Let us continue to look at some of the hidden ways God is shaping us through the Mass
3. God desires to be a part of my life. A priest, who gave a parish mission that I attended, made a statement that really struck me. The priest said that when our parents found out that they were going to have a child, all they could do was wish for a boy or a girl. They had no power to make sure the child would be a boy or a girl and they definitely had no control over the personality that would come with this child. God when cooperating with our parents wished for you! Jeremiah so beautifully wrote: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
” (Jeremiah 1:5).
There are many people in the world who think that we are just the product of chance. They surmise that there was some big explosion and millions of years later here we are. I compare this to a two-year old dumping a bucket of Lego on the ground hoping that they will magically form in the spaceship or house that is on the front of the box without his help. It just is not going to happen.
Jesus instructs us in the Gospels that His mission is to draw all things including you and I to Him and nowhere is this more evident that at the Mass. He calls us and beckons us toward the altar to receive His very Body and Blood, Souls and Divinity. The main lesson we should learn from all of this is that we are wanted and loved by God. Even though we are not worthy to receive our Lord under our roofs, He heals us and makes us worthy. He demonstrates to us in the Mass also that He is willing to die for us in order to spend eternity with us.
Our God could have created the world and set in motion and never have anything to do with it again. This is what philosophers and theologians call the deist idea of God. We know through the Scriptures though that our God has chosen not to let us go on without Him but rather He has chosen to be with us in time. This is why the creed includes the reference to Pontius Pilate. God saving us did not happen in some mythological time before the beginning of history but happen in actual time and He is still making his presence known in time through the Mass.
Another way of looking at all of this is that God could have chosen angels to be the ministers of his Sanctuary but instead He has chosen frail human beings.
4. God only invites When two adults talk respectfully to each other we refer to this as assertive or healthy communication. If the relationship is unbalanced because one person fears the other person the one who feels inferior may do one of two things. The first is he or she may withdraw or secondly they may try to compensate by becoming more aggressive. When a person becomes more aggressive they also normally become louder and more willing to invade another’s personal space. The very fact that they have to act this way shows that they are the one who has the issue and not the person they are conversing with.
God never becomes aggressive. He is always inviting both in the stories of Scripture like Gabriel asking the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God instead of informing or demanding her to become. Isaiah has a beautiful vision of God in the heavens and God invites him to be his prophet. Peter upon recognizing Jesus as God asks Jesus to leave because He knows He is a sinful person but Jesus does not leave but rather invites Peter to be a co-worker (Luke 5). God does not force us to come to Mass. He invites and maybe He even prods us a little but He never forces. He respects us by respecting our free will. He could if he wanted to send an army of angels to drag us to Church but He does not.
5 Being Open Up the Wider World Carl Marx, the founder of socialist philosophy, referred to religion as “the opium of the Mass. What he meant was that he thought religion as something that de-motivated people and made them happy with the status quo. I don’t think he thought to hard when he said that because Catholic Relief Services is the world’s largest humanitarian aid organization in the world. The Catholic Church throughout the world is living out the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy every day of its existence. By coming to Mass we do not only pray for the rest of the world, we are inspired to help our brothers and sisters in need because we realize that we are one Body in Christ.
We also learn from each other. I know that my own vocation has been nurtured by different lay parishioners who were role models for me growing up as it was by the parish priest who invited me to think about the priest hood.
God challenges us to see beyond our selfishness to see the beauty of God’s creation.