Mass, Sacrifice, and the Space-Time Continuum

Let me take you on a little journey...

Imagine you're sifting through your 'junk' mail one day, catalogues, brochures, flyers, the vast majority of which will either find there way into the bin, or come in handy for lighting the fire on cold nights, when you come across a flyer of a very different sort.

A monastery, way up in the hills is offering a retreat experience that the flyer claims is like no other. The flyer makes some bold claims "You will have an experience of Christ's crucifixion like no other!" "It will be like you're really there" "So real, you could reach out and touch Mary's tears"

At this stage you're probably wondering if these monks have had a little too much of the altar wine, but something in it draws you in, you make some equiries and eventally sign up for a week long retreat.

On the first morning, you wake up in the cell you were assigned to, find breakfast waiting for you, eat, dress, and upon opening the door of your cell one of the monks silently leads you to another door. He instructs you to enter, and, once on the other side, to take careful note of which door you entered from, so that you might pass through that same door before sunset. During this time you are to observe only, you must interact as little as possible with anyone you meet, and it is vital that you don't say a word.

Still contemplating the possibility that these monks are too fond of altar wine, you pass through the door, and find yourself in what appears to be a faithful recreation of a typical street in Jerusalem, as it was during the time of Christ, seeing doors up and down the street, you turn, and make note of the specific markings on the door you just passed through, recognising that getting lost in this re-creation will make you late for dinner.

At this point you become aware of a commotion down the street, and following the crowd, while taking careful notes so that you can retrace your steps later, you find yourself in a large courtyard where some kind of Roman official is addressing the crowd, beside him, bound in chains, is a figure that you assume to be an actor playing the part of Jesus, though while there is a general resemblance between him and the common artistic portrayals you are familiar with, he seems somehow more earthy, as if he had indeed grown up learing the carpenters trade and working long hours with only hand tools, and his complexion, rather than the pasty white often seen on crucifixes, is more swarthy, like one who had spent the last three years travelling the countryside, living at the mercy of the elements.

As the day progresses, and you follow this 'Jesus' around as he is scourged, mocked, condemned and crucified, you grow more and more uneasy, wondering whether to be amazed or horrified at how lifelike the 'special effects' are, especially when they 'break' the legs of the two theives, and when they pierce this 'Jesus'. Likewise the quality of the acting leaves you dumbfounded, the heartwrenching cries of 'Mary' as her 'son' breathes his last. If you didn't know better you'd swear that it wasn't just an act, perhaps, you wonder, maybe for her it's more of a mystical experience than an acting job.

Finally, exhausted, drained, and more than a little confused, you retrace your steps to 'your' door. The same monk is inside waiting for you, and he silently leads you back to your cell where you find a steaming hot meal. Naturally you 'dig in' as in all the drama you completely forgot about having lunch, and you find yourself able to recognise how good the food is, while drawing little in the way of enjoyment from it. After you finish, you crawl into bed and fall asleep almost immediately.

The second day follows the same pattern, but this time the monk leads you to a different door. Sure enough it leads out to the same street in 'Jerusalem', but there are different markings on the door, so before joining the crowd as you did the day before, you have a quick look to see if you can locate the door you used yesterday, partly out of simple curiosity, but also partly to help you get your bearings, reasoning that you found your way back to that door yesterday, knowing where it is will help you find your way back to this door.

Finding 'yesterdays' door you notice that someone has just exited and is making his way toward the crowd, much as you did yesterday. Naturally you suspect that this person is attending the retreat like yourself, but there is something about him that is eerily familiar. So you decide to follow him to observe his reactions as the day unfolds.

Increasingly the presence of this other individual makes you uncomfortable for some reason, but it's not until you're witnessing 'Jesus' being whipped that you realise exactly what it is about him bothers you. As that first lash strikes he cringes and turns his face away from the sight, just as you did, and in doing so he turns straight towards you. With his eyes closed tight he doesn't see you, but with a start you recognise his face. The same face that you shave every morning... its your face... its you.

After the shock starts to wear off, the implications start to sink in, if that's somehow you, then, by some miracle, you're re-living the same day! And if that's possible, then there's no good reason to assume that these others around you are actors, after all if its somehow possible to travel back in time to re-experience yesterday, then it would seem to be just as possible to travel back to the day of the crucifixion and re-experience that day, which, after all, is pretty much what the brochure promised.

At this point you're startled out of you reverie as a droplet of moisture strikes your face, but no, its not raining, a drop of blood, flicked off the tip of the whip, not fake blood like you had assumed yesterday, from that person who you're now starting to realise might very well be Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is now trickling down your cheek. For the rest of the day you follow much as you did yesterday, and yet, your experience is nothing at all like yesterday's. Now, to you, it is no longer a work of dramatic art, now its real, every footstep, every fall, every cry. Each and every drop of blood reminds you of that first you have left to dry on your cheek. Everything's different.

As you stumble back toward 'todays' door you once again take notice of the other 'you' and see that he is looking rather run down, but you know its nothing compared to what he'll feel this time tomorrow.

The next three days follow the same pattern, each day a new door, each day you become aware of another 'you' joining in the crowd, each day brings a different perspective on the same event.

Saturday rolls around and today is different, there's no door to pass through, this time the monk brings you to a nice contemplative garden.

"You've had an interesting week" he starts, "now its time for your test."

You look up surprised. "I wasn't aware there was going to be a test."

Unperturbed the monk gazes at you serenely and asks "How many times did Jesus die this week?" then quietly rises, and leaves you to ponder.

'This week?' you muse to yourself. 'This week I've seen him die five times, yet each time I saw it, it was the same time. So is the answer 5 or 1?'

Later as you wander around the garden it occurs to you that Christ was put to death some two thousand years ago, so in terms of 'this week' the answer must be 0.

The Monk returns to take you to a communal lunch (your first for the week) and you share your musings that the answer to his question must be 5, 1 or 0, but you can't be sure which without further clarifying the question.

"The question stands," he says, "and you're on the right track." He pauses as if unsure whether to let you off the hook or not, then continues "The answer, of course, is 'all of the above.'"

The next day is Sunday and you attend Mass where, by some miracle, Christ is made present upon the altar under the forms of bread and wine. After Mass, as you're preparing to leave, you say to the Monk "Make that 6, 1 and 0."

He smiles, "Now you're getting it."

'Yahweh', Singing and Sin?

That the Vatican has instructed that the proper name of God (Yahweh, and it's variations such as Jehovah), be removed from Catholic liturgies is, in some senses old news.

Naturally this extends to all prayers, readings, and songs, but for the english speaking world I suspect the biggest impact of this directive will be on the use of Dan Schutte's song 'You are near'.

While it is a simple matter to substitute a few words to remove Yahweh from a song (the 'official' revision for 'You are near' substitutes 'O Lord' for 'Yahweh'), changing the words on paper (or overhead projection system) is a lot easier than changing them inside one's own head. Just think of those prayers, and songs that have had changes imposed upon them for reasons of 'political correctness' or 'modernisation'.

Most people to greater or lesser extents, when they are actually 'singing' at Church, (as opposed to miming or mumbling in time with the music) tend to sing from memory, with the text, if used at all, used as an aid for their memory rather than reading each word and singing it.

With this in mind, it is not hard to imagine people getting to the third chorus of 'You are near' and belting out 'Yahweh' from memory, even though the new revised text might be right in front of their noses.

This is where we get to the crux of the matter. If it is not hard to imagine someone doing something they are not supposed to do, as a result of choosing to play a given song as part of the liturgy, then playing said song poses a 'occasion of sin' for such a person. Given that other song choices exist, it is voluntary (on the part of the person choosing music for the liturgy). Thus the proximity (or likelyhood) of the sin needs to be a major consideration for any in charge of choosing the music for a given liturgical celebration.

Each Sunday, in the Lord's Prayer Catholics pray 'lead us not into temptation', let us hope that our music leaders are listening!