We left the house at 5am, trying to time our 7 hour drive to hit a First Saturday Mass halfway. A friend let me know the Institute (of Christ the King Sovereign Priest) had a TLM at 10:15am in Bridgeport, which was also to commemorate the Vigil of Pentecost. Having been to the ICKSP in St. Louis, I knew they take liturgy very seriously, and so I knew we would be in for a reverent but challenging haul running on four hours of sleep and empty stomachs, and with the kids. I wasn't disappointed.
Making our way up the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway at sunrise was pleasant and uneventful, and we pulled in to the church parking lot at 8:45am, earlier than expected. My wife and kids were able to go to Confession with one of the canons (I went earlier in the week), we collectively prayed the rosary, and I had time to meditate on the Descent of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the devotion. When the chanting of the Prophesies began, the kids were starting to struggle with hunger and exhaustion, and I was conscious that I had a ticking family time bomb on my hand. After an hour of liturgical build up followed by the blessing of the water, and two hours now in the pews, my hypoglycemic 10 year old almost fainted when I told him Mass hadn't, um, begun yet.
My wife and the kids unfortunately had to bail and head out to the car to eat, while I stayed for the duration of the Mass. The ICKSP are exacting liturgists par-excellence, and the Mass as Heaven on Earth and God's gift to man was on full display. It is something I actually wished I appreciated more than I am worthy of.
I prayed intently for the fire of the Holy Spirit to set me ablaze, the same Spirit that was poured out on the Apostles at Pentecost. But I felt impotent; though my spirit was willing, my flesh was especially weak in this particular moment and my carnal appetites for food and rest was overpowering. Rather than relishing in the reverence and power of the ritual passed down to us in the Mass of the Ages, I was grumbling like the Israelites against Moses in the desert, annoyed at the intricacies of the prayers, the prostrations and the length of the antiphons, which was compounded by my consciousness of my kids and wife in the car waiting, waiting (patiently, I should add) and wondering if I had made a mistake and should have just gone myself to the NOM on the Cape later that evening instead. "How long must I bear with this generation?" I recalled the Lord's words in the Gospel. "Could you not stay awake with me even one hour?" And this on one of the holiest vigils in the Church.
At the consecration, I prayed, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." When it came time to receive our Lord, I knelt at the altar rail and felt great compunction at the hold of my flesh over me, and my ingratitude at having at my fingertips something our forefathers in the faith suffered and died to experience. All I could muster as the paten was placed under my chin was "I'm sorry, Lord. I'm so sorry."
In my few moments of recollection in the pew afterwards, I recalled the poverty of those hungry masses that had followed our Lord into the desolate place to hear his teaching, and found themselves suddenly too weak and hungry to make it out of there. In modern times, it may have been a bit of a crisis...5,000+ souls physically spent and at risk of expiration, in the middle of nowhere with no provisions, following an itinerant preacher who may or may not be the Messiah. Our Lord, however, feeds them--with spiritual bread in his Word, yes, but also sating them with physical bread with basketfulls leftover. Man cannot exist for more than a few weeks without bread; but without God, he would cease to exist almost instantaneously.
I felt acutely my poverty and unworthiness of the gift of the Mass, the gift of the flesh of Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit today. I experienced not only the grumbling of my stomach, but the grumbling of the spirit; the weakness of my body, but also the weakness of my moral character. My valiant "I will die for you Lord!" followed by the embarrassing recognition, "I can't spend two hours in church and fast for half a day in your honor." I took some small consolation that it happens to the best of them (St. Peter, for one). I left not on fire with the power of the Holy Ghost, but in a scurry, like the weakling apostate Kichijiro in Shusaku Endo's novel Silence.
One thing I will say--in the magnificence of such a liturgy, a shadow is cast and we find ourselves--weak, sinful men--with nothing to offer the Lord but the weakness of our flesh. He knows, and nothing is unknown to Him. And still He permits us to approach him at the resplendent altar, receive Him into ourselves, and not die. If that doesn't help lay the groundwork for a bit of humility, I'm not sure what will.
Hi Paul, Hope you overall, despite the difficulties, were enriched by the visit to Sts. Cyril and Methodius! I was in the choir that day; we are not as lush and lavish as some of the neighboring traditional parishes, but we do our best. Come again some time!
ReplyDeleteChristina, thank you. The choir was glorious. The post was really more a reflection on my own poverty and not feeling worthy of the transcendence of (this particular) Mass, rather than any kind of commentary on SS C&M itself; we also just hit it at a difficult time for us after traveling and being worn out. When I came into the Church it was through the Byzantine rite, but I never had as much of an appreciation for liturgy as some of the people in my circle. Looking back, and having experienced for decades the banality of much of the N.O., it truly is a gift to have the kinds of liturgies you have at SS C&M. "Lush and lavish" is nice but overrated. We attended a TLM High Mass for Pentecost on the Cape the next day in a small historic chapel, and it was equally enriching. We are used to Mass in the "bad" parts of town too, but it doesn't keep us from seeking it out. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete