now, my God!”
And yet, the Psalmist does not give up hope: “Bring me to your holy mountain, / to the place of your dwelling, / That I may come to the altar of God, / to God, my joy, my delight” (Ps 43:3–4). To this very altar we bring everything that we have. We bring our joys, which will be offered in love to the Father through the Son. We bring our sorrows, which will also be given as a gift to the triune God. What a radical act to stand before God even when our world is afflicted by violence and sin and death and still hope that God can transform our suffering.
The Reign of Peace Begins
The opening words and actions of the Mass testify to this hope. When we cross ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we demonstrate that God’s love has begun to have its reign in our very bodies. It is not simply some ritual tic. It is a continual sign to myself and all the world that my being is already participating in God’s very life. I am no longer an individual apart from the rest of the world, apart from God. I exist in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Every part of my life is to have meaning in God’s sacrificial love.
The priest says to us, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This is not simply a fancy way for the Church to say “Hello, nice to see you. How have you been?” God’s love is already active in assembling us together for this prayer. The Lord is with us, drawing us toward His sacrifice of love upon the altar. At the beginning of Mass, we need only make the space for God to live and move within us. In the Mass, the reign of God’s peace, God’s love, has begun.
Take me to your holy altar, O Lord
And make me a sacrifice of love unto, my God.
I give to you my joys and sorrows,
My very self.
And I receive back from you, a love that makes all things possible.
Make space within me to receive this love, to become this love.
To share this love to all the ends of the earth.
Questions and Practices
1. In kissing the altar, we offer a return gift of love to the God who first loved us. Where have you already noticed God’s activity of love in your own life?
2. What joys and sorrows do you want to bring to the altar of God? What do you hope that God will do with your offering?
3. What obstacles in your life exist that make it difficult to accept God’s peace in the Mass? What would you need to do in order to move past these obstacles?
4. Buy an icon or other piece of religious art for your home. At the end of every evening, kiss this image. How has the act of kissing this icon or image become a prayer for you?
Chapter Five
The Penitential Act
“Lord, Have Mercy”
When I am stuck in traffic, I become a terrible human being. Frustrated, I begin to categorize those around me. The driver who continues to tailgate me becomes the scum of the earth. I imagine said driver, caught by the cops and thrown into jail, receiving the punishment that he deserves for being so inconsiderate. The person driving in front of me, constantly moving from the accelerator to the brake, is the most incompetent person in the world (according to my peerless judgment). I long for an occasion to meet this person one-on-one, letting him know the proper way to drive a car. I blame the bungling management of the city for not creating enough lanes. Everyone receives my wrath. Everyone.
The Church has a name for my peculiar way of passing the time while stuck in traffic: sin. We sin when we imagine ourselves to be the sole character in our story. We sin when we reorder the world according to our own desires, requiring that everyone’s wills bend our way. Be more like me, we claim. Think more about me, we say to ourselves. We make ourselves into gods through sin, living no longer as creatures but creators of our own meaning.
Because we are sinners, we stand before God during the introductory rites of the Mass and acknowledge that we often make ourselves into gods rather than worshippers. We acknowledge before God and each other that we are sinners and thus creatures in need of God’s grace to perfect us.
Sins of the Eyes, the Mind, and Pride of Life
There is something highly counter-cultural in confessing our sins to one another in a public setting. Those of us reared in modern American society are reluctant to even talk about sin. We know that we can do better. We know that we make mistakes. We know that we can try harder to love. But there is an optimism about American culture that makes it difficult for us to say, “There’s something wrong with me.” That I need help to become who God intended me to be.
I often find this kind of attitude operating among my students. They are unwilling to acknowledge that they need help. I host office hours for four or five hours every week. When students fail, they rarely come to see me without an invitation to do so. They think they might be able to correct all their mistakes on their own. That if they work harder, they’ll do better. Sometimes you just need help. Sometimes you can’t fix yourself. This is the case with sin. This is the case when our desires become disordered and we worship ourselves rather than God.
The Catholic theological tradition talks about three ways that our desires are disordered, leading to sin. Concupiscence (a word meaning desire or lust) of the flesh is a disordered attraction that we have to material goods. This kind of sin occurs when find ourselves staring at an attractive person, thinking about them as an object meant to satisfy us. It happens when we go out on a weekend, longing to forget the difficult week that we had on the job by getting as drunk as possible. It is not the possession of the object that is the problem in most cases. Sex can be a good. Drink can be a good. Clothing can be a good. Rather, the problem is the elevation of the material world to a god that we adore.
The second dimension of concupiscence is that of the eyes. This kind of false desire is far more spiritual (and can be more difficult to deal with) than the disordered desires of the flesh. We see someone with a beautiful home and we make a decision that by whatever means necessary we will achieve this good. We purchase clothing or technological gadgets that make us seem beautiful and successful, regardless of the cost. We fall in love with football, bending every aspect of the Sunday Sabbath to watching the NFL. Again, the problem is not with creating a beautiful home, being a successful person, or enjoying leisure. It’s that every aspect of our lives must bend to our desires, becoming more central to us than love of God and neighbor. Sin has become so essential to our identities that it occupies our thoughts all day long.
The final dimension of concupiscence is pride of life. Here, sin is at its most radical. I no longer worship a God outside of myself for I have become my own “god.” This kind of sin is one that lurks around the corner for every person, especially we Catholics who are actively involved in religious practice. We may see ourselves as religiously complete, no longer in need of God’s grace. We may peer upon the rest of humanity, judging our brothers and sisters as the lowest of sinners (while seeing ourselves as the height of sanctity). Pride of life is the sin that constantly tempts us. To free ourselves from it requires God’s persistent gift of love.
The Penitential Act as Medicine for Disordered
