The Holy Mass as it Relates to the Interior Life ~ Part I
Fr. Samuel Waters | The Daily Knight |Sermon
Part 1: At the Altar
God Wants us to be saints!
We should desire it with Him. He wants to be united with us and us to Him. We shall be saints only as far as the Life of Christ is in us. Christ’s Interior Life was:
1) Passing all night in prayer;
2) He told Mary and Joseph, “dis you not know that I had to be about my Father’s business.”
We are called to imitate Christ. Living in the world we must make every effort to live a life in Christ more and more intensely. If we find it nearly impossible, we need to look at why.
Is it that we are too attached to evil? We must seek to remove the evils that we are attached to.
Are the duties of our State in Life taking your energy and that is what is making it difficult for you? Getting into a routine with prayer may be difficult in the beginning, but learning to start will allow you to experience improvement with doing your other daily tasks.
Another way of making time for Christ in your day is to bring Him into your mind and heart in the mists of doing those other things. Letting God into our daily life by bringing Him to mind is the beginning of the Interior Life. This will put us on the path to becoming Saints. Prayer prepares the soul to receive grace that God wants to give us so that He can live in us. Prayer awakens in us our desire to avoid sin so as not to make us a rival to God’s grace. Holy Conduct purifies the soul; Meditation brings light to the soul and Contemplation brings perfection and makes firm in us the Interior Life.
Jesus’ Life converged and tended towards the Cross. It was from His vantage point of Calvary and its fruits, that He received His strength and encouragement. So should our life tend towards the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross, The Holy Mass!
It must be a continuous preparation and an unceasing act of thanksgiving for that sacrifice. It is from our active participation (offering the Sacred Victim with the Priest to Our Father; offering ourselves- our sufferings, tribulations, self-denials; our being nourished by the reception of the Holy Eucharist) that we must draw new strength and vigor.
If only we assisted at the Sacrifice as the Church teaches us, if only we united ourselves to Christ. If only we offered up to God The Father, in union with His Son all of our sufferings, self-denials, tribulations of each day, then our sufferings would not be wasted. The Lord Jesus would unite them with His own Passion and give us a share in that Glory which His Father conferred on His Sacred Humanity in return for all His sufferings.
If we lived the Holy Mass, our entire day would be a continuous preparation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and also a never-ending Act of Thanksgiving.
Part 2: I am a Sinner
When we confess our sins with true contrition, we give glory to God. Without true contrition, we give God no glory. Things that are repeated over and over sometimes can become less perfect (become absent of their meaning). This is why we must go deeper and deeper into the meaning (particularly concerning the actions at Holy Mass) and look for practical applications of their meaning.
The priest humiliates himself (acknowledges his sinfulness) himself often during Holy Mass. The Church obliges the priest to publicly acknowledge his sinfulness in the presence of the Church Triumphant (Saints in Heaven) and Church Militant (All Catholics on Earth) and the people at Holy Mass.
The priest asks to be purified of his sinfulness so that he may enter with the pure spirits into the Holy of Holies. He hopes to be pardoned of his sins through the merits of whose relics are in the Altar on which he is about to offer Holy Mass.
After reading the Gospel, the priest prays, “by the words of the Holy Gospel may our sins be blotted out.”
At the offertory, the priest acknowledges he is an unworthy servant to offer the Immaculate Host for the countless sins, offences, and negligence’s for all present, faithful Catholics both living and dead.
Near the end of the Canon, the priest strikes his breast remembering the Church Suffering (Poor Souls in Purgatory), Church Militant and Church Triumphant, asks the sinners be given a share of the inheritance of the Apostles and Martyrs.
In the Our Father prayer, the priest asks for forgiveness of his trespasses as we forgive those who have sinned against us. He asks Jesus to look not on our sins but on the Faith of the Church. He asks that his reception of the Eucharist not turn into judgement and condemnation.
As a priest holds the Sacred Host in his fingers, he repeats the words of the Centurion: “Lord I am not worthy to enter under your roof…” The Church commands all Priests to pronounce these words. Jesus’ sacrifice is always acceptable to His Father.
Our offering of ourselves and it being accepted by Our Father is conditioned on whether or not we offer it with sorrow and humility.
The Church is wise in obliging the priest to make many acts of sorrow and humility during Holy Mass. He is to present our petitions to the Lord God in all lowliness of heart and purity of devotion. The priest acknowledges his nothingness in the eyes of the Lord of all things.
What a beautiful prayer that acknowledges our faults. How it proclaims the power and holiness of God. It calls down God’s grace on us. The most assured path to put our spiritual life on a solid and stable base is to seek to stay away from sin and be sorry for the sins of my entire life.
The greatest saints expressed deep sorrow for their sins which they often sought to express in outward expressions of their inner attitude. God’s generosity to them, helped them see their ingratitude (ingratitude in reference to the spiritual life means that whenever we choose to sin, we are ungrateful to God in His redeeming us) towards Him.
We should always live in a state of repentance until the end of our lives. We should not let one day pass without expressing our sorrow for choosing to sin (to do what we want rather than doing what God wants us to do). Lament every day in your prayers without trying to remember specific times and sinful actions.
During the time of the Confiteor is prayed at the “Prayers at the Foot of the Altar.” Ask for pardon for your faults. Realize you contributed to the Passion of your Lord (every sin we commit, Christ saw it in the Garden of Getsemani). Humiliate yourself like the priest, every time he humiliates himself at Holy Mass.
Never lose sight of God’s mercy during these times at Holy Mass. True sorrow brings peace to the soul. If you find yourself during these moments at Holy Mass not being in peace, then call to mind good works from your past life.
The Spiritual Life needs to be based on Penance. Catholic Joy comes as a result of our spiritual life being built and maintain. Acknowledging our sins, seeking to do penance for them and the harm they have caused leads us to joy, which leads to a True Love of God.
The Love of God moves us to realize that Love transforms sacrifices into joy!
When we are able to love every cross in our life, it is because we see Jesus in it. Being able to love the crosses in our life is to Love Him. Let us ask God to help us love every cross in our lives.
It is through the Holy Mass that we learn to love our crosses and to love Christ more and more deeply through them. The Cross of Christ/ The Holy Mass is the focal point through which every Catholic is to understand his life and live his life.
(To be continued....)
In Christ Crucified and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus.
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