Holy Mass — High as Heaven, Still on Earth

If you sometimes feel restless … if you sometimes feel like there should be more to life than the world is giving you … then ask yourself whether maybe that feeling is from God.

Of all the billions of creatures on the earth, only you — you and your fellow human beings — were made to share life with God. Lions and tigers and bears find happiness when they satisfy their natural instincts. But you have a spiritual soul — and a supernatural destiny.

If you get restless and filled with longing, it’s because God has made you for himself, and your heart will be restless until you rest in him. It won’t be satisfied with the things this world has to offer.

God wants you to be with him forever in heaven. And here’s the good news: you don’t have to die to get there. You don’t have to die to find rest in God.

Heaven touches earth whenever the Church celebrates the Mass. God became truly human in Jesus Christ, and Jesus promised to remain with his Church until the end of time (Matthew 28:20). He kept his promise by establishing the Mass as the centerpiece of Christian life and faith.

In the Mass, Jesus is truly present. He gives his flesh as true food and his blood as true drink (John 6:55). In doing this, he shares his divine life with the world. His blood becomes ours. We live as his flesh, his body, in the world. We come to share his divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), just as he came to share our human nature.

On the night that Jesus established the Holy Mass, he spoke in a way we might recognize. His words seem to have a restless desire. He said that he “eagerly desired” to share the sacred meal with his friends (Luke 22:15). That’s amazing! Just as we long for rest in God, so God — in Jesus Christ — was longing for rest in us!

So he did everything in his power to make that happen. He took bread and declared it to be his body; he took a chalice of wine and declared it to be his blood (Luke 22:19-20). And then he gave himself to his friends in those appearances. He gave them his body, blood, soul, and divinity — and that’s everything he has. God himself has nothing more to give!

At his Last Supper, Jesus made sure that Christians would always be able to unite their lives with his own in this mysterious, mystical way. He gave his Apostles, his priests, the power to offer the Holy Mass. In fact, he commanded them to do so. He said: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25).

To receive Jesus in Holy Communion is to consume all the glory in heaven. We cannot yet see that glory; but that, too, will come in time if we are faithful.

We cannot yet see heaven’s glory, but it is nonetheless present and nonetheless real in the Mass. And it is spiritually satisfying. It brings the true and lasting happiness God created us to enjoy.