The Tribe of Ruben

Devotion is readiness to do God’s will in anything concerning that which will give honor to God. Devotion is an intimacy with the divine, wherein we live out our life here on earth with footing in Heaven. Devotion is the life of Heaven lived out, even now, long before we die. Devotion is a holy familiarity with the Blessed Trinity, Mary, the angels and saints, our extended family in Heaven.

We consider four aspects of Marian devotion. The first is veneration. We venerate and honor Mary because she is Mother of Jesus. The second is invocation. We invoke Mary because she is our Mother in the order of grace and intercessor for us to her divine son, Jesus. The third is imitation. We imitate Mary because she is without sin and the model of holiness that no saint or angel in Heaven can surpass in holiness. The fourth is by the promotion of Marian devotion to others. By promoting devotion to Mary, we promote that which has been the hallmark of all the saints, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We can practice and cultivate devotion to Our Lady in many ways. Through prayer to her, we come to know her. In coming to know her, we come to love her. In loving her we imitate Jesus love for her. Just as Mary formed Jesus physically into our human likeness in her womb, so it is that Mary forms us spiritually into Jesus divine likeness in our devotion to her. Just as in Jesus childhood he was nurtured by His mother, whom he obeyed, so we also are nurtured by her and honor Jesus in honoring His mother, in obedience to her words in the Gospel, “Do whatever He tells you”.

In God there is one divine nature. In God there are three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. A nature answers the question of what something or someone is. A person answers the question of who someone is. If we were to ask a young boy what he is, he would answer “I am a boy”. If we were to ask him who he is, he would answer “I am Jimmy Smith”, or whatever his name may be. If we were to ask God what he is, he would answer “I am God”. If we were to ask God who he is, he would answer, “I am God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy spirit”.

The mystery of the Trinity can only be known through divine revelation. It is not a knowledge that could have been arrived at by human reason alone. “Now it came to pass when all the people had been baptized and being in prayer, that heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased”. (Luke 3, 21-22) Although, the word “Trinity” is not specifically mentioned in the Bible, the reality of the Trinity is revealed nonetheless.

In Meditating upon the mystery of the Blessed Trinity we may consider that God, having made us in His own image, gave us the faculties of intellect, will, and memory. Together these are the trinitarian faculties that reflect the likeness of God’s image in which we are made. Consider also that the family is also an image of the Blessed Trinity, with the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph being a most pure reflection. The union of the Trinity is reflected in these images and it is in union with the Trinity that we are all called. It was from the beginning, as it were, a “family affair”, and now, the call to union with the same “family” of the Blessed Trinity, is extended to all humanity.

Every Sunday, we recite the Nicene Creed and we profess belief in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. From the very beginning, these four marks identifiy the Catholic Church as the one true church founded by Jesus. In the same creed we also profess our belief that Jesus, “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of Virgin Mary, and became man”. (Nicene Creed)

Jesus, who is God, took the form of His creature and became man. As it were, set aside His divinity to become one like us, so that he could suffer and die, to redeem mankind from sin and open the gates of heaven for us. He entered into our humanity, that we could enter his divinity. Stripped and deprived his divinity, in theological terms, he underwent “spoliation” and became in His human nature, entirely dependent upon the Blessed Virgin Mary in her womb. “And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) Here we see the intimacy of Jesus with his mother. It was an intimacy that was to grow unto the moment of His birth in Bethlehem, to the moment of His crucifixion on Calvary and into eternity in Heaven.

Jesus came to us through Mary, so that through Mary we could go to Jesus. That Jesus, would so humble himself to come to us through Mary, should be seen as a “school of humility”, where we are to learn that through Mary, we come to intimate union with her Son. Here, let us consider that as Christians, we are to live lives in imitation of Christ. Imitating Jesus means imitating His love for His Mother. We love her so that it is not so much we who love Mary, but Jesus who loves her in us. As St Paul wrote, “…and yet I am alive; or rather, not I; it is Christ that lives in me.” (Gal 2:20), so it is that in our love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is not so much we who love Mary, but Christ who loves Mary in us. This is a basis for understanding devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a devotion that has been so much a part of the life of the Church, that from the beginning, one could say, that devotion to Mary might well have been considered as the “fifth mark” of the Catholic Church.

In the Mass the priest offers bread and wine at the offertory. These symbolize the humanity of Christ and are also a symbol of us, the laity. Just as out of many grains of wheat we obtain one bread, and out of many grapes we obtain one chalice of wine, so we, the many faithful, make up one body of worshippers. The unconsecrated bread and wine upon the altar represent the prayers and sacrifices of the faithful placed upon the altar in union with Christ’s perfect sacrifice upon the rock of Calvary, His perfect prayer, the holy sacrifice of the Mass. We join Christ on Calvary.

Having placed ourselves upon the altar with Christ and joining our sacrificial offering in union with His, we die with Christ in the moment the priest consecrates bread and wine. The separate consecrations of bread and wine represent the separation of blood from the body, signifying the death of Christ in which we join. We mystically leave time and place to enter into Christ’s eternal sacrifice on Calvary, the wedding feast of the lamb. Having died with Christ at the consecration we now prepare to rise with Him in holy communion.

At Holy Communion we rise with Christ and into his divine life through the sanctifying grace we receive in the Eucharist. The Mass has a three fold effect. First, we are incorporated into the death of Christ. Second, we are incorporated into the supernatural life of Christ. Third, we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ. The natural substances of bread and wine have been transubstantiated into the living body and blood of Jesus, whom we receive in Holy Communion and into whom we are incorporated, having ourselves been “consumed” into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, in which we live and share our being with Him in the Blessed Trinity.

At every Mass we attend, the Church reaches back to Calvary and lays hold of the cross of Christ, with Christ on it, and plants it down upon the altar. The Mass is the Holy Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, present in an unbloody manner, performed by a Catholic priest and participated in by us. It is the highest and central act of worship performed by the Catholic Church. This Sacred Liturgy is the offering to God of Jesus Body and Blood. It is the means by which the merits of His sacrifice upon the cross are applied to us in Holy Communion. The Mass is both Sacrifice and Sacrament.

In the Mass there are three essential acts. In the first act, the offertory, we offer ourselves along with Christ. We offer adoration, thanksgiving, contrition, petitions as well as our own crosses, such as our worries, hardships and pains. In the second act, the Consecration, we die with Christ, having offered our own sacrifices with Him and dying to our sins. In the third act, which is the Communion, we rise with Christ into new life. Having died to the lower order of our sins, we now rise to the higher order of God’s sanctifying grace.  

“Picture then the high priest Christ leaving the sacristy of heaven for the altar of Calvary. He has already put on the vestment of our human nature, the maniple of our suffering, the stole of the priesthood, the chasuble of the Cross. Calvary is his cathedral; the rock of Calvary is the altar stone; the sun turning to red is the sanctuary lamp; Mary and John are the living side altars; the Host is His Body; the wine is His Blood. He is upright as Priest, yet He is prostrate as Victim. His Mass is about to begin.” (From Calvary and the Mass, Fulton Sheen)

The virtue of religion is a virtue by which we give honor and service due to God as our Creator, Master and Supreme Lord. It is related to the virtue of justice in which we pay what is due to God through our worship of Him, as well as in other acts of religion. As such, we are all obliged to practice the virtue of religion. It is through the virtue of religion that we are able to obtain the purpose for which we were created, which is to know, to love and to serve God in this life, in order to be happy with Him eternally in the next life.

Our participation at Sunday Mass is the highest act of religion we can perform. There are many other acts of religion we perform as well. These acts come in the form of things like genuflecting before the Blessed Sacrament, kneeling for prayer, crossing ourselves with holy water and observing holy silence in the presence of our Eucharistic Lord. These are external signs by which we not only give glory to God, but by which we obtain for ourselves grace in proportion to the sincerity and devoutness that we perform these acts.                 

It is through our exterior actions that God allows us to orient our interior dispositions toward heavenly things, so that we can be more receptive to receiving grace, whether it is sanctifying grace from the sacraments, or the actual grace we receive apart from the sacraments. These graces help us to develop a greater intimacy with God. It is an intimacy which the Church calls devotion, and which St Pius XII calls “the principal act of the virtue of religion” (Encyclical Mediator Dei).   

What makes a thing good? A thing is good when it obtains the purpose for which it was made. A pencil is good when it can be used to write. In doing so, it obtains the purpose for which it was made. What makes a thing bad? A thing is bad when there is an excess or a defect of something which is good. A pencil is good when it can be used to write. Is it a good can opener? It is not. It would not be able to open a can, and it would likely be destroyed. It would not obtain the purpose for which it was made.

What makes a life good? A life is good when it obtains the purpose for which it is made. What is the purpose of man’s existence? God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. How do we fulfill this purpose? To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love and serve God in this world. The purpose of this life is to prepare for the next life, the life of heaven. Everything in our life that is directed toward that end is good. Anything contrary to that end is bad.

Servant of God, Fulton Sheen, would often refer to our life here on earth as “the sacristy of heaven”. A sacristy is a room in a church where sacred vestments and sacred vessels are reserved for the purpose of being used for Holy Mass. Their purpose is to give God glory, nothing else. Likewise, this world of ours is a place where our purpose is to give service, honor, worship and glory to God in this world, until that time that we are called to join fully into the heavenly liturgy in God’s eternal presence in the next world, heaven.