread, a cup of cool water, a warm tunic, a hut, and in front of the hut, a woman nursing an infant.
“‘Thank you, Lord,’ the pauper whispered. ‘You humbled yourself for my sake. You became bread, water, a warm tunic and a wife and a child in order that I might see you. And I did see you. I bow down and worship your beloved many-faced face.’”

Father Albert, O.S.B.